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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 the 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 and 1268 male undergraduates were instructed to imagine nursing or feeding a baby. Then, they were asked on which side of the body they imagined holding the baby. Seventy-two percent of the women and 65% of the men reported imagining holding a baby on the left side of the body. This preference for the left side was noted, irrespective of handedness. These results indicate that both women and men who have never fed their own babies prefer to imagine holding a baby on the left side of the body. Moreover, that the magnitude of this preference was significantly stronger for the women adds to the evidence of a gender-dependent expression for lateral preferences in holding a baby.