Lefties no more creative than righties, study suggests

UF Health Podcasts

Much like the belief that artists must suffer for their craft, the idea that left-handed people are born brimming with more creativity than their right-handed counterparts has endured for decades. Now, a new analysis from Cornell University suggests this urban legend is just that — more myth than fact.

After analyzing over a century of studies on handedness and creativity, researchers found no solid evidence that lefties have an edge in creative thinking. In fact, in some lab tests, right-handed individuals scored slightly higher. And when researchers looked at careers that demand the most creativity, like writing, architecture and design, righties were overrepresented.

So why has the lefty-creativity link held on for so long? Well, the study points to a few likely culprits. One is what researchers call “left-handed exceptionalism,” or the idea that rare traits, like being left-handed and being a creative genius, must somehow go together.

Another is the romanticized “tortured artist” stereotype. Since the study found lefties are more likely to work in the arts and to experience conditions like depression or schizophrenia, it’s tempting to connect the dots.

But like most things that come together too easily, those faulty links are a classic case of cherry-picking, according to the study. By focusing on a handful of left-handed painters and musicians and ignoring the broader data, people draw the wrong conclusion. When you zoom out and look at many kinds of jobs, study authors said, the supposed creative advantage disappears.

The takeaway? Being left-handed doesn’t make you more creative. It just makes you, well, left-handed. And sometimes, that’s all there is to it.