The personality based approach takes an ability perspective in attributing performance differences to stable traits. This point of view differs from the social psychological approach, which acknowledges that cognitive performance can be affected by various state factors. As trait and state effects can be reflected in test scores (Wicherts, Dolan, & Hessen, 2005; cf. Cronbach, 1957) we will conjoin both perspectives when investigating sex differences in neural efficiency (negative IQ-brain selleck activation relationship; e.g., Haier et al., 1992). According to the individual differences/trait perspective, sex differences in neural efficiency

would be attributed to sex differences in the underlying ability domain (women typically show higher verbal ability, men show higher spatial ability). The neural efficiency hypothesis is represented by an IQ-brain activation correlation, which can be moderated by sex and task content (Jaušovec and Jaušovec, 2008, Lipp et al., 2012, Neubauer et al., 2002 and Neubauer et al., 2005): Males and females showed the expected inverse IQ-brain

activation relationship primarily in those tasks in which they usually perform better, i.e. males in visuo-spatial tasks and females in verbal and emotional intelligence tasks. This certainly holds true for the visuo-spatial domain where considerable find more evidence demonstrates that men usually outperform women (for a review cf. Halpern et al., 2007). However, with respect to the verbal domain it is more complex. While women stereotypically think to perform better in verbal tasks evidence for an actual performance difference is rather mixed (Halpern, 2004). Sex differences in task performance can be explained by ability factors as well as by situational factors. Moreover, ability differences can have genetic causes but also long-term environmental causes (Halpern et al., 2007 and Steele, 2010). In particular, performance can be influenced Amrubicin by implicitly

activated stereotypes. A stereotype threat arises in a situation in which the stereotype is relevant and the situation strikes one as a test of stereotype-relevant qualities. Steele (1997) proposed that a negative stereotype about a group to which one belongs leads to fear, self-doubt, which in turn may impair working memory and hamper cognitive performance. Empirical evidence demonstrates for instance that, White males underperform in athletics (Stone, 2002) and women underperform in math and science domains (Good et al., 2008 and Spencer et al., 1999). According to Steele (2010), negative stereotypes can have long term consequences, leading to a loss of interest and eventually diminishing math or spatial ability in the long run.