Left V Right Are There More Boys

Left V Right

Are there more boys who are left handed than Girls? Or are there more girls who are left handed than boys? How many baseball players are left handed?

Left or right handed task orientation, or handedness, may appear to occur almost at random. But a wealth of research is available to suggest that, to the contrary, handedness is the result of a number of factors. These imply that in fact, a complex array of inborn neurological traits and learned environmental factors contribute to one's handedness. This may account for the higher relative proportion of left-handed girls than boys. With that said, even given the extensive research which has been conducted on this subject, there is little certainty as to whether this is a trait which is more directly influenced before birth or at an early stage of development.

Indeed, factors such as blood-flow in the brain and the size of specific lobes may be responsible for the distribution of handedness, though there still remains a great deal of uncertainty as to the extent such factors influence hand orientation and at one point in their development these factors take on their particular attributes. This is the claim driving the research conducted by Okada et al. (1992), which identifies the brain's blood movement patterns are responsible for the orientation of individuals toward right brain and left brain activities. This hemispheric predilection could in turn be connected to slightly higher proclivity of men to develop left-handed preferences. According to Okada et al., "there were gender- and handedness-related differences of hemodynamics between the hemispheres of the brain; NIR results showed that a large majority of women used both sides of the brain when concentrating on carrying out the MDT, whilst most men, especially left-handers, reacted mainly using the hemisphere which was 'dominant' according to handedness." (Okada et al., p. 337)

This denotes that men are more directly prone to certain brain development patterns which incline early developmental reception to dominant right hand conditions in their surrounding environments. In this regard, we may also note that left-handedness is more prevalent and frequently occurring in individuals with developmental delays, those falling on the autism spectrum and those who might have experienced traumatic prenatal, birth or post-natal health events. This division of handedness based on the degree of hemispheric specialization or, conversely, integration, is confirmed not just in humans but in other species as well. Accordingly, Hiram College (2007) finds that "as in humans, male capuchins have a smaller relative size of the corpus callosum than females, and right-handed individuals have a smaller relative size of the corpus callosum than left-handed individuals. As the two hemispheres show greater independence of function, the relative size of the corpus callosum is expected to be smaller. This has been documented in humans, and same pattern was found in capuchins. Phillips and her co-authors hypothesize their results are related to hemispheric specialization for complex foraging tasks that require the integration of motor actions and visuospatial information." (HC, p. 1)

This idea that handedness and hemispheric specialization are the consequence of evolutionary demands may carry some value in understanding human patterns. The world is unequivocally dominated by right-handedness and thus, this proclivity drives a great deal of our task orientation as a species. Thus, the right handed individual has historically been regarded as more evolutionarily fit or certain survival demands. As the text by Singh & Singh (2003) indicate, it may be impossible to separate the influence of 'nature' versus 'nurture' in the development of handedness. But we certainly cannot dismiss the socio-cultural influence of right-handed dominance and the gender roles historically imposed upon the male in creating a lesser proportion of left-handed individuals. Singh & Singh article suggests that "it might be that spatial ability and its relation with sex and handedness is task dependent. . . . Moreover, we may revise or modify the methodologies according to changing environment, subjects, age specific, degree of urbanization etc. all these factors influence these differences." (Singh & Singh, 117)