16 ms·

Why Lefties Make Less

23 points by mycodebreaks 12y ago

meric 12y ago
The sport reference - Rafael Nadal is left handed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Nadal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Nadal
- zipfle 12y ago
  It may be a bit different in sports, where handedness matters more directly. At least in fencing, a right-hander going against a left-hander is a very different situation than two people of the same handedness competing, and because right-handers are such a majority, lefties have loads of time to practice exploiting the lefty-v-righty special case. Actually one of the really interesting things is watching lefties against other lefties, because neither tends to be used to what for righties is the 'normal' orientation to the opponent.
  - fixedd 12y ago
    Reference: The Princess Bride :P
- cafard 12y ago
  A left-handed pitcher can last in major league baseball into his early 40s, an age when most position players and right-handed pitchers would have retired. There is an advantage from unfamiliarity in boxing (another comment mentions fencing). I believe that Marvin Hagler was naturally right-handed but taught himself to box as a left-hander.
lukaslalinsky 12y ago
I have not done any research, but this does not match my experience in tech companies. Some of the best programmers I have worked with were left-handed and were definitely making more than the average at the company. There also seems to be fairly high percentage of left-handed programmers in general. However, I'm left-handed myself, so I might be noticing patterns, where there are none.
- srtjstjsj 12y ago
  to get the math right: what percentage of the best programmers were lefties?
- curiouslurker 12y ago
  Same experience. 4 out 7 of my CS professors were left handed and some of the smartest people in their field.
- bradleyland 12y ago
  The plural of anecdote is not data. The results of the research conducted do not dictate that left-handed people must be inferior, it only presents the findings that statistically, those traits were present in the sample. It is entirely possible for you to have had great experiences with lefties, and the findings stated in the article to be true. The findings in the article are also not a good reason to discriminate against left-handed people.
chasing 12y ago
So check your "right privilege" at the door, please.
santacluster 12y ago
Being of mixed-handedness (write left, use mouse an throw right etcetera) I always feel left out of these kind of stats... Seriously though, I may be a minority, but it's not all that unusual to not strongly fall into either category, left-handedness is very much a spectrum. These kind or studies and articles making left and right handedness a black and white thing feel kind of outdated.
- cylinder 12y ago
  I'm the same as you. Given that people write with pen and paper less every day, it's becoming a much more trivial issue everywhere outside of sports.
seanmcdirmid 12y ago
I write with my left hand, mouse with my right hand (I think that is common). I currently live in a society where almost no one is overtly left handed, and I still get stares when I eat in public (though not as much as I used to). I can imagine that "creative", "forward thinking", and "cognitive problems" go hand in hand: only a bit of spectrum separates the "crazy like a fox" and "crazy like a nut" (people mostly prefer conformity if we admit or not). It really isn't that surprising that lefties don't do better on average, and that we tend to do better at extremes (most of the last few presidents besides W were left handed, a lot of good programmers are, and so on).
- kagamine 12y ago
  When you eat in public with your hands, like a sandwich? Because I was taught growing up in the UK that everybody should hold their fork in their left hand and knife in the right. That's how to set a table, forks left, knives right.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    I hold my chopsticks with my left hand. Not good for tight circular tables.
    - kagamine 12y ago
      In countries were chopsticks are the dominant form of cutlery (that sounds ridiculous), being a one-handed implement, is it considered bad form to hold them in the left hand. I chopstick in the left too. Can I travel to Asia and not be shunned?
      - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        People might stare and laugh, but they will treat you like a curiosity, but as someone being rude. But be careful of tightly packed round tables, especially if hot pot is involved.
  - robert_tweed 12y ago
valdiorn 12y ago
Article and research contradicts most everything else I've seen on the subject, so forgive me if I don't accept this outright.
kagamine 12y ago
I have always wondered, as a leftie myself, if appearance plays a part in people making a first-impressions decision about acceptance. For example, a lot of left handers part their hair on the 'wrong' side, so to righties it looks like they look in the mirror, but not as they expect to see other people. I wonder if this has any bearing on human behavior at all. Much as racism is often partly caused by deviation from 'the norm'. We learn to read signs in people's expressions and actions and we judge them based on their deviation from the norm. If a person has a hard to read face because their features and different from our own and those around us then it could lead to distrust or at least reticence to decide about that person. On a completely different note, I thought this article was going to be about people whose politics were 'leftie'. Glad I read it before commenting.
- robert_tweed 12y ago
  This is a good point and there may be something in it. There's a semi-related, interesting phenomenon in fencing, which results in a a disproportionately large percentage of fencers being left-handed. This is because at a beginner/intermediate level, left-handed fencers have an advantage over right-handed ones (think about how swords would meet slightly differently if the fencers are each same-handed or opposite-handed). It turns out that this creates an advantage because right-handedness (and hence, same-handedness in pairings) is still >> 50%, so left-handers get very used to fencing opposite-handed, while it tends to throws off right-handers who aren't as used to it. The advantage goes away at a high level, but it create a bias towards more left-handers taking up and sticking at fencing, because they make more progress when starting out. They feel like they are better at fencing than other sports they might have tried, where they don't have a strategic advantage by default. Anyway, one of the obviously related subtle effects is what happens when you reach out to shake someone's hand. If you reach out to someone opposite-handed, the result can be brief but tangible awkwardness. Little cues like that can add up to create a subconscious picture of something not being quite right, or perhaps even "sinister". Again, like with the fencing example, the left-hander is used to this because it happens to them 90% of the time. For the right-hander, it feels like something is off because it only happens 10% of the time, so they aren't expecting it.
mempko 12y ago
Left handed programmer here. I used to mouse on my right until i switched 10 years ago. I never looked back. Also, it tends to piss off anyone who uses my computer, and there is a bad bad part of me that enjoys that. So maybe there is something to this whole 'sinister' business.
- cafard 12y ago
  The Greeks, I suppose out of superstition, called the left (among other things) "aristeros", which has the look of a comparative of (the superlative) "aristos", best, noblest, etc. But Liddell and Scott say that the derivation is uncertain: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0058%3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*a%3Aentry+group%3D97%3Aentry%3Da%29ristero%2Fs http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
theonemind 12y ago
I remember the first time I took an upper-divison math class at my university. I never saw so many left-handed glasses-wearing males in a single spot. So, lies, damn lies, and statistics. If average cognitive ability is lower, then I'm guessing there's a hell of a standard deviation.

