Graphology

A handwriting sample used in a graphological analysis manual, which supposedly shows features of "frivolity" and "triviality" in the writer.

Victor Hugo's signature.

Shakespeare's signature.

Graphology is the analysis of an individual's handwriting with the intention of determining that person's personality traits. There is no scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of graphology, which is why it is considered a pseudoscience and a scientifically questionable practice. Graphology has also been rated as "one of the five most common psychological tests discredited" by mental health professionals.

Despite the lack of evidence of effectiveness to support it, graphology remains in widespread use in France and historically its use has been considered legitimate in some court cases.

Etymology

Part of the Greek root "grafos" (γραφή = writing) and the Greek word "logos" (λόγος which refers to knowledge, discussion or theory).

History

Jean-Charles Gille-Maisani stated in 1991 that Juan Huarte de San Juan's 1575 Examen de ingenios para las ciencias was the first book on handwriting analysis.

In American graphology, Camillo Baldi's Trattato come da una lettera missiva si conoscano la natura e qualità dello scrittore of 1622 is considered the first book on the subject.

Around 1830, Jean-Hippolyte Michon became interested in the analysis of handwriting. He published his findings soon after founding Société Graphologique in 1871. The most prominent of his disciples was Jules Crépieux-Jamin, who quickly published a series of books that were soon published in other languages. Building on Michon's integrative approach, Crépieux-Jamin founded a holistic approach to graphology.

After World War I, interest in graphology continued to spread in both Europe and the United States. In Germany, during the 1920s, Ludwig Klages founded and published his findings in Zeitschrift für Menschenkunde (Journal for the Study of Mankind ). His main contribution to the field can be found in Handschrift und Charakter.

Thea Stein Lewinson and J. Zubin modified Klage's ideas, based on their experience working for the US government, and published their own method in 1942.

In 1929, Milton Bunker founded "The American Grapho Analysis Society" to teach graphoanalysis. This organization and his system divided the world of American graphology in two. The students had to choose between graphoanalysis or holistic graphology. While hard data is lacking, anecdotal evidence indicates that 10% of International Graphoanalytical Society (IGAS) members were expelled between 1970 and 1980.

Regarding a proposed correlation between gender and writing style, an article published by James Hartley in 1989 concluded that there was some evidence in support of this hypothesis.

Schlicht, an academic historian, states that while graphology failed to become a scientific discipline, many experts in experimental psychology and psychiatry participated in the effort to study graphology within a more widely recognized science of expression, and that "characterizing something as pseudoscience can easily result in an unsystematic examination of a historical constellation of knowledge production".

According to a 2004 study carried out in Spain by the Instituto de Ciencias del Grafismo, the use of graphology today occurs mainly in human resources offices, where according to this study, 90% of these offices (in Spain) analyze the writing of the interviewees, the degree of use of graphology being greater when the responsibility of the job is higher.

Graphology has been controversial for more than a century. Although supporters point to anecdotal evidence from positive testimonials as a reason to use it for personality assessment, empirical studies fail to show that it has the validity claimed by its proponents.

Validity and efficacy

Although graphology enjoyed some support in the scientific community before the mid-XX century, more recent studies have resulting in a null ability of graphology to describe personality or predict job performance. For this reason, it is generally included within the category of pseudosciences.

The British Psychological Society classifies graphology along with astrology, giving both a measure of "zero validity".

Graphology was also dismissed as a pseudoscience by skeptic James Randi in 1991.

On the May 21, 2013 episode of the Skeptoid podcast titled 'All About Graphology,' science skeptical author Brian Dunning reported:

In his book The Write StuffBarry Beyerstein summarized Geoffrey Dean's work, who probably carried out the most extensive study of literature on graphology ever performed. Dean did a meta-analysis of about 200 studies:

Dean showed that graphologists have unequivocally failed to demonstrate the validity or reliability of their art to predict work performance, skills, or personality. Therefore, grafology fails according to the standards that a genuine psychological test must pass before it can be ethically launched for use in a detached audience.

