Common Belief About Left-Handed People Debunked by Psychologists
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
For decades, popular wisdom has held that left-handed people have a natural edge when it comes to creativity. But, according to new research from Cornell University, the link between left-handedness and artistic talent may be little more than myth.
"The data do not support any advantage in creative thinking for lefties," psychologist professor Daniel Casasanto said in a statement.
"In fact, there is some evidence that righties are more creative in some laboratory tests, and strong evidence that righties are overrepresented in professions that require the greatest creativity."
In their study, Casasanto and colleagues examined more than a century's worth of scientific studies, aiming to resolve a long-standing question: Are left-handed individuals inherently more creative than their right-handed peers?
However, the team found little fact to support the stereotype.
From left: Left-handed American singer and guitarist Jimi Hendix in 1970; and left-handed British musician Paul McCartney playing on stage during The Beatles', last tour in 1966.
From left: Left-handed American singer and guitarist Jimi Hendix in 1970; and left-handed British musician Paul McCartney playing on stage during The Beatles', last tour in 1966.
Getty Images
The widespread belief that left-handers—who make up roughly 10 percent of the population—are more imaginative or artistically gifted has persisted in part due to the brain's structure.
Creative thinking, especially divergent thinking—the ability to generate multiple solutions to a problem—is more associated with the brain's right hemisphere, which also controls the left side of the body.
In one prior study, for example, participants performed better on divergent thinking tests after squeezing a ball with their left hand, potentially stimulating creativity-supportive brain regions.
That gave rise to the idea that left-handers might effectively conduct that experiment every time they use their dominant hand. But it seems the reality is more complex.
In their study, Casasanto and colleagues analyzed nearly 1,000 papers published since 1900 that focused on handedness and creativity. Only 17 studies, covering about 50 effect sizes, met the criteria for inclusion due to consistent data reporting and inclusion of both left- and right-handed participants.
The results of these studies indicated that handedness made little difference in performance across the most common lab tests of divergent thinking. In some cases, right-handed individuals showed a slight advantage.
The researchers also re-examined occupational data from nearly 12,000 Americans across more than 770 professions, categorizing each role based on levels of required creativity.
While artists and musicians did show a higher proportion of left-handers, other highly creative fields such as architecture did not.
"Left-handers are overrepresented among artists and musicians," the study found, "but not among architects, physicists or other professions commonly perceived as creative."
In fact, when ranked by creativity demands, professions such as physics and mathematics—comparable in creativity to fine arts because all fields were measured for originality and inductive reasoning—showed left-handers to be underrepresented.
Casasanto said that the myth likely endures due to what he called "left-handed exceptionalism"—the idea that since left-handedness is rare, and how creative genius is rare, one might explain the other.
Dr. Mosun, a consultant psychiatrist at Cassiobury Court and a Member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (MRCPsych), told Newsweek that the myth has taken hold partly because of famous left-handed individuals in the arts like Paul McCartney and Jimi Hendrix.
"There has been this almost romantic notion that left-handed people are naturally more artistic or creative," Mosun explained.
"Historically, left handedness was seen as rare and associated with difference, which society sometimes interprets as special talent or even genius."
But according to Mosun, the persistence of the stereotype reflects a broader tendency to simplify the origins of talent.
"In reality, what this new research shows is that left-handed people aren't inherently more creative, but that doesn't take away from their individuality," she added. "It simply reminds us that creativity is influenced by so many factors—environment, education, culture, and also personality—rather than our dominant hand.
"Stereotypes like these often emerge because we look for patterns to explain the exceptional, but the truth is always more nuanced."
Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about handedness? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.
