The study of handwriting, especially when employed as a means of analyzing character. Graphologists believe that handwriting is a physical manifestation of a purely mental function and can reveal as much about a person as astrology or psychometry, or the Myers-Briggs test. Graphology is claimed to be useful for understanding teenagers, marriage guidance, criminal detection, and the diagnosis of illness.[PCCS]
Graphology has no sound theoretical basis, though there are a variety of techniques used by graphologists. Even so, the interpretations of these "experts" seem to all be reducible to impressionistic evaluations which claim to understand basic personality traits from such things as the pressure exerted on the page, spacing of words and letters, crossed t's, dotted i's, and size, slant, speed and consistency of writing.
Since there is no useful theory as to how graphology might work, it is not surprising that there is no empirical evidence that any graphological characteristics significantly correlate with any interesting personality trait. Even non-experts, however, are able to correctly identify the gender of a writer about 70% of the time.[Furnham, p. 204]
Adrian Furnham writes
Readers familiar with the techniques of cold reading will be able to understand why graphology appears to work and why so many (otherwise intelligent) people believe in it.[p. 204]Add to cold reading, the Forer or Barnum effect and communal reinforcement, and I think you have a fairly complete explanation for graphology's popularity.
Graphology is another pipe dream (too much opium?) of those who want a quick and dirty decision making process to tell them who to marry, who did the crime, who I should hire, what career I should seek, where the good hunting is, where the water, oil, or buried treasure is, or which way I should move next. Graphology is another in a long list quack substitutes for hard work. It is appealing to those who are impatient with such troublesome matters as research, evidence analysis, reasoning, logic and hypothesis testing. So, if you want results and you want them now and you want them stated in strong, certain terms, graphology is for you. If, however, you can live with reasonable probabilities and uncertainty, you might try another method to pick a spouse or hire an employee.
05 Jul 1996
Reviewing a student's paper (I teach human resources at a university
in Atlantic Canada) on graphology, I was searching the web for
information and ran across your site. The student's paper was light
on skepticism and high on reported success (100's of companies in
France, the US, Israel-- and "I'm sure lots in Canada but they don't
report it") and I was gearing up for a full frontal rebuttal about
validity.
Your item on graphology is a good basis for our discussion--focused, challenging. Thanks. I'll dip into more of your items.
Tony Dearness
See related entries on crystals, palmistry, the polygraph and rorschach testing.
further reading
Graphological Gender Testing A humorous application of this wonderful "science".
-----The Write Stuff - Evaluations of Graphology, the Study of Handwriting Analysis, edited by Barry L. Beyerstein and Dayle F. Beyerstein (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1991).
Basil, Robert. "Graphology and Personality: `Let the Buyer Beware'," in The Hundreth Monkey and Other Paradigms of the Paranormal,ed. Kendrick Frazier (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1991), pp. 206-208.
Furnham, Adrian. "Write and Wrong: The Validity of Graphological Analysis," in The Hundreth Monkey and Other Paradigms of the Paranormal,ed. Kendrick Frazier (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1991), pp. 200-205.
Gardner, Martin. Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1957), ch. 24.