Hand preference in a population of Swedish college students.

A hand preference inventory was administered to a population of 921 Swedish college students. The questions concern writing, drawing, throwing a ball, cutting with scissors, tooth brushing, cutting with a knife, and using a hammer, each with five response alternatives: always right, mostly right, either hand, mostly left and always left. A consistent preference over all activities for the left hand was rare (4%), but common for the right hand (62%). Corresponding percentages for writing hand were 9% and 89%, thus contradicting recent reports of a dramatic increase of left-handedness. There were no sex differences. Hand preference for writing was highly correlated with that for the other activities. Self-reported parental sinistrality was more common in respondents with a consistent left hand preference. There was no association between nonright-handedness and self-reported early learning difficulties, although among females mixed handers tended to report a higher frequency of difficulties in learning to write.