Around 10% of people are left-handed, and we still don’t really know why.
In fact, humans are the only species on the planet that show handedness.
One thing we can say about righties and lefties, though, is that the differences can extend deep into the mind and brain.
1. The right-hand bias
Lefties live in a world of discrimination. Everything is set up for righties. That extends to the very concept of right and left in the brain. Right is, after all, right and left is, well, it might as well be called wrong. When tested, people are found to associate things on their right-hand-side with being good and things on their left with being…not quite right.
3. Right-handed, left-brained
Around 95% of people are left-brained. Remember that the brain is cross-wired to the body. So the left-hand-side of the brain controls the right-hand-side of the body. Left-brained people also have their speech and language centres in the left-hand-side of their brains. Not all lefties are wired the opposite way, though, with their language and speech centres in the right-hand-side of the brain. Some lefties still have left-side dominant brains.
5. Mental illness
Lefties have repeatedly been found to suffer higher incidence of mental illness. They are disproportionately represented among patients suffering from psychosis and schizophrenia. Careful, though, don’t discriminate: it doesn’t mean lefties are all mad — just that their risk is slightly higher.
8. Righties earn more
Despite the popular view that lefties are more naturally talented, it’s righties who pull down 10-12% higher salaries, data from the US and the UK finds.
The higher wages amongst right-handers are probably due to the fact that they have, on average, greater cognitive skills than left-handers.
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Source material from Psyblog