Are left-handed people really more creative? The answer is finally revealed

For more than a century, the notion that left-handed people possess a special creative spark has held popular imagination. Icons such as Leonardo da Vinci, M. C. Escher, and Jimi Hendrix often headline lists of left-handed geniuses, reinforcing the idea that such people enjoy an artistic or inventive edge.

Scientists themselves have occasionally entertained the possibility. They argue that motor control for the left hand is more strongly connected with the brain’s right hemisphere.

Because the left side typically supports divergent thinking, some have suggested that left-handers naturally make more unexpected connections and generate novel ideas.

However, new research from Cornell University now shows that the story is far more complicated and that, on balance, the data do not support a link between left-handedness and heightened creativity.

Testing the lefty myth

Daniel Casasanto, an associate professor of psychology in the College of Human Ecology, and his colleagues conducted a sweeping review of the scientific literature to test the claim.

“The data do not support any advantage in creative thinking for lefties,” Casasanto said. “In fact, there is some evidence that righties are more creative in some laboratory tests, and strong evidence that righties are overrepresented in professions that require the greatest creativity.”

Professor Casasanto and study first author Owen Morgan sifted through nearly 1,000 studies published since 1900.

Most of the studies were excluded because they either omitted data on handedness. Others enrolled only right-handers in search of homogeneous samples, a common practice in experimental design.

Creative edge goes to righties

Only 17 studies provided enough standardized information to be included in a meta-analysis. Together, they yielded close to fifty separate measures of creativity in relation to handedness.

Across the most frequently used tests of divergent thinking – exercises in which participants list alternative uses for common objects, for example – hand preference made almost no difference.

When a difference did appear, it typically favored right-handers, though the advantage was small. The findings undermine earlier suggestions that habitual use of the left hand, paired with right-hemisphere activation, offers any systematic boost to creative thought.

Creative jobs show same trend

Recognizing that lab tasks do not capture every facet of real-world creativity, the researchers expanded their inquiry to professional life.

A second meta-analysis confirmed a familiar observation: left-handers turn up disproportionately among visual artists and musicians. Yet the pattern stopped there. The researchers found no excess of left-handed individuals among architects, despite common assumptions.

Seeking a broader picture, the team reexamined U.S. government data covering nearly twelve thousand adults in more than seven hundred occupations. Each job was scored for creativity using ratings of originality and inductive reasoning.

On that measure, theoretical physicists and mathematicians ranked alongside fine artists at the top of the scale. The data showed that, contrary to the enduring myth, left-handers were under-represented in these highly creative fields.

The lefty myth explained

Why, then, does the legend persist? Casasanto and co-authors point to several reinforcing misconceptions.

One is what they call “left-handed exceptionalism:” since left-handedness is uncommon and creative genius is rare, people tend to connect the two. Popular culture also romanticizes the “tortured artist”- someone both brilliant and beset by mental illness.

Because left-handers in artistic circles show higher rates of depression and schizophrenia, observers may conflate these separate traits, seeing them as parts of a single package.

A third factor is plain statistical cherry-picking. Researchers have repeatedly cited small studies that found more left-handers in art or music over the decades. Meanwhile, larger and more representative surveys have faded into obscurity.

Professor Casasanto noted that the focus on these two creative professions where lefties are overrepresented, art and music, is a really common and tempting statistical error that humans make all the time.

Beyond left or right

The new analysis does not deny that many great artists have been left-handed, nor does it dismiss the intricate roles of brain lateralization in cognition. It simply shows that handedness alone does not predict who will excel at creative tasks or professions.

Creativity, the authors argue, springs from a richer interplay of cognitive capacities, personality traits, training, and cultural opportunity.

By dispelling the allure of a simple biological explanation, the findings invite a fuller exploration of how innovative ideas arise – one that looks beyond which hand holds the pen or strums the guitar.

The study is published in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.

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