The Mind of the Child - Child Psychology : Part 5

The Story of the Mind
by James Mark Baldwin

(Page 8 of 21)

The method now described may be further illustrated by the following experiments on the use of the hands by the young child.

The Origin of Right-handedness. - The question, "Why are we right or left-handed?" has exercised the speculative ingenuity of many men. It has come to the front anew in recent years, in view of the advances made in the general physiology of the nervous system; and certainly we are now in a better position to set the problem intelligently and to hope for its solution. Hitherto the actual conditions of the rise of "dextrality" in young children - as the general fact of uneven-handedness may be called - have not been closely observed. It was to gain light, therefore, upon the facts themselves that the experiments described in the following pages were carried out.

My child H. was placed in a comfortable sitting posture, the arms left bare and free in their movement, and allowed to reach for objects placed before her in positions exactly determined and recorded by the simple arrangement of sliding rods already described. The experiments took place at the same hour daily, for a period extending from her fourth to her tenth month. These experiments were planned with very great care and with especial view to the testing of several hypotheses which, although superficial to those who have studied physiology, yet constantly recur in publications on this subject. Among these theories certain may be mentioned with regard to which my experiments were conclusive. It has frequently been held that a child's right-handedness arises from the nurse's or mother's constant method of carrying it, the child's hand which is left free being more exercised, and so becoming stronger.

This theory is ambiguous as regards both mother and child. The mother, if right-handed, would carry the child on the left arm, in order to work with the right arm. This I find an invariable tendency with myself and with nurses and mothers whom I have observed. But this would leave the child's left arm free, and so a right-handed mother would be found with a left-handed child! Again, if the mother or nurse be left-handed, the child would tend to be right-handed. Or if, as is the case in civilized countries, nurses largely replace the mothers, it would be necessary that most of the nurses be left-handed in order to make most of the children right-handed. Now, none of these deductions are true. Further, the child, as a matter of fact, holds on with both hands, however it is itself held.

Another theory maintains that the development of right-handedness is due to differences in weight of the two lateral halves of the body; this tends to bring more strain on one side than the other, and to give more exercise, and so more development, to that side. This evidently assumes that children are not right or left-handed before they learn to stand. This my results given below show to be false. Again, we are told that infants get right-handed by being placed on one side too much for sleep; this can be shown to have little force also when the precaution is taken to place the child alternately on its right and left sides for its sleeping periods.

In the case of the child H., certain precautions were carefully enforced. She was never carried about in arms at all, never walked with when crying or sleepless; she was frequently turned over in her sleep; she was not allowed to balance herself on her feet until a later period than that covered by the experiments. Therefore the conditions of the rise of the right-handed era were made as simple and uniform as possible.

The experiments included, besides reaching for colors, a great many of reaching for other objects, at longer and shorter distances, and in unsymmetrical directions. I give some details of the results of the experiments in which simple objects were used, extending over a period of four months, from the fifth to the ninth in her life. The number of experiments at each sitting varied from ten to forty, the position of the child being reversed as to light from windows, position of observation, etc., after half of each series.

No trace of preference for either hand was discernible during this period; indeed, the neutrality was as complete as if it had been arranged beforehand, or had followed the throwing of dice.

I then conceived the idea that possibly a severer distance test might affect the result and show a marked preferential response by one hand over the other. I accordingly continued to use a neutral stimulus, but placed it from twelve to fifteen inches away from the child. This resulted in very hard straining on her part, with all the signs of physical effort (explosive breathing sounds resulting from the setting of the larynx, rush of blood to the head, seen in the flushing of the face, etc.). The number of experiments in each series was intentionally made very small, from one to twelve, in order to avoid fatigue.

The results were now very interesting. During the month ending June 15th the child showed no decided preference for either hand in reaching straight before her within the easy reaching distance of ten inches, but a slight balance in favor of the left hand; yet she was right-handed to a marked degree during the same period as regards movements which required effort or strain, such as grasping for objects twelve to fifteen inches distant. For the greater distances, the left hand was used in only five cases as against seventy-four cases of the use of the right hand; and further, all these five cases were twelve-inch distances, the left hand being used absolutely not at all in the forty-five cases at longer distances.

In order to test this further, I varied the point of exposure of the stimulus to the right or left, aiming therefore to attract the hand on one side or the other, and so to determine whether the growth of such a preference was limited to experiences of convenience in reaching to adjacent local objects, etc.

The deviation to the left in front of the body only called out the right hand to greater exertion, while the left hand fell into still greater disuse. This seems to show that "dextrality" is not derived from the experience of the individual in using either hand predominantly for reaching, grasping, holding, etc., within the easiest range of that hand. The right hand intruded regularly upon the domain of the left.

Proceeding upon the clew therefore obtained, a clew which seems to suggest that the hand preference is influenced by the stimulus to the eye, I introduced hand observations into a series of experiments already mentioned above on the same child's perception of the different colors; thinking that the color stimulus which represented the strongest inducement to the child to reach might have the same effect in determining the use of the right hand as the increased distance in the experiments already described. This inference is proved to be correct by the results.

Copyright 1902 by D. Appleton and Company.

About the Author

James Mark Baldwin (1861-1934) was an American philosopher and psychologist who was educated at Princeton under the supervision of Scottish philosopher James McCosh. He made important contributions to early psychology, psychiatry, and to the theory of evolution.