11 fact about left handed people

You probably don’t think about left-handed folks until you have to sit next to a lefty at the dinner table and end up getting elbowed in the ribs. Lefties represent only 10 percent of the world’s population, yet they’ve been such a fascination for so long that study after study has been conducted on what makes them so unique.

Are you a left-handed person or maybe someone you know is? Either way we believe knowledge is power. One really interesting fact was stated by a scientist, who believed that left-handed people tended to be more independent as a result of having to adapt to a world which is largely built for right-handed individuals. Here are a few more fascinating pieces of trivia related to being a left-handed person.

But while we now know that lefties are normal folks, history wasn’t always so kind to our left-handed friends. In the Middle Ages, being a leftie was enough to get you accused of being a witch, and in the 18th and 19th centuries, left-handed children were forced to use their right hands in schools, (which was dreadful – have you ever tried switching hands to write? It’s not easy).

Below are the interesting facts about lefties that you don’t know….?

1 LIKELY TO EARN MORE THAN RIGHT-HANDED PEOPLE?

Depends who you ask! In the 2006 paper ‘Handedness and Earnings‘ it was found that left-handed college graduates went on to earn 15% more than right-handed college graduates. However in the 2014 paper ‘The Wages of Sinistrality: Handedness, Brain Structure, and Human Capital Accumulation‘, a Harvard professor found that lefties on average earn 10% less than right-handed people. I guess what you should take away from this is that you should definitely finish college if it’s an option!

2 THEY’RE MORE LIKELY TO BE PRESIDENT

Prepare to have your mind blown: Six out of the last 12 U.S. presidents have been left-handed. Only 1 out of 10 people in the general population share that same trait, so that’s a pretty wild percentage. What is it that makes a leftie so presidential? No one is quite sure of the exact reason, but one Stanford study found that those with a dominant left hand are better at “divergent thinking,” which means they’re good at coming up with fresh ideas from existing information — definitely a useful skill for a president.

3 THEY’RE MORE LIKELY TO BE A GENIUS BILLIONAIRE

Lefties can count Apple founder Steve Jobs, Facebook whiz Mark Zuckerberg, media mogul Oprah Winfrey, former richest man in the world Bill Gates, and actress-turned-humanitarian Angelina Jolie among their ranks. One possible reason for the link between lefties and huge wealth? A study published in the Journal of Experimental and Clinical Neuropsychology (JECN) found that lefties possess key traits related leadership — including inhibitory control and working memory operations — which may make them better suited for business.

4 Lefties ‘Do It’ Better

Any time someone says something negative about a lefty, southpaws can always point to a recent survey that suggests lefties have better sex than righties. Of 10,000 people surveyed, only 15 percent of right-handed people reported being “extremely satisfied” with their sex lives, whereas 86 percent of lefties said they were “extremely satisfied.”

5 THE ARE GOOD IN SOLVING MATHS

As studies have shown left-handed people are often better at solving math problems. A recent study showed that left-handed students scored between 5 percent and 10 percent higher than their right-handed counterparts on complex math tests. Lefties are thought to be great problem solvers because they typically use the right side of the brain — which is associated with abstract thoughts and spatial reasoning — than righties do.

6 THERE’S CREATIVE ON THE LEFT

The lengthy list of artistic lefties, and strong connection lefties have to the right side of the brain — which is linked to creativity — has reinforced the idea that lefties are more creative. But that connection may be more anecdotal than factual. What scientists have found is that lefties tend to be better at divergent thinking, allowing them to think of more possible solutions to a problem than just the obvious. It’s a skill that can certainly help with creative thinking.

7 A TON OF ROYALS ARE LEFT-HANDED TOO

Lefties in the British royal family include the Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, and Prince William. It looks like Prince George may have inherited his family’s dominant hand, too!

8 SCIENCE SAYS THEY ARE BETTER ATHLETES

Not because they’re stronger or faster, but because their rightie opponents have a harder time reacting to lefty movements, says one study. WOO-HOO.

9 THEY’RE BETTER FIGHTERS

Left-handed people are better at fighting — at least in primitive societies. French researchers found that in peaceful societies, just 3 percent of citizens were left-handed, but that number rose to nearly 30 percent in the most war-like societies. While you may not want your child to come out swinging, this instinct can be channeled into more positive traits — like not being afraid to stand up for themselves or their friends and family.

10 HAVE HIGHER INTELLIGENCE LEVELS

This one varies depending on how dated your source is! One 2007 study ‘Effect of Handedness on Intelligence Level of Students‘ shows that lefties are more likely to have higher IQs.

11 BETTER AT MULTY-TASKING

Data collected in 2008 by the Illinois Research Consortium showed that left and right-handed people deal with task and memory performance in different ways. Experiments showed that when given two tasks to complete simultaneously, southpaw participants performed best. This is because right handed people tend to solve problems by breaking them down into parts and analyzing each piece one at a time. Whereas left handed people tend to look at the problem as a whole and use pattern-matching to try and solve.

Left-handers have their own holiday.

Mark your calendars! It’s on August 13.

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