Male–female differences in left-handedness in Sardinia, Italy

Abstract

Males were consistently found to be more likely than females to report left-hand preference in single-hand tasks, but the literature reports negative results too. Using data from a large sample in Sardinia, we aimed at testing the links of left-handedness with sex, age, residence, and seasonality of birth. A total of 4239 participants (males = 1589; females = 2650) were recruited in public places such as high schools, university classes, or gyms in one of the major islands of Italy. Hand preference was established with the question: Which hand do you normally use to write legibly? The monthly distribution of births was studied with the Rayleigh test. In the sample, 270 female participants reported left-hand preference in writing (10.2%) versus 161 male participants (10.1%). Left-hand preference in writing was negatively related to age, with increasing left-hand preference in the younger generations. Left-hand preference in writing was not more common in urban than in suburban or rural settings. The month of birth was found to have a seasonal effect on the left-handed (p=.031) but not on the right-handed (p=.80) participants, and this seasonal effect was more evident in males (p=.04) than in females (p =.26). In our sample males were not more likely to report left-hand preference in writing than females. On the other hand, left-hand preference does vary by age and, in all likelihood, this is an effect of the reduced cultural pressure to write with the right hand in the younger generations.

Performance comparison between right-handers and left-handers in a Brazilian sample of the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment

“…As for hand preference associated with gender, there was no significant difference, which corroborates the studies of Arteaga and Poblano (2008), Beratis et al (2009) and Preti et al (2014). Other authors (Johnston et al, 2007;Milenkovi et al, 2013) found a prevalence of left-handed men.…”

Latent variable analysis indicates that seasonal anisotropy accounts for the higher prevalence of left-handedness in men

“…Second, handedness classification is often problematic. Hand preference in writing is molded by social and cultural pressure (Preti et al, 2011), which might lead to an underes timation of the true associations of handedness with other variables, when handedness classification is solely based on the hand used for writing (Papadatou Pastou et al, 2008). More reliable multi item inventories, like the Edinburgh Handed ness Inventory (EHI; Oldfield, 1971) or the Lateral Preference Inventory (LPI; Coren, 1993), still use arbitrarily adopted criteria and either a dichotomy (right/left, right/non right) or a trichotomy (right/mixed/left) for handedness classification.…”

Patterns of hand preference in Italian adolescent high-school students

“…In a past investigation based on a single query on hand preference for writing, Preti et al (2011) found in a large sample of Sardinian inhabitants (4,239 participants; males = 37.4%) that left-hand preference in writing was negatively related to age, with increasing left-hand preference in the younger generations. In that study, males were not more likely to report left-hand preference in writing (n = 161; 10.1%) than females (n = 270; 10.2%).…”

“…Gender and age differences were reported in handedness. In some studies, males resulted left-handed more often than females (Martin, Papadatou-Pastou, Jones, & Munafò, 2010;Papadatou-Pastou, Martin, Munafò, & Jones, 2008), and an increase of left-hand preference in the younger generations was described in the latest decades (McManus, Moore, Freegard, & Rawles, 2010;Preti et al, 2011). Therefore, we tested differences by gender and age in handedness categories as predicted by the LCA.…”