A Man’s Ability To Park Better Than A Woman Explored

Many drivers of both sexes believe that men are better at parking than women. The stereotype has been around so long it’s surprising researchers have not addressed it sooner. A new study by German psychologists explored the reasons for a man’s ability to park more precisely and more rapidly than a woman. They found that both biology and self-perception play important roles in individuals’ parking ability.

Specifically, the study, reported in the most recent issue of the journal Psychological Research, found that biological traits and self-perception both influenced parking ability for beginning drivers, but that for older drivers, self-perception (in other words, levels of confidence) was more important than biological traits.

The biological basis for men’s advantage in parking is something called “mental rotation,” a thinking skill that involves imagining the movements of objects and bodies in relationship to each other. Young men score better on tests for mental rotation than young women. Since this is a necessary skill in parking, it is not surprising that young men who are beginning drivers park more quickly and more accurately than young women beginning to drive.

For more experienced drivers, however, the study found that individuals’ scores on the mental rotation test no longer correlated as closely with their parking speed or accuracy. The researcher theorized that practice at parking makes it more of an automatic, trained skill, and that experienced drivers rely less on visualization of the movement of the car and more on their past experiences parking.

So why do experienced male drivers still park more accurately and more quickly than experienced female drivers? The gap in their assessment of their ability appears to offer one explanation. Researchers hypothesize that a woman’s general belief that they are not good at parking leads them to develop lower expectations and to perform less well than men. In short, the men do better at parking because they expect themselves to do well.

In addition, because women have a real disadvantage when they begin learning to drive, the social stereotypes seem to be confirmed, and they continue to expect themselves not to park as well as men.