Reference
Morgan, O., Zhao, S., & Casasanto, D. (2025). Handedness and creativity: Facts and fictions. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-025-02717-2
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Newsweek
an hour ago
- Newsweek
The Teen Mom is Dying Out
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. While the birth rate has declined in general over the last 50 years, mothers aged between 15 and 19 have seen the most consistently steep fall. In 1975, there were 599,926 teen births in America – more than double the teen pregnancies recorded in 2024 (136,376), according to the U.N. Population Division. Among the teen births that do take place today, "the vast majority occur among folks who are 18 or 19," said Elizabeth Wildsmith, a family demographer and sociologist at Child Trends, a nonpartisan research organization. "Teen births have declined dramatically over the past several decades," she told Newsweek, citing a lower level of sexual activity among teenagers, a higher level of contraceptive use and wider social changes. "No easy answers," said Claire Brindis, co-director of the Adolescent and Young Adult Health National Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco. "No one factor can really explain the reductions," she told Newsweek, citing similar reasons to Wildsmith, along with improved access to education. Brindis also drew on the general trend of having children later, currently taking place across all age groups. "We have to give young people a lot of credit for being pregnancy-free," she said. Teenagers Are Having Less Sex Some 32 percent of high schoolers said they had ever had sex in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). This is a decrease from the 47 percent who said they had ever had sex a decade earlier, in 2013, and significantly lower than in 1991, when 54 percent said they had ever had sex. "I am not sure we have a clear understanding yet of the role that digital/social media is playing in shaping how and when youth form relationships, including sexual relationships, or their thoughts and behavior around parenthood," Wildsmith said. "There is likely a mix of positive and negative impacts. For example, online resources, especially reliable sources that use evidence-based information, may help youth learn about various contraceptive methods and more easily access them," she continued. "Similarly, they can provide access to content around what a safe and healthy romantic relationship looks like." "At the same time, we know that health misinformation on social media platforms is a serious concern," she added. She went on to align the decline in sexual activity with "a decline in the proportion of youth that have ever dated." Brindis also spoke about cultural shifts, pointing to the pandemic when she said: "Perhaps another factor is a residual of COVID, with more young people hanging out in groups, after long periods of isolation, and less likely to end up only in pairs." "Ironically, while more teens are exposed to pornography through social media, they are less likely to feel comfortable talking to each other and being in a relationship," she added. But she went on to speak about the impact of increased education and the choices this has provided. "Clearly, access to education has been shown to be a huge motivator," Brindis said, "as young women are surrounded by role models, including their moms, who have improved their own educational status and who hold great expectations that their daughters can break more glass ceilings than they were able to themselves." "Young women are more likely to explore how to protect themselves, including delaying having sex, having fewer partners, if they are sexually active (which reduces their risk as more steady partners will increase the likelihood of conversations about birth control protection in the context of all their other dreams," she added. Have Teen Pregnancies Changed For Everyone? While "the dramatic decline in the teen birth rate since the early 1990s has occurred across all race/ethnic and socioeconomic groups," as Wildsmith said, the declines "have been somewhat uneven across groups and there are still large disparities in the teen birth rate across race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status." For example, teen birth rates among Native (20.9), Hispanic (20.8), Pacific Islander (21.2), and Black (19.3) teens were more than double that of white teens (8.4) and over ten times higher than Asian teens (1.8) in 2023, according to a Congressional Research Service report published in April, which used data from the National Center for Health Statistics. "We should recognize that there continues to be segments who are more likely to be at risk-young people who are poor or low income, those who live in rural communities, with less education, and with less hope for economic opportunities continue to be more vulnerable," Brindis said. "The risks are that we don't continue to invest in young people across all groups, and especially women, if education opportunities are shut off, if economic options (as an alternative to going to college), if student loans are eliminated or more difficult to get, if families have more economic struggles, if access to birth control or other social support services, for example, many of these positive trends can evaporate," she added. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva People Are Having Children Later in General Last month, Newsweek broke down how birth rates have changed across all age groups over the past 50 years. While mothers between the ages of 50 and 54 had no babies in 1975, this number gradually increased to more than 100 over the years and was 159 in 2024. People in their twenties have had fewer babies, often delaying children to their thirties, which has meant the number of births in this age group has increased. America is one of many countries around the world struggling with falling birth rates. Fertility rates are projected to average 1.6 births per woman over the next three decades, according to the Congressional Budget Office's latest forecast released this year. This number is well below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman required to maintain a stable population without immigration. Many trying to tackle this issue have focused on public health policies and financial plans, often citing the 2008 financial crisis, its effect on housing, inflation and pay as a major contributor to why people delay having children, have fewer of them or to not have them at all. The Donald Trump administration has made this issue one of its priorities, with the White House exploring the possibility of giving women a "baby bonus" of $5,000, according to an April New York Times report.
