Are left-handed people smarter? IQ research explained
Are left-handed people smarter than right-handed people? No. Left-handers are not measurably smarter than right-handers on standardized IQ tests. The largest meta-analysis on the topic — covering more than 66,000 people — found a negligible advantage for right-handers, not left-handers. The popular "lefties are smarter" claim is a myth.
The myth persists because some famous geniuses were left-handed and because there is a small grain of truth in the related "left-handers are more creative" claim. But on raw intelligence as researchers measure it, left- and right-handers perform almost identically.
Here is what the data actually says, why the myth keeps spreading, and where the genuine cognitive differences between left- and right-handed people show up.
What does the research say about left-handers and IQ?
The clearest answer comes from a 2017 systematic review and meta-analysis published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews by Ntolka and Papadatou-Pastou. The authors pooled IQ data from 36 studies covering 66,108 individuals and ran formal meta-analyses on 18 of them, totaling 20,442 people with full IQ scores.
The headline finding: right-handers had a statistically significant but negligibly small IQ advantage over left-handers. The effect size was d = −0.07, which corresponds to roughly one IQ point — well within measurement noise. When the largest single study was excluded, even that thin advantage disappeared. The authors concluded that "intelligence differences between handedness groups in the general population are negligible."
An earlier 2015 meta-analysis pooled 30 studies covering more than half a million people and reached the same general verdict: no link between handedness and verbal ability, and a small advantage for right-handers on spatial ability.
Why does the "lefties are smarter" myth persist?
Three reasons. First, left-handers are overrepresented among certain elite groups — Ivy League SAT scores, for example — but the effect is driven mostly by a handful of outliers, and these aggregate statistics confuse "more common at the top" with "higher on average." Second, the human brain finds famous lefty geniuses (Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein) memorable in a way it does not find famous righty geniuses, because handedness is salient when it is rare. Third, real findings about left-handers and creativity (covered below) get blurred into a more sweeping claim about general intelligence.
Do left-handed people have a higher IQ?
No, not on average. Across the largest meta-analyses, the average IQ difference between left- and right-handers is essentially zero — and where any difference appears, it slightly favors right-handers. A 2009 study of more than 200,000 people in the UK actually found left-handedness was more common among people with very low IQs than among people with average or high IQs, suggesting that severe developmental issues sometimes produce both atypical brain lateralization and lower cognitive performance.
The bottom line: IQ does not depend on which hand you write with.
What about the Oxford study showing left-handers earn more?
The "Oxford study" people are usually thinking of is a 2014 paper by Joshua Goodman that found left-handed men earned about 10–12 percent less than right-handed men, not more, in a US sample. A separate analysis in the UK found similar income gaps. Neither study is about IQ — they are about labor-market outcomes — and both attribute the gap to a small but real cognitive disadvantage on average among left-handers, plus the friction of working in a right-handed-default world.
If you have seen the "lefties earn more" version online, that is misremembering. The peer-reviewed finding is the opposite.
Was Einstein left-handed?
No, Albert Einstein was right-handed. Photographs and biographical accounts consistently show him writing with his right hand. The myth that he was left-handed appears to come from confusion with other left-handed scientists like Marie Curie (also right-handed, despite the rumor) and from the general tendency to assume genius and left-handedness go together.
Genuinely left-handed scientific giants exist — Isaac Newton, Nikola Tesla, Marie Sklodowska's daughter Irène Joliot-Curie — but they make up roughly 10% of any group of scientists, the same as the general population. We cover several in our list of famous left-handed scientists.
Are left-handed people more creative even if they aren't smarter?
Slightly more creative on one specific measure, yes. The split between intelligence and creativity matters here. Studies on divergent thinking — the ability to generate many possible solutions to an open-ended problem — find left-handers score 5–10% higher than right-handers on average. This is a small but replicable effect.
It does not show up on standardized IQ tests because IQ tests measure convergent thinking (single correct answers) rather than divergent thinking. So the "lefties are creative" claim has more empirical support than the "lefties are smart" claim — but only narrowly. We unpack the evidence in are left-handed people more creative.
Are there real brain differences between lefties and righties?
Yes, but they are subtle and mostly involve lateralization rather than overall cognitive horsepower. In right-handers, the left hemisphere typically handles language and the right hand. In left-handers, language is more often distributed across both hemispheres or occasionally lateralized to the right. This bilateral processing is where the modest creativity edge probably comes from — left-handers may make connections across hemispheres slightly more easily.
