Why are so many Presidents left-handed?
I often notice left-handedness, perhaps because I am a left-hander. A few days ago, while watching a video of the most recent Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama debate, I noticed that Barack Obama was left-handed (he was taking notes with his left hand). That video reminded me that Bill Clinton was also a leftie.
After reading this ABC News article, I was reminded that Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were also left-handed (George W. Bush is right-handed). The same article indicates that John McCain is also left-handed. So is John Edwards.
Pretty startling statistic, given the fact that only about 10% of people are left handed. The ABC News article suggests an explanation:
Scientists and historians agree that being left-handed, which is often associated with outside-the-box thinking, can be a political strength.
I have a theory the being left handed in a predominately right-handed world, forces the development of certain problem solving skills at an earlier age.
I have a very rare hereditary neurological anomaly that causes a symptom called bimanual synkinesis. This is an involuntary mirroring of hand movement, and it has affected the way I do things that most people take for granted.
It has also forced me to experiment and find ways to work around this impediment since I was a toddler, and as such caused my problem solving skills to develop before I could even talk.
I suspect that something similar happens with lefties. The guitar example is a good one. The left-handed guitars differ mainly be having the bridge and nut inverted, so the low E string is at the top when the neck is held in the right hand. The two left-handed guitarist I’ve known personally simply learned to finger the chords in an inverted pattern on a right-handed guitar while playing it upside-down. This was the same way Jimi Hendrix played.
I think this individualistic way of attacking a problem makes lefties stand out in a crowd, but does not necessarily make them better or worse as candidates.
As to my prior comments about lefties dying earlier than righties… A doctor at the university I went to was in the process of finishing his research regarding the topic. His studies were not completely finished but he said so far it appeared to be true (by the way this was in 2005 and I worked with him since I was a psych student). I had read that prior studies have debunked this theory but newer studies aren’t so sure. I don’t know if it’s true or not… let’s hope not! Just as a side note- I’m a lawyer and I read somewhere that there’s a higher amount of left-handed lawyers than ALMOST any other profession. I don’t know if that’s true either, but there was a lot more left-handers in law school than undergrad. I wonder why?
Brittany: Thanks for the update. If you find any new research either way, I’d like to see it.
I’ve also noticed quite a few left-handed lawyers (I’m a lawyer and I’m left-handed). I’ve also wondered about the apparent correlation. I also wonder whether my perception is skewed, because I do tend notice lefties (more than righties) at depositions and trials. For some reason, they stand out to me, even though I’m not trying to notice them.
Here’s an excerpt from CBC News on the prevalence of left-handed lawyers:
Maybe the nuns were right and left handedness is a sign of the devil or devious lack of conscience.
That would explain the amount of presidents and lawyers with this trait.
I’d bet that Gene is a righty.
Expect more lefties for President so long as TV debate is the predominant way of presenting one’s case.
When a right-handed person is recalling a truth, they gaze leftward. When fabricating or imagining something, they gaze right. Lefties are reversed, but we don’t notice, and we attribute the opposite body language to them.
Therefore, Lefties can lie more convincingly to us on TV!
Katha, I’m curious where you got your information. I’ve heard the opposite - that most people, when formulating a lie, tend to look down and toward the left. I’m assuming “most people” would include right-handers, but I haven’t heard it broken down by handedness. What are your sources for this?
To my knowledge, most of the current psychological research on lying indicates that visual cues are poorer indicators of lying than the content of the lie itself. A liar uses sparser details, describes in a less personal way (less use of “I” and subjective feeling words) and gives shorter answers. Apparently we have a good instinct for detecting the missing details in a lie- but only when we are not distracted by also watching the liar and looking for visual cues (which tend to be meaningless). Two good books that discuss the subject are Telling Lies by Paul Ekman and Quirkology by Richard Wiseman.
Paul Ekman has spent his life studying emotions too. He is a highly regarded and much cited researcher.
I wonder if there isn’t something more sinister going on here. Could it be that these lefties are doplegangers planted by extraterestians as Mauchuranian Candidates? Only joking but wouldn’t it be a great plot for a scifi movie?
Here is a new theory concerning Left-handedness. It has nothing in common with all previous theories, but explains the research phenomena in a different light. Left-handed males were the evolutionary formulators of the Hominid lineage via speciation. http://WWW.cerebralspeciation.com
This is a Yahoo site, not indexed to google. Ian K Pennack.