Category: Personality

Graphology, or handwriting analysis, claims to reveal people’s personalities and more, but the science is very doubtful.

Graphology is the analysis of handwriting to try and extract information about personality, psychological states, marital compatibility, personnel selection and even medical conditions.

Unfortunately, it is total baloney.

Graphology is now considered by scientists to be a pseudoscience with little to recommend it.

Scientific research finds that graphology really reveals very little about a person, other than whether they are man or woman and rich or poor.

The attraction of graphology

At first glance the myth that our personalities might be hidden in our handwriting is attractive.

The way each of us writes is so personal, apparently in just the same way our personalities are so individual.

Handwriting is also a mode of personal expression, a creative act we have been developing our whole lives.

Sure, people can guess the author’s gender from a handwriting sample about 60 percent to 70 percent of the time, bearing in mind that 50 percent is pure chance.

People also perform better than chance at guessing an author’s socioeconomic status from their handwriting.

But can you really read any deep psychological truths into a person’s handwriting?

Maybe people who have fast handwriting are impulsive?

Maybe untidy handwriting means depression?

Graphologists (not to be confused with forensic document examiners) have gone much further, though, in interpreting handwriting.

They have made all sorts of claims, including that graphology can help you:

• Select your perfect marriage partner.
• Find out whether your partner is cheating on you.
• Identify which potential employees will become violent on the job.
• Decide which applicants for a loan are credit-worthy.

Impressive claims, no?

Let’s check them out…

Putting graphology to the test

Geoffrey Dean has reviewed two hundred different studies into whether graphology can tell us anything about personality (Dean, 1992).

Adding up the effect of each of these studies showed that graphology has a combined power of about…wait for it…zero.

Well, not quite zero but still very, very small – so small as to be insignificant.

That’s not to say that some of the plentiful studies on graphology don’t find more positive results, some of them do, even though they’re usually still small.

But, unsurprisingly, these studies are published by graphologists themselves in sources that cannot be considered reputable.

For example they paid for it to be published.

Of the studies that are published in peer-reviewed journals that use rigorous scientific methodologies, hardly any show an effect.

As a result, the respectability of graphology within the scientific community has now been all but wiped out.

Using graphology in personnel selection

Of course, the simple fact that empirical studies show it has no validity hasn’t stopped graphologists continuing to make all sorts of claims for their ‘science’.

Professor Barry Beyerstein, a scientific sceptic who was well-known as an investigator of questionable psychological techniques and products, points out that claims about the validity of graphology are potentially damaging.

Beyerstein (2007) explains how he was once told by a graphologist that he had been sexually molested by his parents and that he had a drug problem.

Needless to say neither of these ‘interpretations’ were true.

Perhaps one of the most widespread, and potentially damaging uses, is in recruitment.

It is thought between 5 percent and 10 percent of businesses in both the US and the UK use graphology as part of the recruitment process.

In other parts of the world the figure is even higher.

Astonishingly between 38 percent and 93 percent of businesses in France use graphology – probably because one of graphology’s pioneers, Jean Hyppolyte Michon, was French.

Still, it’s difficult to know exactly how many companies still use graphology because many deny it, despite probably using it (Bradley, 2005).

They’re right to keep it secret: it’s embarrassing.

A recent review of the literature on the use of graphology specifically in recruitment was carried out by the British Psychological Society.

They found that graphology has exactly the same validity in personnel selection as astrology, i.e. none.

Accepting the evidence

The reason people tend not to think too critically about graphology is probably because it seems so intuitive.

Indeed studies have shown that people know how to change their handwriting so as to affect other people’s impression of them (Loewenthal, 1975).

In other words, we seem to share some beliefs in common about what certain features of handwriting signify, although these connections are merely illusory.

Despite the intuitive nature of the connections between handwriting and personality, we have to bow to the sheer weight of evidence against graphology.

And this evidence keeps telling us that it doesn’t work.

Consequently, people who believe in graphology should rightly be treated with the same suspicion as those who believe in astrology.

Humour them if you wish, educate them if you can, but don’t take them seriously.

.

People with these personality traits as teenagers are likely to live longer.

Empathy, calmness and energy are among the personality traits that predict a long life, research finds.

These teenage personality traits predicted people’s longevity five decades later.

Along with these, people who are tidier, intellectually curious and more mature also live longer.

In contrast, people who were impulsive as teens were not likely to live as long.

Impulsive people tend to act without thinking or controlling themselves.

The conclusions come from a study that followed 26,845 people for almost 50 years, on average, starting in 1960.

All were asked about their personality, family background and later income and jobs.

The results showed that six personality factors were linked to a long life:

• energy,
• empathy,
• calmness,
• tidiness,
• intellectual curiosity,
• and maturity.

