The Body in Religion: The Spatial Mapping of Valence in Tibetan Practitioners of Bön.
Cognitive science April 1, 2019 Heng Li, Yu Cao 13 citations
Right-handed Tibetan Bön practitioners, whose religion explicitly associates the left side with goodness, still implicitly associate positive ideas with their dominant right side, just as English speakers do. This supports the Body-Specificity Hypothesis, which holds that people link positive valence to the side of space where their dominant hand acts more fluently. The study shows that implicit space-valence mappings are shaped by bodily experience rather than by cultural conventions that favor the left.