Is it possible to change your dominate hand?

[Massacure]

I was pondering this. What would happen if someone tried to change their dominant hand. I don't think it would be possible per say, but perhaps more like make yourself ambidextrous? Is your dominant hand decided by genes, or is it just a preference a child makes? Can it be changed later on in life?

[unblock]

1. "dominant" handedness refers to a tendency, a preference

so no, it's not possible to change your natural inclination to prefer your right hand, if you're a right hander.

it is, however, possible to train your other side, to the point where you might even be better than with your dominant side. however, you will never be as good as if you put the same effort into your dominant side.

personally, i'm a bit of an oddball: for fine skills i'm lefty (writing, eating), for heavy-duty things i'm righty (throwing, kicking). so some things even depend on how i do it, e.g., throwing a frisbee. wristsnap and fingerflick passes i'm better lefty, overarm or power throws i'm better righty.

[Journeyman]

8. We share that handedness "oddity," unblock. . .

Like you, I do all my fine motor skills with my left hand, while the power movements are done with my right. Inexplicably, however, when I sat down to learn the computer, I immediatly went to my right hand with the mouse and have never used my left. I can't even imagine using a mouse in my left hand, even when doing intricate work in Illustrator or Photoshop.

To compound the oddity, my older brother is the exact opposite from me: anything I do with my left he does with his right, & etc. We've joked over the years that somehow our brains got scrambled and neither of us got all of what we should.

[The Blue Flower]

2. I tried

I'm ambidextrous--I write with my left hand and do everything else with my right (swing a bat, hold a tennis racket, bowl, do my hair, use scissors, play the guitar, etc.). In high school, I tried writing only with my right hand. Within a week or two, I started to stammer, and had a hard time speaking. So I quit. I was screwing with my language center and that was not a good thing.

[Fridays Child]

3. It's inborn and can be determined in infants by means of a startle test.

It used to be that lefties were often forced to switch by teachers and/or their parents.

[Maple]

4. They used to in school

Sometimes they'd even tie a child's left hand behind them, so they had to use their right.

Lefthandedness was seen as a problem to be cured.

[htuttle]

12. They did that to me in 1st grade

To this day, I blame that for my sloppy handwriting. They didn't actually have to tie my hand behind my back -- they used to make me sit on my left hand during writing practice.

OTOH, I'm also fairly ambidextrous at most tasks (probably as a result of that).

[YankeyMCC]

13. My father

told me how the parochial school he went to did that to him.

[whalerider55]

5. depends...

on what you want to use the hand for, no?

actually, i think (without scientific proof, of course) that lefties (those who write with their left hand as a baseline) have a much easier time being ambidextrous than those who use their right hand to write.

i don't know that you can change hand dominance, per se, but you can cultivate the skill to use your hands more interchangeably.

lefties don't have many advantages; they can dominate in some sports (lefty fencers have an advantage)...

i write and eat/drink with my left hand, throw righty, bat lefty, fence ambidextrously (prefer lefty), and bowl with either hand.

oh, and my politics are left.

whalerider

[murray hill farm]

7. you cannot change it, but

you can with practice learn to do more and more with you non dominant hand..like anything else. your dominant hand will remain the same though. it is determined by right or left brain dominance..so left handed men will have more right brain dominance..this is the side of the brain that is the creative side..and that is the side that influences intuition, is moved by beauty, etc. as a woman who is right handed will be more intuned to math and numbers and order, etc. but this is just the influence of it...not the whole picture..since we are all influenced by our culture and our genetic abilities as well..and we all use both sides of our brain. Anyway...dont try to change your dominant hand.

[BeyondThePale]

6. It is based upon

lateralization of brain functioning. There is evidence that what gives primates (and especially humans) their higher cognitive ability is due to the lateralization or asymmetry of brain functioning (course only if you believe in evolution)

[shraby]

9. I'm complete lefty. My right hand is

good for holding things while I work on them with my left. One time in the 4th grade I broke my left wrist and at school the teacher would put the math problems on the blackboard and we had to copy them on paper to work them out. I was a basket case at the end of the day after having to write right handed. Sure glad my wrist got healed up. I don't think a true lefty can change without serious mental stress. One who has to will adapt over time, but there will always be a certain amount of stress.

[SheilaT]

10. Very few people are purely

left or right handed. We tend to refer to the hand a person writes with as the dominant hand, and call that person left or right handed. But most of us do at least a few things with the other hand.

A few rare people are truly ambidextrous, meaning they write equally well with either hand. Most can learn to print or even write legibly with the other hand, although some find it very, very difficult.

What was done in the past to lefties to try to make them righties was appalling, but still occurs in some other cultures that see left-handedness as bad.

[Gothmog]

11. I am not ambidextrous but I can do many things with both hands

My left eye is dominative for shooting purposes and so I shoot left handed. I eat left handed but write left handed.