Comments on: Sinister, or even-minded?

By: Karam Anthony

Karam Anthony — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 23:52:42 +0000

Handedness has always fascinated me. Considering how left-handedness can feel disruptive to many people because it’s the norm, it’s interesting to consider its evolutionary utility. Doing some follow-up research, I found this article [1] in which Northwestern researcher Daniel Abrams states, “The more social the animal — where cooperation is highly valued — the more the general population will trend toward one side.” The proposed explanation? Tools are more easily shared when the majority of the population uses the same hand. So why then are there still millions of left-handed people? Some researchers believe it an advantageous adaptation for fighting. In this article [2], two researchers found a correlation between left-handedness and homicide rate in traditional societies. The found one of the highest rates of left-handedness (22.6 %) in the Yanomamo society of South America–where the murder rate is 4 in 1000. This can be compared the tiny proportion (3.4%) of lefties among the nearly pacifist Dioula-speaking people of Burkina Faso in West Africa, where the murder rate is .013 per 1000.

[1] http://www.ibtimes.com/science-how-why-left-handers-are-so-uncommon-916273
[2] http://www.economist.com/node/3471297

By: 105 student

105 student — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 01:42:04 +0000

Being left handed I instantly found this article to be interesting. Even though I am left I have adopted to some mannerisms that right handed people do. For example I am do not like left handed desk in classrooms. Since there is generally almost none in a class I have always used right hand desk and they are just more comfortable now. Other than the possibility of workplace accidents what else could be the potential reason for lowering the life expectancy of left handed people? Furthermore, though there is research in differences concerning left handed and right handed people has there been any significant research concerning people who are ambidextrous?

By: Jacqueline Krass

Jacqueline Krass — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:37:16 +0000

An interesting phenomenon this article reminded me of is that in the past, left-handed people were sometimes taught to treat their right hands as the dominant hand instead, thus training themselves to change handedness, or at least be ambidextrous. The last study mentioned in the article, about right-handed people associating “right” with “good” and left-handed people doing the same with “left,” was very interesting. I wonder if a left-handed person who had been trained to use the right hand for everything would still make that association (left=good), or whether, due perhaps to the brain’s plasticity, s/he would learn to think like a right-handed person, as well?

By: Anna Lieberman

Anna Lieberman — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 05:34:56 +0000

A previous commenter’s question about ambidextrous individuals led me to do some more research on the topic; as a result, I stumbled upon a fascinating article by Michael Price for the Monitor Staff Journal. According to Price, the uneven lateralization of the brain that seems to accompany left-handedness or ambidextrousness has deep consequences. A gene that is frequently linked to schizophrenia is found on a gene most frequently found in left-handed or ambidextrous individuals; though left- and right-handed individuals score about the same on IQ tests, those who are ambidextrous score slightly lower; most fascinatingly, those who are ambidextrous are more likely to score high on what is referred to as the “magical ideation scale” – a scale used to measure the likelihood of an individual believing that, for example, they are somehow aware of when others are speaking about them.

Research seems to point to the fact that there are, in fact, negative correlations with left-handedness and ambidextrousness, but, as many others have pointed out, this seems to beg the question – how much of this is, in fact, genetic, and how much is social conditioning? I watched left-handed kids get teased throughout elementary school, and even in college, left-handed individuals are met with surprise when someone first observes them writing with their dominant hand. I myself am somewhat ambidextrous – I use my hands equally throughout the day, but each is used for a different activity (my right hand opens doorknobs, while my left opens bottles). However, this fact is rarely believed by others. When one grows up feeling that something is “off” about them – when one grows up being physically outside of the norm – what kind of effect does that have on the psyche? It was not so long ago that people believed that left-handedness needed to be “fixed”; the brain is a subtle organism, and things that we are not even aware are effecting us can often end up impacting us in the future more than we know.

Source: Price, Michael (2009). The left brain knows what the right hand is doing. Monitor Staff, Volume 40. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/01/brain.aspx

By: Maria Morris

Maria Morris — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 00:29:31 +0000

These societal influences on left-handers also seem to impact their brain. Changing habits may seem like a simple thing if they are not engrained too deeply in the way the brain works (even then the brain has the ability to re-analyze and remap), but it is really interesting how closely our personalities are related to these changes.
A book written by Michelle Dresbold, who graduated from a secret service document examination training program, discusses how analyzing handwriting can indicate how a person is feeling temporarily, but also their more permanent character traits. This is because of the connection between the brain and handwriting. If someone’s personality changes there will be a difference in their script. Alternatively, changing handwriting can change a person’s brain, which would affect their personality. It surprised me that people could consciously alter, maybe not their overall personality, but their mindset by changing their style of writing.

