Does Handwriting Really Reveal Personality?
A Scientific, Skeptical Look at Handwriting Analysis
Oct 1, 2009
Employment, forensics, therapy, and party tricks share a common theme: handwriting. Handwriting analysis, also known as “graphology,” has been used for centuries in a plethora of situations; however, the argument wages on regarding the validity of the art. Some believe that it is a legitimate science while others pass it off as nothing more than a pseudoscience like astrology or tarot
Despite its criticisms, graphology is booming. According to the Handwriting Research Corporation, there are currently more than 2,000 published works on the subject. In the United States, there are more than 20,000 “certified” handwriting analysts and an estimated 5,000 U.S. corporations use graphology in employment screening, team-building, and other applications. With such a wide appeal, graphology should hold up as a legitimate science, but unfortunately, it does not. While it can be a rather harmless form of entertainment, its scientific flaws suggest that it has no place in personnel selection and forensics
What is Handwriting Analysis?
Handwriting analysis is a method of determining a person’s personality based solely on his or her handwriting. Personality can be read from the slant, size, pressure, margins, and garlands of the overall writing, but a graphologist often looks at the formation of individual letters. Even though graphology makes many claims, graphologists are quick to point out that handwriting cannot determine the writer’s sex, whether the writer is right or left handed, or the writer’s future.
Is Handwriting Analysis Scientifically Accurate?
Bart Baggett, operator of “Handwriting University,” an online graphology certification-granting institution, calls handwriting analysis a “clinical science” and notes that the Library of Congress classified it as a credible social science in 1981. However, rarely do graphologists themselves provide any evidence that what they do is a legitimate science. Instead, they let the apparent accuracy of their handwriting analyses validate the practice as true.
Because of these shortcomings, many skeptics regard handwriting analysis as a pseudoscience. The online Skeptic’s Dictionary classifies graphology as “Junk Science,” calling it “another in a long list of quack substitutes for hard work.” The practice of handwriting analysis does not follow a single set of rules for interpreting handwriting. Rather, handwriting characteristic meanings vary from one book to the next.
According to the website for the North Texas Skeptics, dozens of scientific studies have shown handwriting analysis to be a poor predictor of personality and job performance. One study, conducted in 1988 by psychologists John Hunter and Frank Schmidt and published in Psychological Bulletin, analyzed the accuracy of the many personnel selection procedures used by businesses. They found that of all the modern hiring tools, handwriting analysis was the least effective method.
Why Do People Believe Graphology is Accurate?
Barry Beyerstein, PhD., writes in an article titled “How Graphology Fools People” on QuackWatch.org, “The spurious feeling that something deeply informative has been revealed in an astrological, graphological, or psychic reading arises from a kind of cognitive slippage that has come to be known as ‘the Barnum effect.’” The Barnum Effect is the interpretation of vague, positive information as being very self-relevant.
When people are given a character reading that includes positive attributes, they latch onto them, wanting to be consistent with such a positive appraisal of their personality. Also, many character readings consist of personality traits that apply to most people. Because nobody is one-hundred percent “outgoing,” for instance, a reading that includes the analysis “You’re the type of person who sometimes prefers staying in rather than going out” will apply to most everybody.
This process is similar to an ancient technique used by charlatans touting psychic ability. “Cold reading” allows a fraudulent psychic to read a stranger’s personality through apparently supernatural means. In actuality, the performer merely makes vague statements that could be perceived as true if the participant is willing to make the connection. The same idea holds true in the weekly horoscopes. If somebody wants to believe that the horoscopes are true, he or she will make the connections on his or her own.
Should Handwriting Analysis Be Used To Make Important Decisions?
Due to these major flaws in handwriting analysis, it certainly does not make sense to use it to convict murderers and make employment decisions. If the public finds it believable enough to want their handwriting analyzed, however, there is no harm as long as the reading is done strictly for entertainment. But until legitimate evidence can demonstrate handwriting’s ability to predict the writer’s personality, graphology belongs in the realm of pseudoscience like palmistry and tarot reading.
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