Out-of-the-Box Lawyering

Here's a potential out-of-the-box defense for an aggressive client: My mother's drinking or her smoking made me do it — Just look — My arms (or legs or ears or feet or whatever) are not symmetrical

A study in the July/August issue of the American Journal of Human Biology concluded that the less symmetrical a person's paired body parts (such as arms, legs and ears) were, the more likely it would be that the person would show signs of aggression when provoked.

A detailed discussion in Medical News Today of the study made the following observations:

"Research showed that the farther certain paired body parts were from symmetry – if one ear, index finger or foot was bigger than another, for example – the more likely it is was [sic] that a person would show signs of aggression when provoked. The symmetry effects were different in men and women, however."

Although this does sound strange, here's what Medical News reports, including quotations from Zeynep Benderlioglu, one of the co-authors of the study:

"Deviations from symmetry are thought to reflect stressors during pregnancy – such as poor health, alcohol and tobacco use – that may affect development of the fetus in a variety of ways.

" ‘Paired body parts are presumably controlled by similar genetic instructions, so if everything goes perfectly you would expect paired body parts to be the same size,' Benderlioglu said.

" ‘But stressors during pregnancy may lead to asymmetrical body parts. The same stressors will also affect development of the central nervous system, which involves impulse control and aggression,' she said. ‘So while asymmetry doesn't cause aggression, they both seem to be correlated to similar factors during pregnancy.' "

The study also found that there were gender differences in the way that men and women handled different kinds of stress, and even within the same gender there were differences in the way that the tested subjects handled different kinds of stress.

Thus, Benderlioglu warned that stressors such as smoking and heavy alcohol use by pregnant women could lead to the poor impulse control.

You can see an abstract of the article at no charge; you can purchase a pdf copy of the article for $25.00

The Medical News summary includes a contact telephone number and e-mail address for Benderlioglu. It also links to an Ohio State version of the article. The Ohio State version (which may be the original version) includes links to the authors and to some additional information.

Posted by ajlevy at August 26, 2004 5:53 PM