Visit our online shop for your left-handed productsHandedness influences thinking
A research study published this week claims that our handedness is a major subliminal influence in the choices and decisions we make in all aspects our daily lives.
The decision making process of left-handers was studied by Daniel Casasanto whilst a postdoctoral scholar in psychology at Stanford. Through a series of tasks comparing the preference of left and right handers to objects presented to them from the left or right, he found that righties tend to judge objects on their right side as positive and objects on their left side as negative. Lefties do the opposite, pairing positive things with their left side and negative things with their right.
The tests were quite varied, so as to analyse participants preferences in a number of different situations. In one test, for example the participants were given a sheet of paper paper with two boxes side by side, and had to draw a zebra in one and a panda in the other. A majority (74 percent) of left-handers drew the “good” animal in the box on the left, while most (67 percent) of the right-handers drew the good animal in the box on the right. Digging deeper into the statistics, it turns out that right-handers were nearly six times more likely than lefties to place the good animal on the right and the bad animal on the left. “Right-handers’ responses were consistent with the mental metaphor Good Is Right, and left-handers’ with the mental metaphor Good Is Left,” says Casasanto.
In another test, 286 students were shown pairs of fictional alien figures called Fribbles, odd animal-like creatures with squiggly appendages. The students were shown two groups of Fribbles, one group on the right side and the other on the left.
Right-handed students were more likely to view the Fribbles on the right side as intelligent, happy, honest and attractive. Lefties judged Fribbles on the left more favorably.
Further to this, Casasanto had 371 volunteers read brief descriptions of products (mattresses, desk chairs, kiddie pools) on the left or right side of a page and then indicate which they’d like to buy. Again, most righties chose the product described on the right side, but most lefties—resisting whatever implicit message the righty culture conveys—chose the item on the left. And when volunteers read about two job candidates whose CV’s (resumes) were printed side-by-side, right-handers tended to choose the person described on the right, but left-handers chose the one on the left, again being unconsciously swayed by their experience of space more than the conventions of language and culture.
Casasanto believes this is because for left-handers, the left side of any space has positive moral, intellectual, and emotional connotations whereas for righties, the right side does. That association could apply in situations ranging from whether we choose one brand of coffee over another simply because of its position on the supermarket shelves to whom we might identify as a criminal suspect because of their position in a police lineup.
“We have this illusion that we base our decisions largely on relevant and sufficient information, yet social psychology over the past decades has shown us that there are lots of other factors that shape our judgments.” Casasanto said.
This study is likely to spark interesting debate. Cognitive scientists have long thought that since the regions of the brain that process our perceptions of the physical world are distinct from the regions that process abstract concepts—good and bad, honest and dishonest, smart and stupid—our spatial perceptions would have no effect on abstract thinking. Casasanto’s findings support a competing idea, namely, that neuronal circuits that control concrete perceptions and actions also handle abstract thoughts.
He calls it the Body-Specificity Hypothesis. And it implies that people with different physical characteristics, such as being right- or left-handed, form different abstract concepts, corresponding to those physical traits. For southpaws, the left side of any space has positive moral, intellectual, and emotional connotations; for righties, the right side does. What Casasanto calls “these contrasting mental metaphors” cannot be “attributed to linguistic experience,” he points out, “because idioms in English associate good with right but not with left. But right- and left-handers implicitly associated positive values more strongly with the side of space on which they could act more fluently with their dominant hands.” That influence is stronger than the linguistic cues we get every day about “right-hand man,” “the right side of history,” “out in left field,” or “two left feet.”
Our left preference extends far beyond the hand we write with. Lefties instinctively choose the left side in many social situations where the right side is the convention, such as social kissing left cheek first, drinking from the left wine glass at formal dinners, and guiding their partner anti-clockwise around the dancefloor, until the tide of other dancers forces them to conform. It is interesting to consider though, whether this extends to our subconscious choices made throughout our lives.
One possible benefit of understanding how physical experiences influence our preferences could be an improved education system. “If righties write the textbook and create the exercises and set up the classrooms, they’re likely to arrange things according to this implicit ‘right is good’ preference,” Casasanto said. “Maybe that’s going to make learning math or going to school and sitting in the classroom just a little bit less pleasant or more disconcerting for lefties. Potentially, sensitivity to this could create better learning environments for lefties.
