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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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Is it true that left-handed people are smarter than right-handed people?
—Matthew Robison, Concord, N.H.
Chris McManus, professor of psychology and medical education at University College London, responds:
If by intelligent you mean someone who performs better on IQ tests, the simple answer is no. Studies in the U.K., U.S. and Australia have revealed that left-handed people differ from right-handers by only one IQ point, which is not noteworthy.
Left-handedness is, however, much more common among individuals with severe learning difficulties, such as mental retardation. A slightly higher proportion of left-handers have dyslexia or a stutter. Other problems, such as a higher rate of accidents reported in left-handers, mostly result from a world designed for the convenience of right-handers, with many tools not made for left-handed use. Although some people claim that a higher percentage of left-handers are exceptionally bright, large research studies do not support this idea.
If by smarter you mean more talented in certain areas, left-handers may have an advantage. Left-handers’ brains are structured differently from right-handers’ in ways that can allow them to process language, spatial relations and emotions in more diverse and potentially creative ways. Also, a slightly larger number of left-handers than right-handers are especially gifted in music and math. A study of musicians in professional orchestras found a significantly greater proportion of talented left-handers, even among those who played instruments that seem designed for right-handers, such as violins. Similarly, studies of adolescents who took tests to assess mathematical giftedness found many more left-handers in the population. The fact that mathematicians are often musical may not be a coincidence.
For other talents and skills, the benefits of being left-handed are less clear. In one-on-one competitive sports, being in the minority can be a tactical advantage. For instance, most right-handed tennis players have little experience playing left-handers, whereas left-handers have plenty of experience playing right-handers. Sports arenas can also be asymmetric, which may give left-handers an advantage. In baseball, for instance, a left-handed hitter is closer to first base after striking the ball than a right-handed batter is.
Whatever the advantages, handedness seems to be genetic. With 10 percent of people preferring their left hand, there must be some selective advantage, or else the genes would probably not survive.
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21 Comments
Add CommentI have found left handed people more creative, My bride is a leftie and we learn that eating I seat myself on her right but when signing documents I sit on the left. One of my sons is left handed and two of 3 of his children are lefties.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisof course >g<
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"handedness seems to be genetic"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's say you have a gene called x, and let's say it gives you a 25% greater chance of being left handed.
That does not mean handness is genetic but, if I'm not mistaken, it means that handedness depends on many factors and the likely hood of these factors leading to left handedness raises by 25% if you have gene x.
There seems to be a bit of a contradiction in the article. On one hand the IQ of a supposedly random sample does not show any difference between right and left handed people. On the other people with mental retardation are more likely to be left handed. Mentally retarded people should be part of the random sample which would imply that the distribution of IQs does differ from right to left handed people which contradicts the first statement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCan anyone explain this?
Left handed people have to feel good about something too. Let them be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don’t think it’s true in my family we have both left and right handed people I think it’s about, they looking more awkward,say when writing.. and most like they at some point they themselves feel different.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do not think it has anything to do with activities being better or worse some people are very creative and other are not but I think it balances itself out...
Define smart-then the rest of the research seems irrelevant.Smart has no clear definition, nor I suspect will it ever.I suggest researchers try to cure disease.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt face value, I think if the number of people with severe learning disabilities is a relatively insignificant portion of the general population then there might be little difference in the mean IQ scores of lefties & righties, but left-handedness could still be "much more common among individuals with severe learning difficulties" than right handedness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's difficult to tell from this, though, whether the just a large majority of those with learning disabilities are lefties or whether the percentage of lefties is just much higher than the percentage of lefties in the 'normal' population.
Also, if you think defining intelligence is difficult, also consider that many people with 'learning disabilities' are also gifted - some consider Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein to fall into the 'disabled' group. There's certainly a large potential for circular logic here...
Myths if Einstein's 'disabilities' seem to be grossly exaggerated though. He may have been bored in grammar school, but he wasn't in any respect disabled or even all that odd.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn any case, it is fun being left-handed, but it really isn't that big a deal. Nor am I at all talented musically... lol.
