Why right choice is wrong for left-handers

Washington: Being left or right-handed can change how you view the world and even influence how you vote in an election, according to scientists. Right-handers are more likely to buy products on shelves to the right of them and vote for names on that side of ballot forms. For “lefties”, it’s the reverse.

Dr Daniel Casasanto, of Chicago University, said people unconsciously favour the side they find the most dexterous and less clumsy. It means if a right-hander sees two equally attractive people in a bar, they will choose the person to their right instinctively. “It’s nothing to do with using your hands when you respond,” he told the Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Washington DC.

“This becomes applicable to behaviours like voting where we are all being asked to judge candidates whose names are written on the right and left of the ballot paper. We found in a large simulated election righties chose the candidate on the right of a ballot paper about 15 per cent more than lefties. The mechanism is that we, as handed creatures, behave more dexterously and, therefore, experience more motor fluency with one hand and on one side of the body compared to the other.”

The difference also extends to the brain. For right-handers, the happiness and creative centres of the brain are on the left side, but it is the reverse for left-handed people. It means therapies that target specific parts of the brain may have a detrimental impact depending on the dominant hand.