Moniker Maladies – When names sabotage success

Leif D. Nelson, and Joseph P. Simmons

Psychological Science 18:1106-1112 (2007)

In five studies, we found that people like their names enough to unconsciously pursue consciously avoided outcomes that resemble their names. Baseball players avoid strikeouts, but players whose names begin with the strikeout-signifying letter K strikes out more than others (Study 1). All students want As, but students whose names begin with letter associated with poorer performance (C and D) achieve lower grade point averages (GPAs) than do students whose name begin with A and B (Study 2), especially if they like their initials (Study 3). Because lower GPAs lead to lesser graduate schools, students whose names begin with the letters C and D attend lower-ranked law schools than students whose names begin with A and B (Study 4). Finally, in an experimental study, we manipulated congruence between participant’s initials and the labels of prizes and found that participants solve fewer anagrams when a consolation prize shares their first initial than when it does not (Study 5). These findings provide striking evidence that unconsciously desiring negative name-resembling performance outcomes can insidiously undermine the more conscious pursuit of positive outcomes.

Can Left-handedness be switched? Insight from an early switch of handwriting

Stefan Klo¨ppel, Anna Vongerichten, Thilo van Eimeren, Richard S. J. Frackowiak, and Hartwig R. Siebner

Journal of Neuroscience 27:7847-7853 (2007)

“Converted” left-handers are innately left-handed individuals forced as children to write with the right nondominant hand. We asked how a left-to-right handwriting switch shapes cortical sensorimotor representations of finger movement. In 16 adult converted left-handers and age-match groups of 16 consistent right-handers and 16 left-handers, we studies movement-related neuronal activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging while participants performed simple unimanual and bimanual movement with right and left index fingers. In converted left-handers, movement-related activity in the primary sensorimotor hand area (SM1) and caudal dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) of the nondominant left hemisphere correlated with the left-to-right shift in handedness. The motor right-handed converted left-handers had become, the greater the sensorimotor activation in these areas. Between-group comparisons showed that the switch from left to right hand also reinforced movement representations in the dominant right hemisphere. In converted left-handers, the right inferior parietal cortex and lateral PMd were more activated relative to consistent right or left-handers in all motor tasks. These results suggest two distinct neuronal correlates of handedness in human sensorimotor cortex. Although those in executive sensorimotor cortex (i.e., SM1 and adjacent PMd) depend on the hand used throughout life, those in higher-order sensorimotor areas (i.e., inferior parietal cortex and rostrolateral PMd) are invariant and thus cannot be switched to the nondominant hemisphere by educational training.