As today marks the International Left Handers Day, let’s solve the age-old mystery. Are left handers smarter and more creative than right handers?

Lefties comprise almost 10% of the total world population. It is a fact that handedness is rooted in the blend of environmental, biological, and genetic factors. Researchers have long been studying the same and trying to find out if left-handedness and intelligence of an individual are related. 

Revisiting old studies

According to IFL Science, “those who have a left-hand preference, on average, [have] a more developed right-brain hemisphere. Lefties also reportedly have a larger corpus callosum – the bundle of nerve cells connecting the two brain hemispheres – indicating that “left-handers have an enhanced connectivity between the two hemispheres and hence superior information processing”. 

Experiments with a range of mathematical difficulties were carried out on as many as 2300 people of different ages. 

Each participant was asked to work on the same questionnaire. As per results, “when doing simple arithmetic, there was no difference between left and right-handers”. However, lefties outshone righties while solving difficult problems. The results also suggested that “ “extreme right-handers – individuals who said they prefer to use their right hand for all items on the handedness test – under-performed in all the experiments compared to moderate right-handers and left-handers.”

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When it comes to creativity among left-handers, according to a survey of over 20,000 people conducted in 2019, lefties rated themselves as more artistically inclined on a scale of 1 to 100. While they do think they are more creative, the ones in the same study hardly spent more time on artistic pursuits than righties.

There have been no solid results regarding whether left-handers are smarter and more creative than right-handers. However, the do possess different biological structure of the brain and that serves as the reason why there’s difference in ways they handle creative and analytical tasks.