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A study of university students from the University of Vienna, Austria found that right-handed students tended to be somewhat more extraverted, conscientious, and emotionally stable compared to their left-handed peers. Females tended to have higher depression scores than males. The paper was published in Brain and Cognition.
The human brain is structurally divided into two hemispheres that exhibit some functional differences. This is referred to as hemispheric specialization or brain lateralization. Although the two hemispheres work together continuously, some abilities are more strongly represented in one hemisphere than the other.
Language is often more left-lateralized, while aspects of spatial attention, face processing, and emotional communication are frequently associated more strongly with the right hemisphere. Brain asymmetry also includes structural differences, such as variations in the size, shape, or cortical thickness of corresponding regions on the two sides. These patterns are not identical in everyone and can vary with handedness, development, experience, and neurological conditions.
Study author Sonja Kuderer and her colleagues note that left- or right-handedness—i.e., which hand a person uses as the dominant one—has to do with how functions are divided between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. They point out that existing evidence suggests that non-right-handedness is linked with increased interhemispheric communication.
Left-handers also seem to exhibit reduced lateralization, a trait that is hypothesized to confer different evolutionary advantages. These advantages might have contributed to the preservation of left-handedness in the population. The authors of this study set out to explore the relationship between handedness, sex, personality, and depression.
Study participants were 198 students at the University of Vienna in Austria. Nearly 92% of them were Austrian or German nationals. 105 participants were women. Participants’ average age was 24 years.
Study participants completed assessments of personality (the NEO Five-Factor Inventory, NEO-FFI), depression (the Beck Depression Inventory – II), and handedness (the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory).
Results showed that right-handed students tended to score higher on conscientiousness and extraversion, while scoring lower on neuroticism compared to left-handed students. In other words, right-handed students tended to be somewhat more extraverted, conscientious, and emotionally stable compared to left-handed students. Female students tended to score higher on the depression assessment.
Further analyses revealed that consistently left-handed male and consistently right-handed female students tended to have the highest depression scores, whereas inconsistent right-handed female and consistent right-handed male students tended to have the lowest scores.
“These findings suggest that handedness and sex independently and interactively shape personality and depressive symptoms, emphasizing the role of lateralization and sex-specific neurobiological mechanisms in affective functioning,” the study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific knowledge about links between personality and handedness. However, it should be noted that the study was conducted on a sample of German-speaking university students. Results in other demographic and cultural groups might differ.
The paper, “Sex and handedness differences in Big Five personality traits and depression: Investigating the role of cerebral lateralization,” was authored by Sonja Kuderer, Christoph Rotter, and Sylvia Kirchengast.