The largest brain-imaging study to date, by the Max Planck Institute and UK Biobank collaborators, scanned more than 30,000 people and found that left-handers had stronger functional connectivity between language regions in opposite hemispheres. The differences were measurable but small. None of them translate into a meaningful IQ gap. For a deeper look, see our article on the left-handed brain.
Why does it feel like there are so many smart left-handed people?
Because there are — they just exist in proportion to the 10% population baseline, and our memory bias makes them feel overrepresented. Five of the last nine US presidents have been left-handed. There are left-handed Nobel laureates, left-handed musicians, and left-handed artists across every era. But the same is true for right-handers — we just stop noticing because right-handedness is the default.
If left-handers were genuinely smarter, you would expect them to make up far more than 10% of high-IQ populations. They don't. They make up roughly 10% of Mensa, 10% of PhDs, and 10% of Nobel laureates — the same as their share of the general population.
What are left-handed people genuinely good at?
The honest list is short but real:
- Divergent thinking tasks: a small but replicated 5–10% edge on tests that reward generating multiple solutions.
- Interactive sports: lefties are heavily overrepresented in tennis, boxing, baseball, and fencing — not because they are more skilled, but because right-handed opponents practice less against left-handed opponents.
- Working memory under stress: a few studies suggest left-handers retrieve information slightly faster from working memory, possibly due to faster interhemispheric transfer.
What lefties are not better at: math, language, spatial reasoning, or anything captured by general IQ.
What ethnicity has the most left-handers?
The reported rate of left-handedness varies by country, but the underlying biological rate is thought to be similar across ethnic groups. Western Europeans, Australians, and North Americans report rates of 10–13 percent. East Asian populations report 3–6 percent, but this almost entirely reflects historical cultural pressure to convert left-handers, not a genetic difference. As that pressure declines, reported rates in younger East Asian cohorts are climbing toward the global average. We cover this in detail in our breakdown of left-handed statistics worldwide.
The bottom line
Left-handed people are not smarter than right-handed people in any meaningful, measurable sense. The largest meta-analyses point to roughly equal IQ scores with a sliver of an advantage for right-handers — about one IQ point at most. What is real is a small creativity edge on divergent thinking tasks, modest brain-lateralization differences, and a long list of accomplished left-handers that simply reflects the 10% baseline rate of left-handedness in any population.
If you are left-handed and grew up hearing you must be a genius, the disappointing news is that the data does not back it up. The good news is the data does not back up the older myths either — that left-handers are clumsier, sicker, or shorter-lived. The truth in both directions is "almost identical to right-handers, on almost everything."
Frequently asked questions
What is the IQ difference between left- and right-handed people?
Essentially zero. The largest meta-analysis (Ntolka and Papadatou-Pastou, 2018) of 66,108 people found a difference of about one IQ point in favor of right-handers — well within measurement error. When the single largest study was excluded, even that gap disappeared. Most individual studies find no statistically significant difference at all.
Are most geniuses left-handed?
No. Left-handers make up about 10% of the population and roughly 10% of any group of high achievers — Nobel laureates, Mensa members, PhDs, US presidents (with one notable exception: 5 of the last 9 US presidents have been lefties). Famous left-handed geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci stick in memory because handedness is salient when it is rare, not because lefties dominate elite fields.
If lefties aren't smarter, why are they considered more creative?
Creativity and IQ are different. On divergent thinking tests — generating many uses for a brick, for example — left-handers score about 5–10% higher than right-handers. That edge does not show up on IQ tests, which measure convergent thinking (single correct answers). So the "lefties are creative" claim has real but narrow empirical support, while the "lefties are smarter" claim does not.
Was Einstein actually left-handed?
No, Albert Einstein was right-handed. The myth that he was left-handed is widespread but unsupported — photographs consistently show him writing with his right hand. Marie Curie was also right-handed, despite a similar persistent rumor. Genuinely left-handed scientific greats include Isaac Newton and Nikola Tesla.
Are left-handers more common among low-IQ people?
Slightly. Several large studies have found that left- and mixed-handedness are modestly overrepresented among people with intellectual disabilities or very low IQ scores. This likely reflects shared neurodevelopmental factors — the same atypical lateralization that produces left-handedness can also accompany severe developmental conditions in a small minority of cases. Most left-handers have entirely typical IQ.
What is special about left-handed people?
Less than the mythology claims, but a few real things: a small edge on divergent thinking, more bilateral brain organization for language, overrepresentation in interactive sports, and a measurable history of cultural discrimination. The "smarter, more creative, shorter-lived, more artistic" cluster of claims is mostly weak or unreplicated. We cover the substantiated traits in our breakdown of left-handed personality characteristics.
