Left-handedness: Does it mean anything? - Psychologist World
Left-handedness: Does it mean anything?
People who are left-handed are more dextrous with their left hand than with
their right hand: they will probably also use their left hand for tasks such
as personal care, cooking, and so on. Writing is not as good an indicater of
handedness as it might seem, because many people who write with their right
hand use their left for everything else.
Approximately 10-13% of the population is left-handed. People who can use both
hands equally well are ambidextrous. True ambidexterity is rare.
Generally, males are three times more likely to be left-handed than females.
Statistically, one twin of a pair has a 20% chance to be left-handed. Gay people
may be up to 39% as likely to be left-handed as straight people (Habib, 2000).
Causes of left-handedness
No one knows for certain why the human population is right-handed-dominant,
but a number of theories have been proposed.
Evolutionary theories: The warrior and his shield
This theory attempts to explain left-handedness by the position of a warrior's
shield and his heart. Basically, since the heart is on the left side of the
body, a warrior holding his shield with his left hand would be better able to
protect his heart than if he held it with his right. Thus, a greater mortality
of left-handers would explain the prevalence of right-handedness today.
There are a number of objections to this theory:
The heart is not that far off center. While it is on the left side of the
body, it is still fairly central in location. Protecting it with a shield
would only result in a weak selective pressure, and there have not been enough
generations since the bronze age.
It predicts that more men would be right-handed than women. However, data
indicates that more males are left-handed than females.
Analysis of ancient cave paintings indicate that humanity was right-handed
long before the bronze age.
Brain hemisphere division of labour
This is the most commonly accepted theory of handedness. The premise of this
theory is that since both speaking and handiwork require fine motor skills,
having one hemisphere of the brain do both would be more efficient than having
it divided up. And since in most people, the left side of the brain controls
speaking, right-handedness would prevail. It also predicts that left-handed
people would have a reversed brain division of labour. Lastly, since other primates
do not have a spoken language (at least of the type we have) there would be
no stimulus for right-handed preference among them, and that is true.
Objections:
It does not explain why the left hemisphere would always be the one controlling
language. Why not 50% of the population left and 50% right?
While 95% of right-handers do indeed use the left side of the brain for speaking,
it is more variable for left-handers. Some do use the right for linguistic
skills, some use the left hemisphere, and others use both.
On the balance, it appears that this theory could well explain some left-handedness,
but it has too many gaps to explain all left-handedness.
Is left-handedness genetic?
Handedness runs in families, although even when both parents are left-handed,
there is only a 26% chance of their child being left-handed. Thus, it is clear
that genetics is not the only cause. Handedness must also be influenced by some
of the other theories presented here.
Apparantly, the Clan Kerr of Scotland built their castles with counter-clockwise
staircases, so that a left-handed swordsmen would be better able to defend it.
However, a 1993 study found no statistically significant increase in left-handedness
among people with the family name Kerr or Carr.
Many members of the British royal family are left-handed. Genetics is usually
used to explain this.
