{"title":"Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey: relation between societal tightness scores, left-handedness rates, and COVID-19 outcomes in US states.","authors":"Stephen D Christman, Eric C Prichard","doi":"10.1080/1357650X.2023.2244729","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As the percentage of right-handers increases in a state, the tightness of that state's culture, as measured, also increases. The relations between handedness, tightness, and various COVID measures (cases per 100,000, vaccination rates, hospitalization rates, death rates, and mask wearing adherence) were examined. Left-handedness rates and tightness both marginally predicted COVID cases and significantly predicted vaccination rates (more right-handers and more tightness associated with higher COVID rates and lower vaccination rates), only left-handedness rates predicted mask wearing adherence (more left-handers associated with increased adherence), only tightness predicted death rates (more tightness associated with higher death rates), and neither handedness or tightness predicted hospitalizations. Results are discussed in terms of the connection between consistent right-handedness and decreased cognitive flexibility and its implication for sociopolitical outcomes, and implications for the framing of public health messaging are presented.</p>","PeriodicalId":47387,"journal":{"name":"Laterality","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Laterality","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1357650X.2023.2244729","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2023/8/10 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
As the percentage of right-handers increases in a state, the tightness of that state's culture, as measured, also increases. The relations between handedness, tightness, and various COVID measures (cases per 100,000, vaccination rates, hospitalization rates, death rates, and mask wearing adherence) were examined. Left-handedness rates and tightness both marginally predicted COVID cases and significantly predicted vaccination rates (more right-handers and more tightness associated with higher COVID rates and lower vaccination rates), only left-handedness rates predicted mask wearing adherence (more left-handers associated with increased adherence), only tightness predicted death rates (more tightness associated with higher death rates), and neither handedness or tightness predicted hospitalizations. Results are discussed in terms of the connection between consistent right-handedness and decreased cognitive flexibility and its implication for sociopolitical outcomes, and implications for the framing of public health messaging are presented.
期刊介绍:
Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition publishes high quality research on all aspects of lateralisation in humans and non-human species. Laterality"s principal interest is in the psychological, behavioural and neurological correlates of lateralisation. The editors will also consider accessible papers from any discipline which can illuminate the general problems of the evolution of biological and neural asymmetry, papers on the cultural, linguistic, artistic and social consequences of lateral asymmetry, and papers on its historical origins and development. The interests of workers in laterality are typically broad.