Side Effects

How Left-Brain Right-Brain Differences Shape Everyday Behavior

By: Lorin J. Elias PhD

Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart

Understanding how right-brain and left-brain differences influence our habits, thoughts, and actions.

Human behavior is lopsided. When cradling a newborn child, most of us cradle the infant to the left. When posing for a portrait, we tend to put our left cheek forward. When kissing a lover, we tend to tilt our head to the right. Why is our behavior so lopsided and what does this teach us about our brains? How have humans always used this information to make our images more attractive and impactful? Can knowing how left-brain right-brain differences shape our opinions, tendencies, and attitudes help us make better choices in art, architecture, advertising, or even athletics?

Side Effects delves into how lateral biases in our brains influence our everyday behavior, and how being aware of these biases can be to our advantage.

©2022 Lorin J. Elias (P)2022 Tantor

The book is right (and fun)

"This book is right." says my left brain. "And fun." says my right brain.

This book is full of thoughtful observations, sharp distinctions, clever experiment designs, and rich anecdotes. A light and enjoyable read for both right-handed and left-handed people.

It explores 12 human behaviors that present heavily left-right bias: handiness, sensing, using words, kissing, cradling babies, posing, lighting, making art, gesturing, turning, seating, and playing sports.

I particularly like how the author structure each chapter: announces a potential left-right bias - makes a general observation, then introduces many variations of that observation with candidate interpretations - delves deeper into the subtle differences between and within the variations (at which point my brain starts to click) - rounds back to that general observation - provides the most plausible explanation for it.

If you like books about brains and human behavior, check out "Zero to Birth: How the Human Brain Is Built" by: W.A. Harris (2022) and "The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human" by V. S. Ramachandran (2011, but a classic on how to infer brain functions from change of behaviors).