Fun stuff: About a week ago I participated in a rather lengthy and extensive personality test for a management training course I’m taking. The current section of the course is teaching students to assess their management style, with the intention of helping us individually tailor our training. Part of the assessment is to determine which side of our brains we rely on most when we reason, form arguments and communicate our thoughts and feelings – the left or right.
Not knowing very much about how side-dominance affects personality, I just assumed that being a biogeek meant I was left-sided. Also, I write with my right hand. But, according to the tests, I overwhelmingly exhibited right-side dominance in most of the subject areas. Huh.
When I asked questions to increase my understanding, the professor was quick to dismiss the myth that mental aptitude in science and math are strictly a left-sided thing. “It’s a stereotype,” he said. “Both sides are responsible for numerical analysis and scientific understanding.” Oh, okay. So, what things for me rang more true as a right-brainer, rather than left? Well, this (admittedly rather unscientific) blurb from a quiz/article I found on the web summarizes several of the points my class discussed:
Right brain dominant individuals are more visual and intuitive. They are better at summarizing multiple points, picking up on what’s not said, visualizing things, and making things up. They can lack attention to detail, directness, organization, and the ability to explain their ideas verbally, leaving them unable to communicate effectively.
I can definitely say that I fall under this description more often than not. This is in comparison to Left-brain dominant people, who tend to be:
…more orderly, literal, articulate, and to the point. They are good at understanding directions and anything that is explicit and logical. They can have trouble comprehending emotions and abstract concepts, they can feel lost when things are not clear, doubting anything that is not stated and proven.
Also, despite loving science and math, I’ve always been dubbed as being “atypical” by my peers: rather than pursue science for the logic of it, I am compelled by what I see as the art behind the science, and it’s expressed in a number of complex and abstract ways. This view of the world has led to tremendous comfort moving in and out of several not-so-scientific hobbies and social circles. I use science as an example because of my industry, but I guess the reverse can be said for those who work in the liberal arts.
So, does all this mean that I’m going to quit the engineering industry and run out to join an artist’s colony? No. My passions are still in tact and in order, and the brain uses both the right and left sides to perform the millions of tasks required of it on a daily basis. However, it does mean that I have a clearer picture of how I think, feel and communicate as an individual, and working to better understanding oneself is the second-most noble of pursuits. What Life requires is balance, and knowing my natural tendencies will help me be more effective while working in a leadership role and in acheiving my personal goals.
