Patterns of Handedness and Footedness in Switched and Nonswitched Brazilian Left-Handers: Cultural Effects on the Development of Lateral Preferences

Abstract

In Western societies most left-handers who are pressured to write with the right hand resist the pressure. Searleman and Porac (2001, 2003) studied North American participants and proposed that mixed left-handers, more so than consistent left-handers, would be likely to successfully acquire right-handed writing skills on a long-term basis. In accordance with their two-phenotype hypothesis, the majority of switched left-handers (SLH) in their studies exhibited right-sided asymmetries on other handedness tasks such as throwing, and, in addition, tended to be right-footed. In order to ascertain whether this hypothesis had cross-cultural generality, handedness and footedness data were obtained from 3,716 Brazilian participants. Of the 650 left-handed participants, 62 (9.5%) had successfully switched to right-handed writing. Analyses of preference patterns revealed that the majority of the SLH were left-handed for other tasks, including throwing, and also preferred to kick soccer penalties with their left foot. The results were supportive of a variable rather than a two-phenotype model relating hand preference consistency to successful rightward conversion of the writing hand. The cross-cultural differences found between North American and Brazilian SLH were attributed to divergent socialization training effects and the development of different value orientations in the North versus South American cultural milieu.

Influence of non-preferred foot technical training in reducing lower limbs functional asymmetry among young football players

“…The compulsory use of the non-preferred foot to perform actions that usually are not part of their actions leads the body to create new standards of action. This feature meets the views of various authors that highlight the multidimensional and dynamic characteristic of motor behaviour (Martin & Porac, 2007;Teixeira & Okazaki, 2007;Zverev, 2006). The presented results, in line with the studies of several authors (Andrade, 2012;Cobalchini & Silva, 2008;Haaland & Hoff, 2003;Teixeira, 2001;Teixeira et al, 2003), supports the conclusion that the functional asymmetry of the lower limbs tends to reduce when there is an increase of systematic training on the non-preferred limb.…”

Hand preference and skilled hand performance among individuals with successful rightward conversions of the writing hand

“…Of the Right Shift respondents, 51% indicated that the pressures were applied in a punitive fashion (i.e., slapping, restraint of the hand) while only 28% of the Left Shift individuals reported such experiences, x 2 (1, N0119)06.86, pB.01. The finding of a significant difference in the method used to apply the rightward pressures between these two groups, with those applied to the Right Shift group being more frequently punitive when compared to the Left Shift group, is supportive of a distinction made by Wile (1932) and discussed by Martin and Porac (2007). Wile argued for the presence of resistant and not-so-resistant groups of left-handed children who are put into an environment where pressures are applied to convert to right-hand writing.…”

Plasticity of human handedness: Decreased one-hand bias and inter-manual performance asymmetry in expert basketball players

“…Edinburgh Handedness Inventory; Oldfield, 1971) or footedness (i.e. Waterloo Footedness Questionnaire-Revised; Elias, Bryden, & BulmanFleming, 1998;Martin & Porac, 2007) in elite players. We took a more direct approach, which included the assessment of ball contacts with the dominant and non-dominant hand for the execution of different skills during regular basketball competitions, as used previously by Carey et al (2001) to assess the foot preference of soccer players.…”