Lefties are 'prone to inhibition and anxiety'

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

London, Nov 4 : Lefties not only find it difficult dealing with a world designed for right-handers, but are also prone to inhibition and anxiety, a new research suggests.

According to Lynn Wright, a behavioural psychologist at the University of Abertay Dundee, UK, who led the study, when left-handers start doing something, they tend to dither.

"Right-handers tend to jump in a bit," New Scientist quoted the expert, as saying.

The research team came to the conclusion, after conducting tests of behavioural inhibition. They found 46 left-handed men and women scored higher than 66 right-handers. Women, too, tended to rack up higher scores on the tests of reticence.

The boffins identified these predilections by giving subjects a behavioural test that gauges both personal restraint and impulsiveness, qualities which seem to emanate from opposite hemispheres of our brains.

Compared to right-handers, lefties and women were likelier to agree with statements such as, "I worry about making mistakes" and "Criticism or scolding hurts me quite a bit".

All groups responded similarly to statements such as "I often act on the spur of the moment" and "I crave excitement and new sensations", the research team found.

According to Wright, the results could be due to wiring differences in the brains of left-handers and right-handers.

Research suggests that handedness is a matter of degree. But in left-handers the right half of the brain is dominant, and it is this side that seems to control negative aspects of emotion. In right-handers the left-brain dominates.

The study has been published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

ANI

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