23 points by mycodebreaks 12y ago

meric 12y ago

The sport reference - Rafael Nadal is left handed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Nadal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Nadal

zipfle 12y ago
It may be a bit different in sports, where handedness matters more directly. At least in fencing, a right-hander going against a left-hander is a very different situation than two people of the same handedness competing, and because right-handers are such a majority, lefties have loads of time to practice exploiting the lefty-v-righty special case. Actually one of the really interesting things is watching lefties against other lefties, because neither tends to be used to what for righties is the 'normal' orientation to the opponent.
- fixedd 12y ago
  Reference: The Princess Bride :P
cafard 12y ago
A left-handed pitcher can last in major league baseball into his early 40s, an age when most position players and right-handed pitchers would have retired. There is an advantage from unfamiliarity in boxing (another comment mentions fencing). I believe that Marvin Hagler was naturally right-handed but taught himself to box as a left-hander.

lukaslalinsky 12y ago

I have not done any research, but this does not match my experience in tech companies. Some of the best programmers I have worked with were left-handed and were definitely making more than the average at the company. There also seems to be fairly high percentage of left-handed programmers in general. However, I'm left-handed myself, so I might be noticing patterns, where there are none.

srtjstjsj 12y ago
to get the math right: what percentage of the best programmers were lefties?
curiouslurker 12y ago
Same experience. 4 out 7 of my CS professors were left handed and some of the smartest people in their field.
bradleyland 12y ago
The plural of anecdote is not data. The results of the research conducted do not dictate that left-handed people must be inferior, it only presents the findings that statistically, those traits were present in the sample. It is entirely possible for you to have had great experiences with lefties, and the findings stated in the article to be true. The findings in the article are also not a good reason to discriminate against left-handed people.

chasing 12y ago

So check your "right privilege" at the door, please.

santacluster 12y ago

Being of mixed-handedness (write left, use mouse an throw right etcetera) I always feel left out of these kind of stats... Seriously though, I may be a minority, but it's not all that unusual to not strongly fall into either category, left-handedness is very much a spectrum. These kind or studies and articles making left and right handedness a black and white thing feel kind of outdated.

