A group of new research studies show that our left- or right-handedness shapes our perception of “goodness” and “badness”.

[div class=attrib]From Scientific American:[end-div]

A series of studies led by psychologist Daniel Casasanto suggests that one thing that may shape our choice is the side of the menu an item appears on. Specifically, Casasanto and his team have shown that for left-handers, the left side of any space connotes positive qualities such as goodness, niceness, and smartness. For right-handers, the right side of any space connotes these same virtues. He calls this idea that “people with different bodies think differently, in predictable ways” the body-specificity hypothesis.

In one of Casasanto’s experiments, adult participants were shown pictures of two aliens side by side and instructed to circle the alien that best exemplified an abstract characteristic. For example, participants may have been asked to circle the “more attractive” or “less honest” alien. Of the participants who showed a directional preference (most participants did), the majority of right-handers attributed positive characteristics more often to the aliens on the right whereas the majority of left-handers attributed positive characteristics more often to aliens on the left.

Handedness was found to predict choice in experiments mirroring real-life situations as well. When participants read near-identical product descriptions on either side of a page and were asked to indicate the products they wanted to buy, most righties chose the item described on the right side while most lefties chose the product on the left. Similarly, when subjects read side-by-side resumes from two job applicants presented in a random order, they were more likely to choose the candidate described on their dominant side.

Follow-up studies on children yielded similar results. In one experiment, children were shown a drawing of a bookshelf with a box to the left and a box to the right. They were then asked to think of a toy they liked and a toy they disliked and choose the boxes in which they would place the toys. Children tended to choose to place their preferred toy in the box to their dominant side and the toy they did not like to their non-dominant side.

[div class=attrib]Read more here.[end-div]

[div class=attrib]Image: Drawing Hands by M. C. Escher, 1948, Lithograph. Courtesy of Wikipedia.[end-div]