Why do I have different abilities for both of my hands?

Question

I write only with my left hand, but I brush my teeth, use scissors, and hold silverware when I eat only with my right hand. Why is one hand dominant in certain activities, when the other is dominant in other activities?

Answer 1

Ones made for wanking and the other is made for everthing else

Answer 2

You are probably learned-ambidextrous!

My mother, grandfather, stepfather, and boyfriend are all "left-handed,"  meaning they write with their left hand.  However, each have them have developed the ability to do certain tasks exclusively right-handed.  My mother can't use left handed scissors, my grandpa wrangled cattle right-handed, my stepfather prefers a standard right-handed chainsaw, and my boyfriend shaves with his right hand. We believe it is because we live in a supposedly right-hand dominated world, and many tools and activities are (unfairly) designed for right-handed use. Growing up, my lefty family members were taught basic tasks the right-handed way, by right handers.  Even just observing right-handed activity around them probably subconsciously affected their behavior.  So, as a "minority,"  they compensated by adopting some right-handed habits.

Maybe it's the same for you.

Answer 3

Cross-dominance, the act of using one hand for certain tasks and the other hand for others is a not horribly uncommon thing to find. Most people tend to favour one side, but there is no reason why people should have to use one hand for every action.  Ambidexterity, which is fairly rare, is one of the more well-known traits that falls under the term cross-dominance, but it can also refer to people who are right or left-handed.

As to why, it's hard to say. There could be any number of factors involved, but perhaps they have to do with how you were taught as a child to do certain things by people who were right-handed.

Answer 4

Some have stated that it is because of the way you learned things, but I think that's only part of the story -- and not the main part. I believe it has more to do with brain hemisphericity.  The left and right lobes of your brain are like two personalities, and sometimes they can be quite different.  It is also known that certain types of mental activities are dictated more by one side than the other.  In mental/emotional functions, the two halves are in continuous communication, so your personality and identity are well unified and coordinated, (in most people.)  But when it comes to purely sensory and motor functions, this sharing is not evident.  The right side of your brain feels and controls the left hand.  The left brain controls the right hand.

Inasmuch as these two hemispheres have different "personalities" and abilities, it is quite understandable why we sometimes find functions becoming specialized by one hand or the other.  Whether you are right or left handed is not so much a matter of hemisphericity and this generally dominates your choice of activities.  The "strong" hand will end up performing most of the tasks.  People who are left-handed tend to have less dominance in that hand than right handers do in their right hand.  So left-handers often have more of a tendency to being ambidextrous.

Most of you are too young to know of a great baseball hall-of-famer named Brooks Robinson -- third baseman and Golden Glove winner for many years with the Baltimore Orioles.  He hit and threw right-handed, but wrote lefty.  Oddly enough, he was never a switch-hitter, which one might expect, since it is one of the less difficult athletic skills to do from the "wrong side."

Edit: a good example of this hemispheric preference is in lacing your fingers.  Place your palms together and then lace your fingers and thumbs alternately.  See which thumb is on top.  Now lace your fingers alternately with the other thumb on top.  It feels unnatural and awkward.  (At least in most people.  In you, it might not.)  Studies have shown that this preference is independent of handedness.  And the two positions are physically symmetrical.

Answer 5

It depends mostly on how you have used your hands since birth.  See the reference for lots of ideas.  Right-handed writing has significant advantages for written languages which move left-to-right.  You're not smudging the ink your just laid down.  You can see what you're writing.  Script was designed for left-to-right flow.