I had an interesting discussion with some people the other day. In the way conversations go into interesting topics, we started talking about being left and right handed. As it turns out, we all write with our right hand but not for the same reason. One of us had always been right handed, one became right handed, and one is not sure if they were born left handed, or actually switches dominance depending on what they do. We started wondering about it all, and asked some other people for thoughts. This is what we found.
1. some are right handed or left handed, as far as they know, from birth.
2. some are left handed, but forced to be right handed because ‘that is what everybody should be’ and it affects their skills with either hand immensely.
3. some are left handed, but are gently taught to be right handed because ‘everything is more often made right handed, so you will be able to do SO much more if you learn to adapt’. Right handedness becomes so second nature that any new activity is automatically learned right handed.
4. some remember learning sports as a child, and automatically starting out left handed till they were told they had to do it right handed because that is the hand they write with. They do not remember if they had always written right handed, but also do not remember any harassment for not writing right handed, so are clueless what they first tried to write with. They realized at a later age that, when they actually tried, they were capable of writing with the left hand, but as it is at a more simplified level they are not truly ambidextruous.
5. some are ambidextruous, using both hands for all activities equally.
For groups 1 and 3 only one hand would learn to do a skill. For groups 2 and 4, if a skill was learned with a specific hand the other hand could pick it up, but if the other hand learned it first the specific hand might not. Group 5 was either the same as 2 and 4, or both hands could learn or pick up skills easily.
I am wondering now:
a) what hand does a person write with
b) is that hand the dominant hand
c) can that person learn a skill with both hands
I invite comments from anyone who would find this topic interesting. No, I am not writing a scientific or psychological paper about it. I am just curious about it, and invite input from anyone else as curious as I.
The raven laughs. 