cylinder 12y ago
I'm the same as you. Given that people write with pen and paper less every day, it's becoming a much more trivial issue everywhere outside of sports.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago

I write with my left hand, mouse with my right hand (I think that is common). I currently live in a society where almost no one is overtly left handed, and I still get stares when I eat in public (though not as much as I used to). I can imagine that "creative", "forward thinking", and "cognitive problems" go hand in hand: only a bit of spectrum separates the "crazy like a fox" and "crazy like a nut" (people mostly prefer conformity if we admit or not). It really isn't that surprising that lefties don't do better on average, and that we tend to do better at extremes (most of the last few presidents besides W were left handed, a lot of good programmers are, and so on).

kagamine 12y ago
When you eat in public with your hands, like a sandwich? Because I was taught growing up in the UK that everybody should hold their fork in their left hand and knife in the right. That's how to set a table, forks left, knives right.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  I hold my chopsticks with my left hand. Not good for tight circular tables.
  - kagamine 12y ago
    In countries were chopsticks are the dominant form of cutlery (that sounds ridiculous), being a one-handed implement, is it considered bad form to hold them in the left hand. I chopstick in the left too. Can I travel to Asia and not be shunned?
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      People might stare and laugh, but they will treat you like a curiosity, but as someone being rude. But be careful of tightly packed round tables, especially if hot pot is involved.
- robert_tweed 12y ago

valdiorn 12y ago

Article and research contradicts most everything else I've seen on the subject, so forgive me if I don't accept this outright.

kagamine 12y ago

I have always wondered, as a leftie myself, if appearance plays a part in people making a first-impressions decision about acceptance. For example, a lot of left handers part their hair on the 'wrong' side, so to righties it looks like they look in the mirror, but not as they expect to see other people. I wonder if this has any bearing on human behavior at all. Much as racism is often partly caused by deviation from 'the norm'. We learn to read signs in people's expressions and actions and we judge them based on their deviation from the norm. If a person has a hard to read face because their features and different from our own and those around us then it could lead to distrust or at least reticence to decide about that person. On a completely different note, I thought this article was going to be about people whose politics were 'leftie'. Glad I read it before commenting.

robert_tweed 12y ago
This is a good point and there may be something in it. There's a semi-related, interesting phenomenon in fencing, which results in a a disproportionately large percentage of fencers being left-handed. This is because at a beginner/intermediate level, left-handed fencers have an advantage over right-handed ones (think about how swords would meet slightly differently if the fencers are each same-handed or opposite-handed). It turns out that this creates an advantage because right-handedness (and hence, same-handedness in pairings) is still >> 50%, so left-handers get very used to fencing opposite-handed, while it tends to throws off right-handers who aren't as used to it. The advantage goes away at a high level, but it create a bias towards more left-handers taking up and sticking at fencing, because they make more progress when starting out. They feel like they are better at fencing than other sports they might have tried, where they don't have a strategic advantage by default. Anyway, one of the obviously related subtle effects is what happens when you reach out to shake someone's hand. If you reach out to someone opposite-handed, the result can be brief but tangible awkwardness. Little cues like that can add up to create a subconscious picture of something not being quite right, or perhaps even "sinister". Again, like with the fencing example, the left-hander is used to this because it happens to them 90% of the time. For the right-hander, it feels like something is off because it only happens 10% of the time, so they aren't expecting it.

mempko 12y ago

Left handed programmer here. I used to mouse on my right until i switched 10 years ago. I never looked back. Also, it tends to piss off anyone who uses my computer, and there is a bad bad part of me that enjoys that. So maybe there is something to this whole 'sinister' business.

cafard 12y ago
The Greeks, I suppose out of superstition, called the left (among other things) "aristeros", which has the look of a comparative of (the superlative) "aristos", best, noblest, etc. But Liddell and Scott say that the derivation is uncertain: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0058%3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*a%3Aentry+group%3D97%3Aentry%3Da%29ristero%2Fs http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

theonemind 12y ago

I remember the first time I took an upper-divison math class at my university. I never saw so many left-handed glasses-wearing males in a single spot. So, lies, damn lies, and statistics. If average cognitive ability is lower, then I'm guessing there's a hell of a standard deviation.