What is Neurological Dominance?

Neurological dominance is a term used to describe the way in which our preferred thinking style and personality is influenced by the physical attributes of our brains.

To explain how this works, let’s first consider what we mean by the term 'dominance'. Most humans develop physical dominance wherever we have the option of developing a preference; for example, 90% of us prefer to use our right hand over our left for tasks such as writing, throwing or catching; we prefer to use one foot over the other when kicking a ball; we even have a dominant eye. You can find out which is your dominant eye by downloading and printing our free Dominant Eye Test Card - click here to download.

Dominance is important as it provides us with an automatic response to any given situation. For example, imagine that you were standing by the side of the road when a speeding car careered out of control and headed straight for you.

Within a fraction of a second you would have started to run to get out of the way. However, within that moment you would not have paused to think; "which leg shall I push off with when I start running", you would have automatically used your dominant leg. Dominance is therefore a very natural and important part of our make-up.

Dominance is easy to explain where you have two hands or two legs, but how does Neurological Dominance occur when you only have one brain?

The reason is that although a human brain look like a mass of scrambled egg, it is in fact made up of lots of different parts, each of which process information in different ways. As we grow and develop the neural network that connects these brain regions becomes stronger between the regions we prefer to use, in just the same way as the muscles you use the most become stronger than those you use less. As a result, we develop physiological preferences for using some brain regions over others.

Why is Neurological Dominance important?

Just like physical dominance, our Neurological Dominance provides us with an automatic response to any given situation. This is not to say that we cannot all think and behave in different ways, simply that our neural network makes it easier for us to think in ways that are consistent with our preferences. As a result, a person's energy and motivation is directed according to their neurological preferences, which is why we all have different personalities and exhibit different preferences for the way we think in behave.

Additional reading:

The History of Neurological Dominance
What are the processing styles of the different parts of the brain?
How does the brain grow and develop dominance?
How can Neurological Dominance be measured?