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Article Dans Une Revue Evolution and Human Behavior Année : 2006

Handedness and reproductive success in two large cohorts of French adults

Résumé

Left- and right-handers in humans coexist at least since the Paleolithic, and this variation in hand preference has a heritable basis. Because there is extensive evidence of an association between left-handedness and several fitness costs, the persistence of the polymorphism requires an explanation. It is not known whether the frequency of left-handedness in Western societies is stable or not. If the polymorphism is at equilibrium and maintained by frequency dependence, it implies that the fitness of left-handers equals that of right-handers. On the contrary, if left- and righthanders have a different fitness, the polymorphism will evolve. Using two large cohorts of French adults (men and women), we investigated the relations between handedness and several estimators of the reproductive value: marital status, number of sexual partners (of the opposite sex), number of children, and number of grandchildren. Left-handers seem to have disadvantages for some lifehistory traits, such as marital status (for women) and number of children. For other traits, we observed sex-dependent interactions with socioeconomic status: for high-income categories, lefthanded women report less sex partners and left-handed men have more grandchildren. These kinds of interactions are to be expected under the hypothesis that the polymorphism of handedness is stable.

Dates et versions

halsde-00184676 , version 1 (31-10-2007)

Identifiants

Citer

Charlotte Faurie, Alexandra Alvergne, Sébastien Bonenfant, Marcel Goldberg, Serge Hercberg, et al.. Handedness and reproductive success in two large cohorts of French adults. Evolution and Human Behavior, 2006, 27, pp.457-472. ⟨10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2006.04.001⟩. ⟨halsde-00184676⟩
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