The left-cradling bias is the tendency to cradle an infant on the left side, regardless of the individuals’ handedness, culture or ethnicity. Many studies revealed associations between socio-emotional variables and the left-side bias, suggesting that this asymmetry might be considered as a proxy of the emotional attunement between the cradling and the cradled individuals. In this study we examined whether adult females with high levels of prejudice toward a specific ethnic group would show reduced left-cradling preferences when required to cradle an infant-like doll with ethnical features of the prejudiced group. We manipulated the ethnicity of the cradled individual by asking 336 Caucasian women to cradle a White or a Black doll and then assessed their prejudice levels toward African individuals. Significant correlations were shown only in the Black doll group indicating that the more the prejudice toward Africans, the more the cradling-side preferences shifted toward the right. Furthermore, participants exhibiting low levels—but not those exhibiting high levels—of ethnic prejudice showed a significant left-cradling bias. These findings show that ethnic prejudice toward the specific ethnic group of the cradled individual can interfere with the left preference in the cradling woman. The present study corroborates our suggestion that the left-cradling bias might be considered as a natural index of a positive socio-communicative relationship between the cradling and cradled individuals. On the contrary, the right-cradling bias might be considered as a cue of the presence of affective dysfunctions in the relationship.

左抱偏向是指倾向于在左侧抱婴儿，无论个体的惯用手、文化或种族如何。许多研究揭示了社会情绪变量与左侧偏见之间的关联，这表明这种不对称性可能被认为是婴儿和被婴儿之间情绪协调的代表。在这项研究中，我们检查了对特定种族群体具有高度偏见的成年女性在需要抱一个具有偏见群体种族特征的婴儿娃娃时，是否会表现出减少的左抱偏好。我们通过让 336 名高加索女性抱一个白人或黑人娃娃，然后评估她们对非洲人的偏见程度，来操纵被摇篮者的种族。仅在黑娃娃组中显示出显着的相关性，表明对非洲人的偏见越多，摇篮一侧的偏好就越向右移动。此外，表现出低水平（但不是表现出高水平）种族偏见的参与者表现出明显的左摇篮偏见。这些发现表明，对被拥抱的个体的特定种族群体的种族偏见会干扰被拥抱的女性的左派偏好。本研究证实了我们的建议，即左抱偏见可能被认为是抱抱个体和被抱抱个体之间积极的社会交流关系的自然指标。相反，右抱偏见可能被认为是关系中存在情感功能障碍的线索。