Only impulsiveness was linked to a shorter lifespan.

Personality may affect lifespan in a number of ways, the authors write:

“Life course mechanisms linking personality to poorer health outcomes include the adoption of poor health behaviours and long-term effects of wear and tear on the immune, endocrine and cardiovascular systems.

Maladaptive traits also appear to limit later educational attainment, impede mid-life occupational advancement and increase risk of divorce-social and socioeconomic factors linked to later death.”

However, it’s surprising how predictive adolescent personality can be, the study’s authors write:

“In one sense, the tracing of personality-mortality associations back to adolescence is surprising because the high school years are widely seen as a time of personality development and malleability.”

So, although people may change over the years, it is not enough to wipe out the effects of personality on longevity.

The study was published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health (Chapman et al., 2019).

What message are your shoes sending to the world about your personality — psychology research reveals all.

People make surprisingly accurate guesses about other people’s personalities from relatively little information, a psychology study reveals.

Shoes are often said to be a good indicator of a person’s personality — and psychology research agrees.

A study of 208 people looking only at pictures of shoes has found people could pick out some personality traits of their owners.

The shoes in the pictures were the ones the owner wore most often.

So, here is your guide to reading someone’s personality just by looking at their shoes (and what your shoes are telling other people).

Practical shoes = agreeable personality

To spot a more agreeable person, look for affordable and practical shoes.

People wearing shoes with pointy toes, those that are obviously branded or expensive, mean the wearer is likely to be less agreeable.

Anxiously attached people tend to wear shoes that look brand new.

‘Anxiously attached’ is psychologist-talk for people who are needy.

Needy people want your approval and perhaps their shiny, new shoes are one way they hope to get it.

The psychology study’s authors explain:

“People with anxious orientation constantly desire caring and attention.

One strategy for achieving attention is to decorate oneself in an expressive way, so that others would easily detect one’s style.

Thus, it is possible that anxiously attached people tend to wear shoes that are more in line with their personal characteristics, which makes them more observable and means they will more easily stand out.”

Worn out shoes = extraverted personality

Naturally, people with more money tend to wear more stylish shoes.

Women, in general, also tend to wear more expensive, branded shoes than men.

People wearing worn out shoes and/or high tops are more likely to be extraverted.

High-topped shoes are also linked to being more conscientious.

In general, people are pretty good at reading personality from shoes, the psychology study’s authors write:

“Observers agreed on many of the shoe owner characteristics, and they were reasonably accurate; observer ratings were correlated with the shoe owners’ self-ratings.”

Errors about personality and shoes

However, the people in the study also made some consistent mistakes when trying to read personality from shoes.

Colourful, bright shoes did not necessarily belong to extraverted people.

Attractive shoes in good condition did not necessarily belong to conscientious people.

Shabby shoes did not necessarily belong to a liberal!

In fact, you can tell very little about someone’s politics from their shoes, apparently.

The study was published in the Journal of Research in Personality (Gillath et al., 2012).

The signs of internet trolling and personality traits linked to it as well as how to handle internet trolls.

Trolling on the internet is the process of posting inflammatory, off-topic or insincere messages online in the hope of provoking other people.

A psychology study finds that internet trolls (people who engage in trolling) are more likely to have dark triad personality traits.

Narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy are the dark triad traits.

A fourth trait that trolls often have is enjoying schadenfreude.

Schadenfreude is a German word that means feeling pleasure at another person’s misfortune.

Definition of internet trolling

The practice of winding other people up online is known as ‘trolling’.

Online trolls typically hide behind fake names or anonymous accounts.

They are to be found in the comments threads of most media outlets, on Reddit, a popular internet discussion forum, on Twitter and just about anywhere that online discussions take place.

Signs someone is trolling

‘Trolls’ get pleasure out of drawing others into pointless, inflammatory, off-topic and sometimes ill-mannered interactions.

Here are some common signs that someone is trolling:

• Patronising or dismissive tone: asking someone why they are so angry winds them up more.
• Off-topic comments: remarks unrelated to the thread irritate other users.
• Being oblivious: apparently being emotionally unaffected by anything aimed at them.
• Ignoring evidence: taking no notice of facts and continuing with their own agenda.

How to handle internet trolling

The very best way to handle a troll is to ignore them.

The classic online saying is: “Don’t feed the trolls.”

Trolls want an emotional reaction, they want to know they are hurting you.

Handle a troll by not giving them the pleasure of seeing your pain, or even of acknowledging their existence.

The only real recourse in handling a troll is to report them to the site’s moderators if their behaviour becomes too disruptive.

