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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 lef

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.

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.