In the 1800s, neurologists Broca and Wernicke determined that their patients who were having trouble communicating had damage to the left temporal lobes, which suggested that the left brain controlled language, as explained by TedEd.Īdditionally, Nobel Prize-winning research by Roger Sperry demonstrated in the 1960s that each hemisphere of the brain specializes in certain tasks. For example, the left side of your brain controls your right arms and legs, and vice versa. Certain areas of the brain do manage particular functions, such as movement and sight. What’s Really Happening on Each Side of the Brain We love classification schemes like astrology, Myers-Briggs and endless personality quizzes, even though, according to Inc., calling yourself “left brained” or “right brained” is totally meaningless. People love to learn about their own psychology, and they crave definitive answers. Jekyll) competing with an emotional right brain (instinctual Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson’s fictional characters represented the duality of human nature and explored the idea of a logical left brain (reasonable Dr. right brained people originates from science and has become fictionalized over time. It’s true each hemisphere of the brain controls different functions, but this fact doesn’t relate to personality. In reality, people use both parts of the brain equally, and logic and creativity are not mutually exclusive. This popular idea has been around for more than 200 years and has proliferated in the age of BuzzFeed personality quizzes, but it simply isn’t true. Supposedly, left brained people are more logical, while right brained people are more creative. The left brain right brain myth stems from the common idea that your dominant personality traits are related to which side of your brain has more control.