LEFT-HANDERS.....are the facts and myths true?

I have to admit, I look at lefties as special. Not the asylum 'shpethal', but people that in my experience have above average talents and abilities. I am not a young whipper snapper (proof enough by using those words) that has had limited experience either.

Credit

Perhaps it is due to the struggle that they have when living in a right-handed dominated world that helps create the abilities of these people.....I do not know!!

In the first place you have to ask the question whether or not this is actually a natural development that happened to create a left-handed person? Was it just a decision (even if subconsciously)? Is it something that is more of a natural pat of that persons innate personality? Or something else all together.....???

Let's explore this a bit.

Actually a higher number of lefties are in the world than I thought to be the case. In fact around 10% of all people are left handed. This percentage has remained pretty stable at this level as well, which is quite an interesting fact.
Think about writing on paper, right handedness seems to be preferred because you're not dragging your hand on just written pages....thus smudging ink (especially in the days with dipping pens in ink pots and having a shortage of paper).

What about when they thought lefties were evil and the tools of the devil??? LOL!!!

Why would you choose to go left then if things were more difficult naturally historically. I ask myself the question then that the percentage could then increase in today's age, because on a keyboard, your preferred hand is not an issue. BUT this is not the case!!

Also another aspect to this discussion and thought sharing is that through history (and even Game of thrones Jaimie), that when a person loses their dominant hand, they can in fact become just as talented with their remaining hand.
So a person is not limited to the use of their dominant hand, or strictly restricted to doing certain things with that hand. In fact you can teach yourself to use the other hand as you would want to....but we generally don't.

One of the main things thought of left and right handed people, is that because that relative side of the body is controlled by the opposite side of the brain, that we have been led to believe that this would influence those that are left handed to be more creative and intelligent.....because that comes from that side of the brain!

Credit

So is this the case?

Some facts and myths

1. More creative: Leo Da Vinci, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Paul McCartney, David Bowie are all legendary artists and are all lefties. this however does not mean anthing considering the number of great right handed artists as well. Unfortunately there is such a wide range of opinions on this, that its hard to tell what is valid. Chris McManus the author or the award winning book RIGHT HAND LEFT HAND said the following: "Although there are recurrent claims of increased creativity in left-handers, there is very little to support the idea in the scientific literature."
   
   Credit
2. Having different type of personality traits: In a study performed in New Zealand among 662 young adults assessing the "Big 5" traits of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotionality, and openness to experience, they found that there was NO difference on any factor!
   Strangely, people that were ambidextrous actually were shown to be the most introverted.
   Credit
3. Intelligence: This test one was done on over 7000 children, and found some interesting things out on the results. Their result was this "The results of the present study combined with a review of the majority of studies on deficit and handedness strongly suggest that the hypothesis of no difference in intellectual and cognitive performance between right- and left-handed subjects can be accepted as true.". Credit
   In another study the IQ on right-handers was slightly higher in fact.
   
   Credit
4. Language: When someone has a stroke or damage to the left side of the brain, they tend to have language issues because this is the side that deals primarily with language. In a right handed person, the brain side that is used to control and handle their language, is 90% left side! For a left handed person, this percentage drops to 70%. Some people have shared usage or even right sphere usage, but, in general the above is the case for most people.
   This has no bearing on the quality of language of course, because that comes down to the effort put into the learning.
   
   Credit
5. Die younger: So the myth is this, that right-handed people tend to live longer than the left-handed people, and this stems from a paper written in 1988 by Diane Halpern and Stanley Coren called "Do right-handers live longer?".
   however over the last few years other studies have shown that there are no differences, and these studies covered more than 21000 people and 89 studies.
6. Mix handed improves with age: When younger (averaging 25 years), left-handed people were better equipped to use their right hands on tasks compared to right-handed people using their left hands. In fact on all tests they were far better!
   As people got holder however(average of 50 and above), this changed so that they were the same on the tests.
   
   Credit
7. Sports Advantages: This is in fact true. In a professional sporting world where the slightest advantage can count for a lot, the norm is often not the best. Think of the left arm seam bowlers in cricket who can move the ball differently to the mainstream of bowlers. Or the boxers that come from different angles to what the average boxers train with or against. Yes this is an advantage because they are not the norm, and come against people that have not trained as much against them.
   however, there is no natural talent that helps them in this...just hard work.

Credit

I hope you enjoyed this little post....I found some of this interesting and even though there is not much that makes them somehow special, in my eyes I still see them that way!

Have a great day lefties!!!

[Information from Credit, Credit]