Dean discovered that no particular graphology school was better than another one... In fact, no graphologist of any kind could show a performance reliably better than that of untrained fans who made conjectures from the same materials. In the vast majority of studies, none of the groups exceeded the expectation of probability.

Dunning concludes:

Other techniques of divination such as iridology, braking, quiromancy and astrology also have different schools of thought, require years of training, offer costly certifications and fail with the same solidity when subjected to a controlled scientific test. However, handwriting analysis has its distinction that sounds plausible from those other techniques, and that is the idea of "hand writing is brain writing": the traits of the brain will manifest in the way it controls the muscles of the hand. Unfortunately, this is as unscientific as the others. No amount of language that sounds scientific can compensate for the failure of a technique when subjected to a scientifically controlled test.

Personality prediction

Currently, graphology is considered a pseudoscience. Despite the existence of a large number of studies focused on evaluating its effectiveness in predicting the personality and work performance of a subject, the results of recent studies that tests on the validity of using handwriting analysis to predict personality traits and job performance have been consistently negative.

In a 1987 study, graphologists were unable to predict scores on the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) using handwriting samples from the same people.

In a 1988 study, graphologists were unable to predict scores on the Myers-Briggs test using handwriting samples from the same people.

The Dutch Society of Industrial Psychologists considered 2,250 graphological diagnoses and concluded that "graphology as a method is highly questionable and unlikely to be of practical value"

A 1982 meta-analysis drawn from more than 200 studies concludes that graphologists were generally unable to predict any type of personality trait on any personality test.

Job performance

Measures of job performance appear unrelated to metrics obtained by graphologists studying handwriting. In a 1989 study professional graphologists using handwriting analysis were as ineffective as laymen in predicting performance.

A broad selection of literature by King and Koehler confirmed dozens of studies showing that the geometric aspects of graphology (steepness, slope, etc.) are essentially useless predictors of job performance.

In their research, Rafaeli and Klimoski (1983) found no evidence of validity of graphology in predicting success in salespeople.

Rowan Bayne, a British psychologist who has written several studies on graphology, summed up his view on the appeal of graphology: "it is very seductive because at a very basic level, someone who is neat and behaves well it tends to have neat handwriting". Adding that the practice is "useless...absolutely useless".

Although advocates of graphology claim that it is widely used by HR offices for recruiting, this claim has been proven false.

Specific criticisms

Critics of the use of graphology argue that the lack of empirical evidence is a sufficient reason not to attribute any factual validity to graphology. Specific criticisms include:

• It does not follow the postulates of the scientific method: the evidence on which it is based is exigua, informal, not solid and completely disproportionate in relation to the purported scope of its conclusions. Their results are difficult to fake, or even impossible, in the popperian sense. Dean (1992), in studying the vision of true science on this questioned discipline, shows that the more complex and exhaustive the peer review of which they have been subjected, the higher the reputation of the advertising medium and the more solid the formation and background of the intervening authors and reviewers, the more categorical the rejection of the foundations underlying graphology.
• Particularly susceptible to the Barnum Effect, which poses an added difficulty in all methods that seek objective personality determination. See, for example, Tallent (1958) on the basic deficiencies of such studies and how easily they can lose the individualizing capacity they intend to guarantee.
• Double blind. Many of the statistical studies of graphologists are not Double-blind, this criticism is related to the criticism that includes the Barnum Effect on it. Studies that are double-blind demonstrate the inefficiency of graphology.
• Sample size unit. Its degree of validity is highly dependent on sample size: the probability of diagnosis failure is given inverse relation to the number of individuals in the relieved group. In this regard, see Dean (1992). The author enumerates and describes the errors of experimental design, methodology and determination of the basic premises committed by the graphologists on which he based his research.
• Use of principles of allegorical thought. This form of false causality establishes, for example, that an extensive space between two letters any shows a "retracted and isolationist" character. From a woman who writes her maiden name in letters slightly greater than that of a married woman she deduces that "she is being unfaithful to her husband." Someone who writes in big letters must, of course, "think big." Who varies the size of his letter in the middle of the paragraph has an "unpredictable personality". These causal relationships are not exclusive to graphology, but they characterize much of the personality determination methods.
• Standardization: It is common for each practitioner to form their own analytical scheme. While some concepts are of common use, there are very marked disputes about the supposed meaning of most signs. For example, a certain trait interpreted by an analyst as a revealer of a sadistic behavior is, on the contrary, seen by another graphologist as proper to a bromist individual.
• Vagueness: some important principles of graphology are vague enough to allow a graphologist to sessage interpretations to adapt to a preconceived topic or conclusion. For example, one of the main concepts in Ludwig Klages theory is form-niveau (or form-level): the general level of originality, beauty, harmony, style, etc. of the writing of a person, quality which, according to Klages, can be perceived but not measured. According to this theory, the same sign has a positive or negative meaning according to the character and general personality of the subject, as the sign reveals. form-niveau. In practice, this can lead the graphologist to interpret the signs positively or negatively depending on whether the subject has a high or low social status.
• More than 200 scientific studies have demonstrated the absence of any association between an individual's personality and his writing traits. It has been suggested that any apparent capacity of graphology for guess the character is based on the diffuse information of gender and social position naturally implied in the form and trace of the letters.

