Handedness and anxiety in normal and clinical populations.

Previous research has yielded inconclusive evidence as to the relationship between handedness and anxiety. In order to further examine this relationship, two studies were carried out. In the first study, university students (N = 167) completed the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory, the Fear Questionnaire, and the Maudsley Obsessive Compulsive Inventory. No evidence was found to suggest that phobic fears are more prevalent or more severe among individuals with a tendency to left-handedness than among pure right-handers. Statistical tests reveled a marginally significant positive association between social phobia scores and right-handedness. In the second study, handedness was assessed in 77 anxiety disorder patients and compared with handedness patterns in normal controls. Again, no support was found for the claim that anxiety and left-handedness are related to each other. However, the normal pattern of women being more right-handed than men was reversed in the anxiety disorder group.