A COMPARISON OF HAND PREFERENCE IN JAPAN AND CANADA

Abstract An analysis was performed on 47 items of a hand preference inventory administered to 1275 undergraduate students in Japan and Canada. Factor analysis indicated that items grouped into three factors, representing skilled activities, unskilled activities, and turning movements. Analysis of the factor scores revealed that neither skilled handedness nor unskilled handedness was significantly influenced by cultural group or sex. On the third factor, Japanese students were far more right - handed than were Canadian students. Although mean factor scores for skilled handedness did not differ between groups, the prevalence of left - handedness was significantly lower in Japan than in Canada. Cultural pressures have their primary effect on turning movements, and on specific skilled activities such as writing and eating. Although the data are consistent with the view that a right shift for skilled activities has been superimposed on an undifferentiated handedness, other considerations make such a theory less tenable. The majority of people in the world are right - handed, and right - handedness has often been used as a marker for "normal" brain lateralization. It is generally agreed that some aspects of handedness, such as the hand used for writing (Beukelaar & Kroonenberg, 1986), can be influenced by pressures from parents or teachers. Furthermore, much of the lore indicates that the prevalence of handedness is lower in Oriental societies than in Caucasian ones. Thus, Porac, Rees, and Buller (1990), in a review of handedness studies, indicate that the prevalence of left - handedness is 4.6% in Orientals and 8.7% in Caucasians. In studies of Japanese populations, Hatta and Nakatsuka (1976) give an incidence of 3% in adults, while Rymar, Kameyama, Niwa, Hiramatsu, and Saitoh (1984) give an incidence of 3.7% and Shimizu and Endo (1983) one of 3.2% in children. Similarly, Teng, Lee, Yang, and Chang (1979) give a value of 5.0% in Taiwan, and Hardyck, Goldman, and Petrinovitch (1975) one of 6.5% among children of Oriental descent living in California. In a large - scale study of Japanese school children, Komai and Fukuoka (1934) noted that whereas the incidence of left - handed writing and eating dropped to a very low value through the primary grades, 6% of girls and 9% of boys continued to use the left hand for some activities as late as Grade 8. The very low incidences of left - handedness reported in some of the other Japanese studies may therefore be the consequence of an emphasis on writing hand, although it should be noted that writing hand was not included in the Hatta and Nakatsuka (1976) inventory. Furthermore, a formal meta - analysis of the literature on human handedness by Seddon and McManus (1993), incorporating more studies than those cited by Porac et al. (1990), suggests that there are no compelling cultural differences in handedness. There are several problems with the existing data concerning the prevalence of left - handedness in different cultures. In many cases, classification of handedness is based solely on writing hand, and educational systems may vary in the degree to which they discourage left - handed writing (cf. Beukelaar & Kroonenberg, 1986). In other cases, the contrast is between performance on one questionnaire in one society and that on another quite different questionnaire in another society. Differences in the selection of items may therefore lead to differences in the reported incidence of left - handedness. The largest cross - cultural study of which we are aware, that of Perelle and Ehrman (1994), employed a 12 - item questionnaire, but reported cross - cultural data only on writing hand and on self - perceived handedness. Furthermore, there are no Oriental data in that study, and only one sample that is not predominantly Caucasian (that from Nigeria). However, the fact that the self - perceived prevalence of left - handedness varies from a low of 4. …