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ERIC Number: EJ990916
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Mar
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0364-0213
EISSN: N/A
Handedness Shapes Children's Abstract Concepts
Casasanto, Daniel; Henetz, Tania
Cognitive Science, v36 n2 p359-372 Mar 2012
Can children's handedness influence how they represent abstract concepts like "kindness" and "intelligence"? Here we show that from an early age, right-handers associate rightward space more strongly with positive ideas and leftward space with negative ideas, but the opposite is true for left-handers. In one experiment, children indicated where on a diagram a preferred toy and a dispreferred toy should go. Right-handers tended to assign the preferred toy to a box on the right and the dispreferred toy to a box on the left. Left-handers showed the opposite pattern. In a second experiment, children judged which of two cartoon animals looked smarter (or dumber) or nicer (or meaner). Right-handers attributed more positive qualities to animals on the right, but left-handers to animals on the left. These contrasting associations between space and valence cannot be explained by exposure to language or cultural conventions, which consistently link "right" with "good." Rather, right- and left-handers implicitly associated positive valence more strongly with the side of space on which they can act more fluently with their dominant hands. Results support the "body-specificity hypothesis" (Casasanto, 2009), showing that children with different kinds of bodies think differently in corresponding ways. (Contains 1 figure.)
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A