Righties — Human Nature or Cultural Phenomena?

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We hear fun facts about lefties all the time.  Albert Einstein was a lefty.  Lefties tend to have a higher IQ than righties.  In fact, we talk of people’s dominant hand so objectively that we assume it is a trait people are born with.

However, are humans truly genetically coded to be more right-handed, or is it a cultural phenomenon? American society is definitely right-favoring.  We write left to right, making it difficult for lefties to see what they previously wrote.  We drive on the right side of the road, hold our right hand to our heart, teach the “Right Hand Rule” in Physics, and primarily make right-handed scissors.  Even linguistically our culture favors right: right means correct, whereas left comes from the Old English word left meaning “idle, weak, useless.”

Given the enormous right-handed-bias our society has, it would not be surprising if the large amount of right-handed people is a byproduct of our culture, rather than their genes.  In fact, a truly telling statistic would be the percentage of left-handed people amongst native-Arabic speakers, or any other right-to-left language speakers.  If one’s dominant hand is influenced by culture, we would expect countries that speak right-to-left languages to have a higher incidence of left-handedness.

I remember learning how to write between-the-lines in first grade.  I would write with my left-hand, but the teacher used to demonstrate to the class with her right hand, and whenever she came by she told me to switch hands.  Seeing everyone else writing with their right hands, I began to do so as well, and to this day I consider myself a righty.  However, I cannot help thinking: what would have happened had I not switched over?

Now, perhaps I was genetically wired to be right-handed, and writing with my left hand was, as everyone insisted, “a mistake.”  However, I am lenient to believe that until I see substantial data that indicates an equal incidence of right and left-handedness throughout the world.  If that is the case, then it will be true that our dominant hand is decided by our genes.  However, if not, there will be strong evidence indicating a cultural factor influencing one’s dominant hand.  That would be a radically new paradigm, for an attribute that was previously thought to be immutable from birth would actually be created by society.  And it would lead to the deeper question: how many other common human attributes/traits that were previously thought to be decided by birth are actually a byproduct of our culture?

4 thoughts on “Righties — Human Nature or Cultural Phenomena?

  1. Arti

    It is interesting to realize how many little advantages there are to being right-handed. There are the more obvious ones, like being able to easily write from left to right, having desks with the rests on the right side to place your arm when working….small things like that. But if right-handed people had to become left-handed, we would truly realize how inconvenient these small things can become.

    Although there may or may not be an actual societal bias against being left-handed, there are certainly tiny perks to being right-handed that we might not immediately recognize.

  2. Charlie

    I would say that there is actual societal bias, at least historically, against left-handed people. When I visited my father’s side’s grandfather in China, he would often criticize me for using my left hand while eating, so to sate him, I switched to my right hand during the trip. He also told me that back in his days, if you used your left hand, they (he never specified exactly who…) would chop it off, so you would be compelled to use the “correct” hand. I’m not sure if he was joking or if it was accurate.

    Also, if I recall correctly, in the movie “The King’s Speech”, Prince/King Albert was beaten when he was a child for using his left hand, which was then considered as a factor to his stuttering issue. Now again, I’m not sure about its historical accuracy, but from what I’ve experienced and seen this bias against left-handedness seems to be clear in both the Western and Eastern world.

    I know that the Chinese language is written traditionally from top-to-bottom, then right-to-left, and yet there is still favoritism for right-handedness, so I wouldn’t be too sure about your theory on cultures with right-to-left languages. But then again, maybe writing top-to-bottom first might have some sort of influence?

    I think on the genetic side, we do favor using one side of the brain/hand; however, it doesn’t mean we can’t use the other hand to perform actions. We can still learn to use the other hand. It’s kind of like learning a trick or skill – having talent (in this case, preference) will definitely speed up the process of mastering it, but practicing it for what? pretty much your whole life? will still give you lots of proficiency in your skill.

    Just curious, do you use your left-hand often in other activities that were not taught with a specific hand? (ie: picking up objects, wiping your butt, etc.)

    To be honest, I never understood why left-handedness would be so looked down that even our words have negative connotations connected with us. It’s just using a hand! I know I wouldn’t even notice left/right handedness unless I specifically look for it!

    • Amal

      Wow, what great stories! Thank you so much.

      So I think perhaps the top-to-bottom does have something to do with it, because your hand doesn’t cover the previous text as you write. Plus, when you move to the next line, you can still see the previous text at the bottom of the previous line, even if you have moved your hand to the left. (But I have never written Chinese nor Japanese with my left hand, so I am not sure.)

      Interestingly enough, while I use my right hand for all daily activities (even those that weren’t taught to me) I have found that my left hand is relatively stronger, compared to others’ left hands, than my right. For example, I am often able to beat people in arm wrestling with my left hand, even if they beat me with their right. Maybe I could become ambidextrous if I tried 🙂

  3. Angie Peters

    Hi Amal,
    This is an interesting debate. I believe ‘righthandedness’ is a combination of both. Centuries ago (in England, at least), it was believed that the left hand was controlled by the devil. Consequently, being a ‘leftie’ led to being accused of witchcraft, which in turn could lead to being burnt at the stake. Little wonder then, that children were discouraged from using their left hand. My father had his hand tied behind his back at school to force him to write with his right.

    By the Sixties society had relaxed so that I was only chastised once or twice by older teachers. It is actually difficult to form some Roman letters using your left hand and these days teachers of very young children turn a blind eye to Lefties writing certain letters back to front, as by the age of 8 or so they normally have the hang of it. I think there is no longer a social bias against Lefties, but manufacturing has yet to catch up. For instance, I had to learn to use scissors with my right hand as left-handed scissors were (and still are) rare.

    These days I think it’s almost all a genetic preference, but some children will naturally ignore their natural preference to copy their parents, and some Righties unthinkingly place things such as pencils in their toddler’s right hand. I’d be interested to see if there has been a huge rise in the percentage of Lefties in England over the last 50 years due to teachers beginning to leave ‘handedness’ to the child’s preference.

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