Fear, Worry, Desire And Love Make You Move To The Right

Many studies have found that people and animals that want something tend to go to the right. When dogs see their owners, they wag their tails more to the right; toads strike to the right when they’re going for prey; and humans are more likely to turn their heads to the right to smooch their sweeties.

Even when soccer goalies are defending against penalty shots, if their teams are behind and they can be heroes by deflecting the ball, they tend to dive to the right.

Recently, researchers at the University of Amsterdam, who are also big soccer fans, examined every penalty shoot-out in every World Cup from 1982 to 2010 and found that most of the time, goalies are equally likely to dive right and left. But when the goalkeeper’s team was behind, he was more likely to dive right than left. In an experiment, the team found that people who are told to divide a line in half tend to aim a bit to the right when they are both thinking about a positive goal and under time pressure — just like the goalies.

“It’s quite impressive. Even in this really important situation, people are still influenced by biological factors,” says researcher Marieke Roskes. She believes this suggests that in many situations where people are focused on a positive outcome and have to react quickly, they may go right. And, of course, there’s another goal for her and her collaborators: “We’re very hopeful this will help the Dutch national team to win the next World Cup.”