Comments on: Graphology: Connections Between Handwriting and Personality are Illusory

By: Metricman

Metricman — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 12:26:00 +0000

Jeremy's article suffers from stereotypical criticisms of graphology. Over many years I have carefully reviewed all of the "evidence" he cites with a different interpretation.

For example Geoffrey Dean did not examine 200 studies - because that many do not exist: he used meta-analysis which does have problems - but even then he detected validity. His work should be updated (or repeated).

The Psychological Society Position Paper is exactly that - a position - which is fair enough. But tracing the evidence used in the paper one must feel that the subject deserves more research. The reality is that good evidence is not available to support or to attack graphology.

When I met Dean in London he told me he felt that it merits further attention. Eysenck also held this view. I find the stance taken by this post to be extremely narrow-minded.

Nigel Bradley, University of Westminster

By: CricketB

CricketB — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:09:00 +0000

When I was training a wide variety of personnel, I found those with less education and who rarely wrote during the job often wrote neater than the highly educated. My theory is that those who had to take university notes at top speed (e.g., med student) got use to doing what it took, so long as they could still read it. Those who learned to write properly but never pushed it to those limits kept their nice writing. Admittedly, in a group assignment, they'd chose the best writer, but some of those almost illiterate men had beautiful handwriting. My grandfather was manager of a mine, and once told me, a junior engineer, "I refused to read handwritten reports. That's what typists are for." His other grand-daughter, a doctor, prides herself in neat penmanship, at least in notes to others. She's a tidy and successful person and shows it in her dress, office decoration, demeanor, and handwriting. Also, her audience and what she has to say are important.

However, you can tell some things. Europeans have a very different cursive than Americans. The system taught in America has changed several times, with different levels of slant and fancy useless strokes.

By: Jeremy (PsyBlog author)

Jeremy (PsyBlog author) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 07:49:00 +0000

Roger, maybe a little, but not that much.

Jaded, it may seem that way, but there isn't much substance!

stupidwhiteperson, I think you've misread the article. The research has looked at the connection between character traits and personality and they found very little connection.

By: stupidwhiteperson

stupidwhiteperson — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 04:06:00 +0000

Apologies for the fool comment, it only occurred to me at the last second why the researchers were having trouble. They need to look for character traits, not genetic or social markers.

By: stupidwhiteperson

stupidwhiteperson — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:58:00 +0000

Graphology is much more specific then identifying gender or socio-economic statis. In fact, the graphology I'm familiar with doesn't even attempt such overly-broad generalizations.

Instead, it suggests particular character traits will be found in an individual, to a greater or lesser degree. Perhaps the reason these researchers didn't find what they were looking for was because they were looking for the wrong thing?

It makes sense that one's personality will impact how shapes are formed and connected. I have never seen this proven wrong in any person's handwriting yet.

How about they subject volunteers to a character assessment test, and then submit handwriting examples to graphologists? Please be sure to use a fair number of women graphologists, though, the men aren't as emphathetic and they tend to fill gaps in their knowledge with hyperbole.

Neither gender nor income level is a character trait, you fool, so of course you won't find that in someone's handwriting.

By: Jaded Enlightenment

Jaded Enlightenment — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 01:20:00 +0000

This article seems to be suffering from a few fallacies of discourse--mainly that it's begging the question (that, of course, Graphology is un-scientific) and thus assumes precisely what it's arguing. So the article's not overly informative, which is sad as I'm really quite interested in the phenomenon of graphology and how it's viewed in the scientific community.

I know the art/psuedoscience of it and practice it occasionally; it's a fun way to get to know people and occasionally freak them out. I know easily 70% of my interpretations are cold-reading, but there does seem to be some substance to that last 30% ;)

By: Roger

Roger — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:58:00 +0000

One thing is for sure...
A person who writes legibly cares somewhat about whether others can read what he/she has written.
A person who writes with beautiful penmanship will bring pleasure to a percentage of those who read his or her writings. That certainly tells tou something about the personality of the writer.

By: laura02

laura02 — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:50:00 +0000

Is a bit of fun though, nothing more.
And the article still does not explain why we develop such varied ways of writing. Can anyone answer me that?

Laura.