Anti-social and sadistic internet trolls

National governments are not above hiring trolls to further their ends.

Some famous trolls-for-hire include:

• The Chinese government’s 50 Cent Party who are paid to create 440 million pro-government social media posts each year.
• Russian Wikipedia trolls who post true information out of context to make political points.
• Saudi Twitter trolls hired by the government to spread disinformation about the Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Dr Pamela Brubaker, author of a study on trolling, explained:

“People who exhibit those traits known as the dark triad are more likely to demonstrate trolling behaviors if they derive enjoyment from passively observing others suffer.

They engage in trolling at the expense of others.”

It is hardly surprising, then, that trolling is considered by many a type of anti-social behaviour and is strongly associated with sadistic personality disorder.

People who like trolling others online have also been found to enjoy hurting others in real life — a classic sign of a sadist (Buckels et al., 2019).

Internet trolling on Reddit

For their study, researchers Brigham Young and Arizona University conducted a survey of 400 Reddit users, asking them about their personalities and any trolling behaviours.

The results showed that people who enjoyed seeing other people suffer were more likely to engage in trolling behaviours.

Dr Scott Church, study co-author, said:

“This behavior may happen because it feels appropriate to the medium.

So, heavy users of the platform may feel like any and all trolling is ‘functional’ simply because it’s what people do when they go on Reddit.”

Internet trolls claim that their own dysfunctional behaviour is merely a way of communicating with others and is not destructive.

Dr Brubaker said:

“They are more concerned with enhancing their own online experience rather than creating a positive online experience for people who do not receive the same type of enjoyment or pleasure from such provocative discussions.”

In other words, trolls are enjoying themselves and do not care about their effect on others.

Internet trolling vs. speaking out

People who ‘speak out’ and voice their opinions online are quite different to trolls, the study found.

Speaking out is not related to trolling behaviours, suggesting civil but heated online discussion is possible.

Dr Church said:

“Remember who you are when you go online.

It helps when we think of others online as humans, people with families and friends like you and me, people who feel deeply and sometimes suffer.

When we forget their identities as actual people, seeing them instead as merely usernames or avatars, it becomes easier to engage in trolling.”

Being open-minded is the key, said Dr Brubaker:

“Digital media gives us the power to connect with people who have similar and different ideas, interests, and experiences from our own.

As we connect with people online, we should strive to be more respectful of others and other points of view, even when another person’s perspective may not align with our own.

Each of us has the power to be an influence for good online. We can do this by exercising mutual respect.

We can build others up and applaud the good online.”

The study was published in the journal Social Media and Society (Brubaker et al., 2021).

Left-handed personality traits and characteristics include an advantage at sports, increased risk of mental illness and more…

Around 10 percent of people are left-handed, with the rates higher among men than women, and we still don’t really know why.

In fact, humans are the only species on the planet that show handedness.

For a long time it was assumed that being left-handed was some kind of reflection of a deep disturbance in childhood.

The left-handed personality

Historically, the left-handed have been subject to remarkable linguistic discrimination, explains Dr Joshua Goodman, who has researched handedness:

“…left-handed writers were thought to be possessed by the Devil, generating the modern sense of the word sinister from sinistra, the Latin word for left.

The English word left itself comes from the Old English lyft, meaning idle, weak, or useless.

The French word for left, gauche, also means clumsy or awkward.”

Thankfully, we know better now — but not much better.

While the assumption has always been that handedness is genetic, the evidence is thin.

One thing we can say about righties and lefties, though, is that the differences can extend deep into the mind and brain.

1. Left-handed discrimination

Left-handed people live in a world of discrimination.

Everything is set up for the right-handed.

That extends to the very concept of right and left in the brain.

Right is, after all, right and left is, well, it might as well be called wrong.

When tested, people are found to associate things on their right-hand-side with being good and things on their left-hand side with being…not quite right.

That is bound to affect the personality of the left-handed.

Tie a right-handed person’s arm behind her back, though, and she soon changes her tune.

2. The left-handed advantage in sports

Being left-handed is a decent advantage in sports — but only some sports.

Usually it’s the sports which involve less cooperation where being a leftie is advantage.

Baseball, boxing, hockey, fencing and table tennis are all sports where the left-handed are massively over-represented at the highest level.

In baseball, for example, over 50 percent of the best players are left-handed.

When people have to work together in a sport — like football — then there’s much less advantage in being left-handed.

3. Right-handed, left-brained

Around 95 percent of people are left-brained.

Remember that the brain is cross-wired to the body.

So the left-hand-side of the brain controls the right-hand-side of the body.

Left-brained people also have their speech and language centres in the left-hand-side of their brains.