Dresbold, Michelle. Sex, Lies, and Handwriting: A Top Expert Reveals the Secrets Hidden in Your Handwriting. New York: Free Press, 2006. Print

By: Taylor Nunley

Taylor Nunley — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 04:52:52 +0000

Like Jon, after reading this article, I’m also interested in a follow-up about ambidextrous people. My dad is ambidextrous and, growing up, I never realized how weird it must have been for him. He ate with his left hand, but table settings at restaurants were and are always for right-handed people. And as the Psych 105 student mentioned above, desks in school are nearly always for right-handed people. Our society has a preoccupation with defining what’s “right” by standards that many people, in this case left-handed people, have no hope of meeting. The Latin word for ‘left’ literally means ‘improper.’ My sister, for example, was left-handed when she first started learning how to write. And somehow, she grew right out of it: she’s right-handed now. That very well may have something to do with the fact that everyone else in her preschool class was right-handed and she wanted to be like them. Who knows for sure.

By: Evan Kamber

Evan Kamber — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:41:44 +0000

After reading this article on left-handedness, I became interested to do a little more research on my own accord. This post mentioned that sometimes identical twins would have one left-handed individual and one right-handed within the set. This seems to hint that environment has a role in which hand a person dominantly uses. It seems strange that by just being left-handed you have superior qualities. In a recent study, it was concluded that left-handed individuals make a statistically larger amount of money than right-handed individuals. Whether talent stems from being left-handed or being left-handed yields higher talented individuals is still a mystery to me and the general public; left-handed superiority is a very interesting topic that should be researched more extensively in the future as technology advances and continues to help solve these puzzling issues.

“Sinister and Rich: The evidence that lefties earn more”, by Joel Waldfogel. Appeared in Slate on August 16, 2006.

By: Jon Lee

Jon Lee — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:09:49 +0000

After reading this, I am eagerly awaiting a follow-up article concerning ambidextrous individuals as well as left handers forced to use their right hands. Are the brains of ambidextrous people even more balanced than left-handers forced to used their right hands to adapt in society?

As a left handed person, I expected that I would rely on my left hand more than my right, but as of now I use them fairly equally. I write with my left hand and eat with my left hand. But I use a normal computer mouse and throw things with my right hand.

By: Clayton Masterman

Clayton Masterman — Tue, 18 May 2010 14:34:37 +0000

The difference in brain mapping between lefties and righties could have a more social cause than biological one. As Heather mentioned, there were never left-handed scissors and there are always too few left-handed desks. With a lefty forced to adapt to society’s right handed norms every day in life, it makes sense that the brain’s plasticity would quickly adapt. Individuals would begin to use their right hand for things because that’s the way that society has pushed them. I learned to throw with my right hand because when I played t-ball as a kid, there weren’t any catching gloves for lefties. These occurances are very common. It’s no wonder that we are forced to adapt in strange ways, leading us to have a more balanced brain than right handed individuals.

By: Psych 105 student

Psych 105 student — Tue, 11 May 2010 21:16:28 +0000

It is interesting to note the social implication of handedness. For example, a left-handed friend of mine said he preferred buying notebooks with the spiral at the top, because it was difficult for him to write with the spiral on the left. I usually find that in a classroom, it is never the case that there are enough left-hander desks, but that right-handers get stuck in a lefty desk. Psychologically, I wonder how this acts upon left-handed people, even if for a small amount unconsciously.

On the subject of “sided-ness” comes a study at the Institute of Cognitive Neurology of the Modern University for Humanities that explored the concept of a leading eye. In this study, the participants were all right handed. Most subjects were right eye leading, but some were left eye leading. When reading text on the left side of a screen, the “left-eyed” persons performed better than their “right-eyed” counterparts. It can be concluded that since the right hemisphere of left-handed peoples’ brains control their left side, they were free from overlap with their leading hand’s movements. Perhaps this knowledge can be useful for making products oriented towards lefties.

Informnauka / Russian Science News Agency (2007, March 26). Are You Right Eyed Or Left Eyed?. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 10, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2007/03/070323135954.htm