The new behavioural research, published in the journal Laterality<\/em>, found that due to an increased \u2018state anxiety\u2019 when faced with a new task, left-handers are more likely to take their time and think about the consequences of a task before tackling it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Dr Scott Hardie said: \u201cPreviously it has been believed that left-handed people are more anxious in general. What we believe is that it is the \u2018state anxiety\u2019 as opposed to \u2018trait anxiety\u2019 that differs between left-handers and right-handers<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 This means that it\u2019s the reaction to the here and now, a current situation rather than an individual\u2019s general disposition<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we don\u2019t know is whether the increased state anxiety is caused by the motivation of trying to get it right, or the fear of getting it wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Lynn Wright said: \u201cThere are a number of factors that could affect this. For example up until recent years when a left-handed person was learning to write they were discouraged from using their left hand and forced to switch to their right, often to their detriment.\u00a0 There are also a great number of objects or activities in daily life that are designed for right-handed people, which can be disconcerting for left-handers such as can openers, scissors, notepads, right sided writing desks, guitars and other musical instruments.\u00a0 Because of this many left-handers are used to having to think before they act and perhaps to second guess what feels natural.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re not talking about is personality inhibition.\u00a0 Nor are we saying that left-handed individuals live in a constant state of anxiety, far from it actually.\u00a0 The ability to plan and think things out is advantageous in most situations.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cState anxiety in this case, focuses attention on the task in hand and allows a proper evaluation of options and outcomes<\/strong>. We feel that left-handers\u2019 ‘inhibition’ is a manifestation of the old\u00a0idiom ‘look before you leap’ and may in many cases be a better strategy than the alternative\u00a0‘fools rush in’.\u201d<\/p>\n 1 in 10 people are thought to be left-handed and famous \u2018south paws\u2019 include US President Barack Obama.\u00a0 In fact, five out of the last seven US Presidents have been left-handed.<\/p>\n Dr Wright and Dr Hardie are behavioural psychologists specialising in biological and cognitive psychology including emotions and laterality, preferential use of either the left or the right side.<\/p>\n In order to take the research forward they are hoping to expand their work to looking at different age groups, different social pressures and other potential contributory factors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of Abertay Dundee via MedicalXPress: New research from the University of Abertay Dundee has found evidence that left-handed people may be better decision makers than their right-handed… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[123,127,28,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1211,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210\/revisions\/1211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/Ambidextrous.jpg\" "\\"handedness\\"")
New research from the University of Abertay Dundee has found evidence that left-handed people may be better decision makers than their right-handed counterparts.<\/strong><\/p>\n