Goodness of the side of the dominant hand: A registered direct replication of Casasanto (2009)
People associate emotional valence with the side of their dominant and non-dominant hands. Specifically, positive (negative) valence is linked with the side of dominant (non-dominant) hand known as the horizontal-valence metaphor. A previous study demonstrated that participants placed a good (bad) object on the side of their dominant (non-dominant) hand (Casasanto, 2009, J. Exp. Psychol.: Gen, 138, 351–367). This phenomenon indicates that the horizontal-valence metaphor influences our behavior. However, subsequent studies reported that the effect of the horizontal-valence metaphor was not found in the other tasks. These studies raise the following question: Is the effect of the horizontal-valence metaphor robust? In the present registered report, we conducted a direct replication of Experiment 1 from Casasanto’s study (2009). We could not replicate the results of right-handers in the previous study. Moreover, most of the effect sizes in present research were small even though their results were statistically significant. Our findings throw doubt on the robustness of the horizontal-valence metaphor. #Pre-registration of the study can be found at https://psyarxiv.com/rfvp2