Associations among dissociative experiences, handedness, and demographic variables in a nonclinical population

Handedness is considered an indirect marker for bilateral language capacity in the brain. The Edinburgh Inventory for Handedness and the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) were administered to 297 nonclinical volunteers. Fe male sex, young age, and non-right handedness accounted for 24% of the tota l variance on the DES, including both pathological and nonpathological diss ociative experiences. This is consistent with the hypothesis that cerebral lateralization indicating handedness is a predisposing factor for dissociat ive episodes especially in female subjects.