UPI
12 hours ago
- UPI
Study: Statins could prevent tens of thousands of heart attacks, strokes
More than 39,000 deaths, nearly 100,000 non-fatal heart attacks and up to 65,000 strokes in the U.S. could be prevented if people eligible for statins and other cholesterol-lowering drugs were taking them, researchers reported Monday. Adobe stock/HealthDay July 2 (UPI) -- Tens of thousands of people suffer needless heart attacks and strokes every year because they aren't taking cholesterol-lowering drugs, a new study says. More than 39,000 deaths, nearly 100,000 non-fatal heart attacks and up to 65,000 strokes in the U.S. could be prevented if people eligible for statins and other cholesterol-lowering drugs were taking them, researchers reported Monday in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Nearly half of Americans (47%) who have never had a heart attack or stroke are eligible to take statins under U.S. guidelines, researchers found. But fewer than a quarter (23%) of them have been prescribed the life-saving drugs, results show. A substantial number of heart attack or stroke survivors also aren't taking the drugs, even though all are eligible for them under U.S. guidelines, researchers said. "These results add to a growing body of evidence that there are important shortcomings in the quality of care for common and costly chronic diseases such as high cholesterol, and that addressing those shortcomings would yield major public health benefits," lead researcher Dr. Caleb Alexander, a professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a news release. For the study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 5,000 U.S. adults between 40 and 75 years of age who took part in an annual U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention health survey between 2013 and 2020. The survey included data on the people's "bad" LDL cholesterol levels and their overall heart health risk profile. Researchers used that info to determine whether they'd be eligible to take cholesterol-lowering drugs under current guidelines. Even people who had suffered a prior heart attack and stroke -- and thus are at higher risk for a follow-up event -- aren't always prescribed statins, researchers found. Only about two-thirds (68%) are taking statins, even though all are eligible for the drugs under the guidelines, results show. Along with warding off heart attacks and strokes, properly prescribed statins also could prevent every year nearly 88,000 heart bypass surgeries and procedures to reopen blocked or clogged arteries, researchers estimated. If everyone eligible for statins took them, researchers estimate that average LDL cholesterol levels would drop sharply and the risk of heart attack or stroke would fall by up to 27%. Preventing heart attacks and strokes through cholesterol-lowering drugs also could save more than $30 billion in annual medical costs for the U.S., researchers estimate. "Several factors account for the gaps that we document," Alexander said. "They include differences in clinician training, patient preferences, barriers to accessing care, financial incentives that don't always support best practices, and the difficulty of putting clinical guidelines into practice in busy, real-world settings." Better patient education and improved screening methods could make sure the right people are taking the statins they need, researchers said. "High cholesterol is an important chronic health condition that silently claims far too many lives -there are millions of people walking around with this condition that don't even know they have it, and then when it is recognized it too often goes undertreated," senior author Dr. Seth Martin, a professor of cardiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in a news release. "Evidence-based action is critical to close the gap and prevent devastating cardiovascular events," he said. More information Harvard Medical School has more on statins. Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Miami Herald
14 hours ago
- Miami Herald
‘Inverse' vaccines may hold key to challenge autoimmune diseases
