Left-handed people are more prone to inhibition and anxiety according to new behavioural research published by the University of Abertay Dundee.
Dr Lynn Wright who led the study says: “Left handers are more likely to hesitate whereas right handers tend to ‘jump in’ a bit more.” This is particularly the case when a task or situation is new or unusual.
On tests of behavioural inhibition, 46 left-handed men and women scored higher than 66 right-handers. Women, too, tended to rack up higher scores on the tests of reticence.
Dr Wright and her colleagues uncovered these tendencies by giving subjects a behavioural test that gauges both personal restraint and impulsiveness, qualities which seem to originate from opposite parts of our brains.
The researchers found that compared to right-handers, lefties and women were likelier to agree with statements such as, “I worry about making mistakes” and “Criticism or scolding hurts me quite a bit”. All groups responded similarly to statements such as “I often act on the spur of the moment” and “I crave excitement and new sensations”, Wright’s team found.
Dr Wright is a behavioural psychologist specialising in biological and cognitive psychology including emotions and laterality, preferential use of either the left or the right side. She believes that the results could be due to wiring differences in the brains of left-handers and right-handers.
“In left-handers the right half of the brain is dominant, and it is this side that seems to control negative aspects of emotion. In right-handers the left brain dominates.”
The research team says that the fact that some people use their right side of the brain more, rather than the left side, is not an indicator of their personality in any way. It merely offers insight into how emotions are processed.
In fact, it's the way we process information and emotions that differentiates us from each other. Otherwise, all participants to an event, for example, will have the same opinion about it.
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For further information or to arrange interviews please contact Vicki White on 01382 308935 or e-mail v.white@abertay.ac.uk