One in 10 human beings develops greater dexterity in their left hand. This statistic has remained stable for centuries at the international level, so the left-handed people represent the 10% of the world population.
The reason why this characteristic is sustained over time has been subject of multiple investigations. A new study, conducted by a group of psychologists from the University of Chieti-Pescara, in Italy, yielded unprecedented results.
The academic journal Scientific Reports highlighted the conclusions of the experiments they carried out, with more than 1,100 participants in the first group and a smaller subgroup of 48 members.
The objective was to evaluate the relationship between manual laterality and the personality traits. The hypothesis focused on that although right-handed people have advantages in cooperative behaviors, left-handers have a greater advantage in competitive behaviorsespecially in one-on-one situations where the surprise factor plays a role.
Left-handed people are more competitive than right-handed people, according to study
Researchers from the Department of Psychology set out to determine if there is an orientation towards one hand or another is linked to some specific type of personality.
In the first experiment, the more than 1,000 participants completed questionnaires, designed to measure their skill level between one hand and the other, and various facets of competitiveness, such as your inclination to achieve personal goals or your anxiety-driven aversion to competition.
They found that people who identified as having greater left-handedness tended to show higher levels of individual development-oriented competitiveness and lower levels of anxious avoidance.
It means that left-handers tended to get involved in more competitive situations than right-handers. When their responses were compared to those of right-handers, left-handers scored much higher on «hypercompetitiveness,» a trait that involves an intense desire to win, even at the expense of others.
While the right-handed majority favors social cooperation, the left-handed minority obtains benefits in contexts of competition.
In the second experiment of less than 50 participants, half right-handed and half left-handed, with the same proportion of men and women, they made a pegboard test in English known as ‘pegboard‘.
This is a classic laboratory test used as a neurophysiological and occupational therapy assessment tool to measure fine motor skills, such as hand-eye coordination and manipulation speed.
«No significant differences were observed between left-handed and right-handed people, so the preference for one hand and competitiveness would not be directly related to motor skills«, indicated the authors of the study.
They also did not find significant differences between left-handed and right-handed people in the big five personality traits.: openness, responsibility, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism, nor was there a relationship between laterality and levels of depression or anxiety in this sample of people without a psychiatric diagnosis.
Left-handed women vs. left-handed men: are there differences?
It is worth mentioning that The study also examined differences by sex. Men, in general, obtained higher scores in hypercompetitiveness and development-oriented competitiveness, while women showed a greater tendency to avoid competition due to anxiety.
In any case, the Italian psychologists clarified that it was not the purpose of the study to perceive differences between left-handed women and men, so additional research is required.
They recalled that the interaction between hand preference, competitive profile and gender is complex and is probably crossed and influenced by multiple biological and environmental factors.
The only thing that applies to both genders is that the competitiveness observed in left-handers does not translate into greater physical ability, but rather is a «deeply psychological» trait.
Do left-handers maintain human evolution?: what the new psychological study says
The researchers confirmed that left-handedness offers advantages in competitive contexts, and they believe that this favorable characteristic is what supports the trait being preserved in humanity.
They refer to the idea that the unequal distribution between right- and left-handers could be due to the need to maintain an evolutionary balance.
This idea is based on the concept of Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (EEE), typical of game theory applied to evolution (TGE).
The main question they tried to answer is why the proportion of left-handed people remains low, but constant..
The fact that 90% of the population is right-handed, and left-handed people occupy the remaining 10%, positions them as a minority, whose competitive performance may be less predictable.
In a boxing match, a left hook can surprise the opponent in the first encounter. If left-handedness became common, that «advantage» would disappear, because everyone would adapt to facing left-handers almost daily.
In evolutionary terms, psychologists validated the concept that a «stable equilibrium» is achieved when the majority is right-handed and a minority is left-handed, because neither «strategy» can completely eliminate the other.
International Left-Handed Day is celebrated every August 13and without a doubt there is still much to discover about this characteristic, which other animals also present in nature, but in proportions that vary depending on the species.