NEW YORK, June 30 (UPI) -- For the millions of Americans battling autoimmune disorders, new hope may be on the horizon in the form of reverse or inverse vaccines -- injections that target a specific part of the immune system. experts told UPI. However, these injections work differently from conventional immunizations like the flu shot and currently available immunosuppressant treatments for autoimmune conditions. They work by targeting only the specific part of the immune system that's behind diseases such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis and Type 1 diabetes, the experts say. 'Inverse vaccines are being developed to treat undesired immune responses, [and] for these situations, the body is reacting to something that is not dangerous,' said Lonnie Shea, a researcher in biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan who has studied inverse vaccines and worked on some of the key technology behind them. 'A vaccine activates an immune response to a specific antigen,' Shea told UPI via email. Inverse vaccines are being developed to treat undesired immune responses, [and] for these situations, the body is reacting to something that is not dangerous. Essentially, an inverse vaccine 'aims to decrease the response to a specific antigen, like insulin in Type 1 diabetes,' he added. First line of defense When healthy, the immune system is the body's first line of defense against diseases such as cancer and infections caused by viruses and bacteria, according to the National Institutes of Health. However, if the immune system isn't working properly, it can erroneously attack healthy cells, tissues and organs, causing autoimmune diseases that can affect any part of the body, weakening function and potentially leading to death, the NIH says. More than 80 autoimmune diseases are known, some of which are caused by exposure to environmental toxins and have no discovered cure. At least 15 million people in the United States, or about 5% of the population, have an autoimmune disease, the agency reports. Although no cure exists for these conditions, symptoms can be managed with drugs called immunosuppressants, which as the name suggests 'broadly reduces your immune system response,' Shea said. These drugs, which are typically administered via monthly injections, can have significant side effects, including making those taking them more susceptible to infections, according to the NIH. Many people taking them also have to be careful taking traditional vaccines, such as flu shot or COVID-19 shots because of their impact on the immune system. Training the immune system Developed by researchers at the University of Chicago and elsewhere, inverse vaccines use synthetic nanoparticles attached to specific disease-related proteins, or antigens, to train certain parts of the immune system to behave differently, limiting the attacks that cause autoimmune diseases, neurologist Dr. Lawrence Steinman said. With the inverse vaccines currently being studied, the nanoparticles are designed to mimic human cell death, which is a normal process in the human body, according to the 2021 study that first documented their effectiveness in people with celiac disease, another autoimmune disorder. Dying cells are considered foreign bodies, but the human immune system knows not to attack them. As a result, with the nanoparticles in inverse vaccines, the immune system can be trained not to attack them, or the proteins attached to them, which effectively short-circuits the process behind autoimmune diseases, Steinman said. 'Instead of immunizing the recipient to a viral infection, the inverse vaccine tolerizes the immune system, so it will not attack our own tissues,' Steinman, who has written about inverse vaccines, told UPI in an email. Several companies are running clinical trials of inverse vaccines, including Cour Pharma, which recently completed successful phase 2 clinical trials for their use in celiac disease and another autoimmune disease, primary biliary cholangitis, according to Shea at the University of Michigan, one of the researchers who started the company. Additional trials -- phase 2 studies are the second stage in the drug research and development process -- are starting for myasthenia gravis and Type 1 diabetes, he added. Although more research is needed before the shots become available, a process that could take five years or more, inverse vaccines offer key advantages, Shea said. For example, unlike immunosuppressants with their monthly dosing, the effects of inverse vaccines appear to last longer, perhaps for as much as a year, similar to conventional vaccines, research suggests. They may also work for people with severe, life-threatening allergies, such as peanut allergies, according to Shea, who has published a study in this area using mice. However, there's also the 'risk that instead of tolerizing the human immune system to the target, the process induces conventional immunization, which would make autoimmune conditions like Type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis worse,' Steinman said. However, 'We have come close to success in some early-stage trials,' he said 'Thus far, none of the results are sufficiently robust for submission in the FDA approval process.' Copyright 2025 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