As I recall, many of my grammar school teachers seemed to think that boredom was definitive evidence of a disability...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know much about Einstein & ASD (or Asperger syndrome), except as stated (with references) in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_figures_sometimes_considered_autistic
One of my friends is left-handed, and she says that she can't draw, and she's an A math student, whereas I'm right-handed and I'm a very good artist, and I'm an A student in a math class that's three grades above our level... either way, I'm going to try to train myself to become ambidextrous.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs the only known lefty in the family I have only one odd observation. There are a higher number of left handed people (than average) in the stamp collecting fraternity. I believe this holds true in all collecting fields. A question I ask of all people is "what do you collect" and more left handed people than right handed people will admit they are collectors. Any confirming studies?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis probably goes back to fountain pens and early ball point pens that would smear as a left handed person wrote.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a "strong" left-hander, I think it's more than a matter of physical adjustments to the right-handed world. I'm also strongly right-hemisphere dominant, a condition associated with creativity. I think, at some fundamental level, the necessity to adjust to inconveniences and creativity meld into a "maverick" personality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNeurologists say the brain "builds itself" during infancy and I conjecture that this process creates the differences in intelligence, handedness and of course disabilities. I think that explains the spectrum of "brain qualities" in both left and right-handed people. But being a maverick thinker is the main trait of lefties. I'd like to see a study of the two groups to see if there are more maverick thinkers among left-handed people than among right-handed people.
I work in Engineering and noticed the following while I was working on site:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe percentage of left to right was 60% left handed and 40% right handed.
While working in home office, in my Thursday meeting: 20 people attended and 12 were left handed, again 60%.
What I've concluded from my basic study:
In engineering there seems to be a consistency of more left handed people compared to right handed people. This being a mathematical environment; one can only determine that those who are left handed seem to be drawn to a mathematical type field and perhaps children who are lefties should be encouraged as much as possible to not only remain lefties but to explore the math and sciences.
As a child I was ambidextrous until it got knocked out of me by the teachers, they used to come along and hit my left hand with a ruler, every time they saw me use it. I was able to write with both hands at the same time, play tennis and cricket with both hands, both of which used to put my opponents off. I never had a backhand in tennis, I would simply swap hands. But due to my lack of use, thanks to the teachers and my mothers put downs when I would use my left hand, I slowly lost the benefit of been ambidextrous.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for been able to play a musical instrument, as much as I would love to be able to I have never been able to learn. I was however top of my class throughout school in maths.
I have just spoken to my eldest sister who is nearly 20 years my senior, and she to was ambidextrous, as was our eldest brother, but he ended up choosing to be a lefty. It seems it was considered to be too confusing for young children back then, nearly fifty years in my case, to be able to use both hands and therefore we where discouraged from doing so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy brother it seems had no talent to play music, although he did have at one point the largest personal collection of records in the world, and he was useless at maths. My sister, on the hand, like me is good at maths, but can not play an instrument, although she has tried.
That gives us three out of seven children that could use our left hands, but only two out of seven that had any talent for maths, none of the others ever learnt to play an instrument either.
Handedness is definitely NOT genetic. A significant fraction of identical twins have opposed handedness, which suggests a developmental origin. I believe it is related to the first experiences of the fetus, whether more auditory or physical (e.g. contacts with external world on the belly of the mother, depending on his orientation).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's certainly not simple.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"In 2007, researchers discovered LRRTM1, the first gene linked to increased odds of being left-handed. The researchers also found evidence that possessing one particular form of this gene slightly raises the risk of psychotic mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. However, handedness is not inherited from parents in a simple way. The gene is expressed only if inherited from the paternal side, as the transmembrane protein that is coded by the gene has been shown to be inactive if inherited from the maternal side (genomic imprinting). Even when both parents are left-handed, there is only a 26% chance of their child being left-handed."
[references omitted]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness#Genetic_factors
perhaps it was the right-handed world who defined what constituted mental retardation..and they did so based on them being dissimilar to themselves..thus creating an illusion of inadequacy. I just find it peculiar that many learning disabilities are classified as a disability when many times their brains are far more advanced that others around them...this is the case with autism..ADD..Dyslexia..just to name a few
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this.....Just a lefty perspective
The psychologist simply is not correct. I am left handed and he is in dead wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe world is made up of 100%-- a mixture of right handed and left handed.
If you separate the 11% lefties and the 89% righties, you would concluded that in comparison there are more "smart right handed people than left handed people, for all left handers constitute only 11%.
In each owns concentration, there are more smart left handers among all left handers than there are smart right handers among smart right handers. Therefore, the majority of left handed people are smart, while the majority of right handed people are of average intelligence.
It is not true that there left handed people are usually the ones with or more susceptible to mental retardation or other abnormal problems. Right handed people are simply because there are more right handed people in the world.
The only the the psychologist had right was that left-handers are more prone to accidents due to the hard circumstances of a right handed world.
What would he know though? He may have a degree in psychology, but he's not left-handed.