Sex Roles, VoL 6, No. 3, 1980 Sex-Typing and Spatial Ability: The Association Between Masculinity and Success on Piaget's Water-Level Task 1 Wesley Jamison 2 Eastern Michigan University Margaret L. Signorella The Pennsylvania State University A sample of 58 college women and 43 college men were tested on Piaget's water-level task and asked to complete the Bern Sex Role Inventory. The instructions for the water-level task were varied so as to emphasize or de emphasize the scientific laboratory character of the task. Subjectswere classified by sex, sex-role orientation (masculine, androgynous, feminine), task description condition, and water-level performance. A log-linear analysis of the resulting2 x 3 x 2 x 2 multidimensional contingency table revealed significant main effects for both sex of subject and sex-role orien- tation. Males and those males and females with masculine sex-role orienta- tions were more likely to succeed with the water-level task than females and those with feminine sex-role orientations. The effect of sex role on water- level performance emerged most clearly among highly sex-typed individuals and the effect of sex was significant only among those with androgynous sex-role orientations. In their own research and theorizing about the acquisition of the horizon- tality concept, Piaget and Inhelder (1956) have shown little concern with in- dividual differences. From the Genevan perspective, the horizontality task reflects understanding of Euclidean spatial concepts and should be 'The authors wish to thank Cathy Gretzler for her help in collecting the data and Carolyn W. Sherif for her comments on an earlier draft of this paper. ~All correspondence should be sent to Wesley Jamison, Department of Psychology, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan 48197. 345 0360-0025/80/0600-0345503.00/0 © 1980 Plenum Publishing Corporation