Casasanto’s paper is in the August 2009 edition of Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
Article on the study by Christine Blackman, Stanford University News
Read anecdotes from left-handers about instinctively left-handed actions in everyday life
Daniel Casasanto is now based at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Netherlands
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I’ve already commented on this on another part of the website, without realising – but I totally agree, I do think that lefties think differently. I get really confused with ‘left’ and ‘right’ and often say them the wrong way round that now my family know when I say left I mean ‘right’ and vice versa. It is sometimes known as a form of dyslexia, but what if it is simply that to me, my left side is my right side?? I’m going to think very hard in future about how I feel about an object based solely on where it is in relation to me, and see if I notice a trend. Very exciting stuff!
I am now 74 years old and have allways had to adjust to a right handed world, thhis included elementary school where I was punished every day for a term for having dirty copy book, writing left handed with a soft pencil meant my hand dragged oover the writing, hence dirty. later in life I was described as coping very well with poor situations and I believe this ability developed from coping with being left handed in a right handed world
Hi Alan, about your question on the zebra and panda: it has nothing to do with the zebra or panda as such, but with the place they take on te page. If the zebra sits on the left side of the page, we lefties see this animal on a more positive manner because of its place on the page, the left; whether righties would choose the animal on the right side. If that is a panda, they would say that a panda is a more positive animal.
And I had trouble with math in school, because the teachers did not explain it in a way that I would understand. And yet, when I do math in IQ tests, I score pretty high. So I think we do think differently than righties.
While studying to do a complete physical exam as a physician would do, I was told to ALWAYS, ALWAYS stand on the right, not left side of the exam table. At the time, it didn’t occur to me that my preference was drawn from my left handedness. It merely seemed wrong to me, and now I realize how prejudiced this was.
I’ve always believed this to be true. I was rubbish at maths in school until I was taught by a left handed teacher. I work in a library and used to get into trouble for arranging books on the shelves the ‘wrong way round’. And… (I will finish my rant in a minute) try drawing a map of somewhere familiar and then compare that map with someone elses who is right handed – it will be different. therefore I conclude that if we look at the physical world from a different angle then we probably look at the theoretical world from a different angle too. (Feel much better now)
I agree about the zebra and panda. What makes a zebra or a panda bad or good? These particular animals are not even classically stereotyped (such as comparing a dog, which generally has positive associations, with a snake, which generally does not). Interesting choice of test animals.
All I have to say is: It’s about time. I had such a difficult time in my grade school years. I was punished for using the “wrong” hand while learning to write in the 2nd grade. By High School level I had repeated two grades. That was when not everyone “succeeded” and there were no failures. It was a big deal among peers. By than my self confidence and self esteem were already quite low. Still are at 59. Just to add. I’m in the process, with the help of the “anything left hand” store, of turning my home into a LEFT HANDED haven!!
I do not understand the bit about the zebra and the panda. The article said that one of these was a ‘good’ animal and one was ‘bad’. Which is which, and why?
I am not left-handed but my daughter is and I now understand how biassed society is. But I’d like to add that being left-handed doesn’t mean that you use more your left foot/feet/ear/eye and so on. My daughter uses predominantly her right eye and ear while being left-handed and can get her wires crossed quite badly.
How did you discover which ear and eye your daughter relies more on?? Aside from having a hearing disability or sight impairment on one side I thought that most people used both ears and eyes equally. I’ve never heard of depending more on one eye or ear more than the other.
You can find out which eye you use by stretching out your arm and lining up your index finger with something in the further distance, then check by closing one eye and then the other to see which eye you lined up with. Although I am left-handed, I always line up with my right eye.
OK I tried this. I am 60 yo and left handed. Maybe because of age, nearsighted and becoming more farsighted,but I see 2 fingers or 2 of anything with which I try to align it/them depending on where I focus. So that didn’t work for me. Maybe that’s why I always had trouble with sports involving throwing and catching-Which one to catch?
I am only 36 y/o and when I do this excercise, I too, see 2 fingers, I was told this is because I do not have a dominant eye and that it is very unusual. I do have a dominant ear, my right ear, I always talk on the phone with that ear. Oh, and of course I am left handed. :0)
I was always in trouble during my nursery nurse training for doing things the wrong way. it all seemed perfectly OK to me
inputing on my last comment my mother is right handed.
this is an interesting topic for i also think that lefties think different and i would like thurther research to be put forward to this because im fed up of being nagged at every time i do something different to my mothers liking.
Super research which begins to lift the lid on life for lefties. We not only think differently to righties, we also learn and solve problems in different ways to right- handers. This has huge implications for schools and the structure of syllabii and teaching strategies. I will await future research in this area with eager anticipation.