The role of intellectual openness in the relationship between hand preference and positive schizotypy

Recently it has been suggested that the relationship between positive schizotypy and mixed handedness is limited to questionnaire measures, and thus reflects some aspect of questionnaire-taking behaviour as opposed to some aspect of atypical brain organisation. The current study set out to explore this possibility. Undergraduate psychology students completed the Magical Ideation Scale, the Waterloo Handedness Questionnaire-Revised, a manual dot-filling task, and an inventory measuring the personality trait of intellectual openness. On the questionnaire measure, magical ideation was related to mixed handedness on unskilled but not skilled hand preference; however, this relationship was partially mediated by intellectual openness. Magical ideation was not related to the behavioural measure of handedness. These findings suggest that responses on handedness questionnaires partially reflect personality variables, and such effects should be considered in future research on the nature of the relationship between handedness and schizotypy.