
Why Lefties Make Less - mycodebreaks
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/why-lefties-make-less/383635/?single_page=true
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lukaslalinsky
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.

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bradleyland
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.

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seanmcdirmid
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).

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kagamine
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.

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seanmcdirmid
I hold my chopsticks with my left hand. Not good for tight circular tables.

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kagamine
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?

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seanmcdirmid
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.

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kagamine
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.

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robert_tweed
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.

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santacluster
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.

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cylinder
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.

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mempko
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.

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cafard
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%...](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0058%3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*a%3Aentry+group%3D97%3Aentry%3Da%29ristero%2Fs)

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theonemind
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.

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meric
The sport reference -

Rafael Nadal is left handed.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Nadal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Nadal)

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zipfle
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.

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fixedd
Reference: The Princess Bride :P

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

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

