A CHILD-HOLDING THOUGHT EXPERIMENT - STUDENTS PREFER TO IMAGINE HOLDING AN INFANT ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE BODY

The tendency of women to prefer to hold infants on the left side of th e body has been confirmed by several methods: surveys of works of art and of photographs, field observations, and experimental methods. The present study developed a new method to examine the patterns of child- holding, that is, the child-holding thought experiment. 2287 female an d 1268 male undergraduates were instructed to imagine nursing or feedi ng a baby. Then, they were asked on which side of the body they imagin ed holding the bby. Seventy-two percent of the women and 65% of the me n reported imaginging holding a baby on the left side of the body. Thi s preference for the left side was noted, irrespective of handedness. These results indicate that both women and men who have never fed thei r own babies prefer to imagine holding a baby on the left side of the body. Moreover, that the magnitude of this preference was significantl y stronger for the women adds to the evidence of a gender-dependent ex pression for lateral preferences in holding a baby.