• King and Koehler gathered a group of volunteers with no knowledge of graphology, and asked them to try to determine the personality of certain editors (who they did not know) based on their writings. The coincidence of their diagnosis with those of professional graphologists was astonishing, not only in the concrete results but in the methodology used: they intuitively assigned personality qualities according to the signs that metaphorically the writing seemed to indicate; for example, an upward stroke was associated with an optimistic mentality. The researchers, then, selected writers whose personalities were diametrically opposed to what their writing seemed to indicate, for example, individuals of a pessimistic character but who wrote with an upward stroke. Volunteers continued to diagnose qualities of optimism in this case. These findings confirm one of the main objections made to this discipline: given the intuitive ability of most of the lakes to reach the legos themselves Conclusions that professionals, it is easy for anyone to alter the form of their writing in order to direct the practitioner to the desired diagnosis, which invalidates the presumed predictive capacity of graphology.

Variants

Each approach to handwriting analysis has spawned several systems:

• Inclusive graphology focuses on the strokes and their relationship with the personality.
• Bunker's graffiti was the most influential system in the United States between 1929 and 2000.
• The Xandró System is another method of integrating graphology.
• Holistic graphology is based on the form, movement and use of space.
• Psychogram is another method that uses specific diagrams to analyze writing.
• The Personal Value Chart is one of the methods developed by Handwriting Consultants of San Diego in the early 1980s.
• Psychography is an additional psychogram method developed by Leslie King during the 1970s.
• Wittlich character diagram and Muller-Enskat protocol are other psychogram methods.
• Psychologists Leopold Szondi, Augusto Vels and Girolamo Moretti created their own graphology schools.

• European Graphoanalysis: it is a metric-grafopsicological technique systems by which its proponents claim to be able to obtain a percentile of the predominant temperamental and characteristical, after valuation of more than 200 parameters. It is constituted by the method of A. Vels (2001) and the method of Viñals & Puente (1999).

Vocabulary

Each handwriting analysis system has its own vocabulary. Although two or more systems may share the same words, the meanings of those words may be different. The technical meaning of a word used by a handwriting analyst and the common meaning are not congruent. The "resentment", for example, in common usage, means annoyance. In graphoanalysis, the term indicates a "fear of imposition".

Degrees and Certifications

There are at least four academic institutions that offer an accredited degree in handwriting analysis:

• University of Urbino, Italy: MA (Graphology)
• Instituto Superior Emerson, Buenos Aires, Argentina: Bachelor's degree (Graphology)
• Centro de Estudios Superiores (CES), Buenos Aires, Argentina: Licentia (Graphology)
• Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain: MA (Graphology)
• Universidad Villanueva Montaño, Mexico Bachelor of Graphology and Criminalistics (includes psychographic studies).

