Do You View the World From the Right or the Left?

[Amanda Griffith]

It’s a right-handed world out there – 90 percent of it, in fact! I’ve known that for a long time, as a leftie or southpaw as we are sometimes described. How else do you describe notebooks with spirals that get in your way when you write or pens that smudge ink as your hand moves along the page? And don’t even get me started on coffee mugs, name tags or jewelry clasps.

 

I’ve always known that my brain was wired differently from my right-handed acquaintances but now I have proof.

 

According to a research review published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, there is a so-called “body-specificity hypothesis” which simply means that how we make decisions and how we communicate with each other is influenced not only by our minds, but by our physical bodies.

 

As the Body Odd blog reports today, experiments show that right-handed people tend to view things situated on the right hand side of a page, for example, as being more positive. Predictably, lefties are the opposite. Further, when asked which of two products to buy, which of two job applicants to hire, or which of two alien creatures looked more trustworthy, right-handers choose the right side of the page and lefties? Yes, you guessed it: the left!

 

It only makes sense as research shows we tend to view the things we are most comfortable with as being positive or good.

 

It’s a subject of much debate and a fascinating topic of discussion. Case in point, a seminar being held tomorrow at Clarkson University Science Café, entitled, “The Puzzle of Left-Handedness: Separating Fact from Fiction.” Professor Alan Searleman promises to expound upon myths about left-handers, people who have often been viewed with suspicion, faced prejudice and discrimination . The very word “left” in English derives from the Anglo-Saxon word “lyft,” meaning “broken” or “weak,” a press release on the seminar points out.

 

Has your “handedness” impacted the way you see the world, how you play sports or prefer one hand or eye over another?  Let me know as I peruse the latest newsletter from the Lefthanders Club.