Left-handedness and artistic abilities: A first look

Abstract

A sample of healthy18 undergraduate college women (9 left-handers and 9 right-handers) without any learning disabilities enrolled at a regional southwestern university in the United States signed an informed consent form, and were administered a general information questionnaire and the Artistic Abilities subscale of "Competencies" subsection of the Holland's Self-Directed Search, Form R. They also signed an informed consent form. Because of the conflicting findings in research on handedness and on artistic abilities, the variable of sex was held constant in this study. Thus, left- and right-handed women were compared on the following variables: prevalence of lefthandedness in the family, academic performance, and artistic abilities. Significant differences were found between left- and right- handers on all variables except academic performance. Following conclusions were made on the basis of the results of this preliminary study: (1) left-handers tend to be more artistic than the right-handers and (2) heredity is one of the several determinants of handedness. Expectancy effect, brain lateralization, and functional theory were suggested as possible explanations for the link between left-handedness and artistic abilities.