Applications

Job Profile

A company may take a writing sample provided by a candidate and proceed to do a personality profile, matching the candidate's match to the ideal psychological profile of the employees in the position. The applicant could also commit bad practices in this system; they could ask someone to write on his behalf.

Fitness-for-employment research using graphology has ranged from complete failure; to success with reservations. The most important reason for not using handwriting analysis in the employment process is the lack of evidence of a direct link between handwriting analysis and various job performance measures.

The use of graphology in the recruitment process has been criticized for ethical reasons and for legal reasons in the case of the United States.

Psychological analysis

Graphology has been used clinically by European counselors and psychotherapists. When used, it is generally in conjunction with other projective personality assessment tools, rather than in isolation. It is often used within individual psychotherapy, marriage counseling, or vocational counseling.

Marital Compatibility

In its simplest form, only sexual expression and sexual response are examined. In its most complex form, each aspect of an individual is examined to see how it affects the other individuals within the relationship. The theory is that after knowing and understanding how each individual in the relationship differs from all other individuals in the relationship, the resulting marriage will be more durable. A comparative analysis measures the responses of the receiving and non-receiving parties.

Medical diagnosis

Medical graphology is probably the most controversial branch of handwriting analysis. Strictly speaking, such research is not graphology as described throughout this article, but an examination of factors related to motor control. Research studies have been conducted considering a detailed examination of handwriting factors, particularly timing, fluency, pressure, and consistency of size, shape, speed, and pressure in the writing process. evaluation of patients and their response to pharmacological therapeutic agents. The study of these phenomena is a byproduct of researchers investigating motor control processes and the interaction of the body's nervous, anatomical, and biomechanical systems.

Graphotherapy

This is the pseudoscience of changing a person's handwriting in order to change their personality characteristics, or "reverse handwriting analysis". It originated in France during the 1950s. 1930s and spread to the United States in the late 1950s. The purported therapy consists of a series of exercises that are similar to those taught in basic calligraphy courses, sometimes along with music or self-talk. positive.

Legal considerations

In Hungary

A report by the Hungarian parliamentary commissioner for data protection and freedom of information says that handwriting analysis without informed consent constitutes a violation of privacy.

In the United States

Gender and writing

A 1991 review of the then current literature concluded that respondents could predict a person's gender by analyzing handwriting between 57% and 78% of the time. Most of these samples, as well as subsequent studies, are based on small sample sizes collected in a non-random fashion. A study with a much larger and more recent sample of over 3,000 participants only found a classification accuracy of 54% Since statistical discrimination below 0.7 is generally considered unacceptable, this indicates that most of the results are quite inaccurate, and that the variation in observed results is likely due to sampling technique and bias.

The reason for this bias varies; while it has been speculated that biology contributes to this due to fine motor skills, this explanation is flawed due to a lack of direct evidence, a lack of large differences in motor skills by gender, and any remaining differences being non-existent. uniform and culturally explainable. In contrast, explanations rooted in culture and gender bias may better explain the data.

Employment Law

A 2001 advisory opinion letter from the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission responded to a question about "whether it is legal to use an analysis of an applicant's handwriting as a screening tool of employment". It also asks if it is legal to ask the applicant's age and medication use to allow for variations in their letter". The letter warned that in this circumstance, it was illegal under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). acronym) asking a job applicant if he or she was taking any medication, and also warned that asking an applicant's age "supposedly to allow for variant analysis of their handwriting" it was not a violation per se of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), but it could be significant evidence of age discrimination. The letter also stated that there was no judicial guidance about "whether an applicant exclusion policy based on your letter has an adverse impact on a protected group" under the ADA, ADEA, or Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Personalities of graphology

• Jean-Charles Gille-Maisani (1924-1995). Engineer, mathematician, psychiatrist, psychologist and graphologist.
• Augusto Vels (1917-2000). Graphologist. Founder of the Graphoanalysts Consultative Group.