LATERAL PREFERENCES IN ADULT EMBRACING - A TEST OF THE HEMISPHERIC-ASYMMETRY THEORY OF INFANT CRADLING

Women's preference for cradling infants leftwardly has been proposed ( Manning & Chamberlain, 1990, 1991) as resulting from the specializatio n of the right hemisphere for the perception and expression of emotion . On the basis of this theory, adult embracing, which has many feature s in common with infant cradling, should also show a leftward tendency . Lateral preferences in adult embracing were investigated in laborato ry and natural observation studies. The results show that, as with inf ant cradling, lateral preferences in embracing predominate in women an d are unrelated to handedness. However, the results of both studies sh ow that men tend toward a preference to embrace rightwardly-the direct ion opposite from that predicted on the basis of a ''hemispheric asymm etry'' account of embracing.