Not all of the left-handed are wired the opposite way, though, with their language and speech centres in the right-hand-side of the brain.

Some left-handed people still have left-side dominant brains.

4. Left-handed people process faces differently

The brains of the left-handed are probably different in all sorts of fascinating ways we don’t yet know about.

One thing we do know is that the left-handed use both halves of their brain to work out the difference between one person from another.

In contrast, right-handed people process faces in the right-hand-side of the brain.

This is probably just the tip of the iceberg since left-handed people are routinely excluded from neuroimaging studies.

Because their brains are different, they screw up the results.

Sorry lefties, even science cannot cope with this slight difference!

5. Left-handedness is linked to personality disturbances

Left-handed people have repeatedly been found to suffer a higher incidence of mental illness — suggesting their personalities might be more unbalanced that right-handed people.

They are disproportionately represented among patients suffering from psychosis and schizophrenia.

Careful, though, don’t discriminate: it doesn’t mean lefties all have unbalanced personalities — just that their risk of personality problems is slightly higher.

6. Left-handed people born in winter?

One theory about why some people are left-handed is that it comes down to hormones.

It turns out that men born in the winter are more likely to be left-handed.

The cause could be down to the way the seasons affect the hormones.

We do know that men are more likely to be lefties than women — so perhaps there’s something to the hormonal theory.

7. The ambidextrous advantage

People vary a lot in how right- or left-handed they are.

Some people’s handedness is extreme: they do everything with their right, or their left, hand.

Other people can go either way.

The ambidextrous also tend to be better at maths, one study has found.

8. Right-handed people earn more

Despite the popular view that the left-handed are more naturally talented, it is the right-handed who pull down 10-12 percent higher salaries, data from the US and the UK finds (Goodman, 2014).

The higher wages among right-handers is probably due to the fact that they have, on average, greater cognitive skills than left-handers.

It’s probably not handedness itself that causes these deficits, rather that being left-handed is a proxy for some other cause.

Handedness

Being left-handed has come back into fashion, says Dr Goodman:

“If anything, left-handedness has come into vogue, with modern proponents who argue that left-handedness is overrepresented among highly talented individuals.

Proponents of this view cite either anecdotal evidence, such as the fact that four of the last seven US presidents have been left-handed (Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama), or studies that purport to demonstrate unusual intelligence…”

After all this talk of disunity in our species, let’s end on a universal note.

It turns out that lefties and righties are not all that different in the very thing that defines them.

Generally people can learn to use their non-dominant hand with almost as much precision as their dominant hand.

It just takes a bit of practice.

Typically there is only about a 10 percent difference between speed and accuracy with the dominant and non-dominant hand.

• Read on: Debunked: ‘Right-Brain’ and ‘Left-Brain’ Personalities

.

The idea that people with aggressive, selfish and disagreeable personalities are more likely to get promotions and acquire power is false.

Jerks do not get ahead, research finds.

The idea that aggressive, selfish, disagreeable people are more likely to get promotions and acquire power is false.

While intimidating people get some advantage from their selfish behaviour, this is offset by their poor relationships.

In other words, what jerks gain by being nasty, they lose by being hated.

Extraverts get ahead

In fact, it is extraversion that predicts people getting ahead in their jobs and obtaining more power.

People who are outgoing, energetic and assertive — all hallmarks of the extravert — are more likely to advance.

Professor Cameron Anderson, the study’s first author, said:

“I was surprised by the consistency of the findings.

No matter the individual or the context, disagreeableness did not give people an advantage in the competition for power — even in more cutthroat, ‘dog-eat-dog’ organizational cultures.”

Disagreeable traits

The study tracked people from college or graduate school to 14 years into their careers.

They were asked about their power and rank in their workplaces.

Those with deceitful, aggressive personalities were no more likely to have gained power than those who were generous and trustworthy, the results showed.

Jerks still obtained positions of power, though, Professor Anderson explained:

“The bad news here is that organizations do place disagreeable individuals in charge just as often as agreeable people.

In other words, they allow jerks to gain power at the same rate as anyone else, even though jerks in power can do serious damage to the organization.”

Agreeable people produce the best results, Professor Anderson said:

“My advice to managers would be to pay attention to agreeableness as an important qualification for positions of power and leadership.

Prior research is clear: agreeable people in power produce better outcomes.”

Signs of a disagreeable personality

‘Disagreeableness’ is one of the five major personality traits.

It roughly translates to ‘being a jerk’, the study’s authors write:

“Disagreeableness is a relatively stable aspect of personality that involves the tendency to behave in quarrelsome, cold, callous, and selfish ways.

Disagreeable people tend to be hostile and abusive to others, deceive and manipulate others for their own gain, and ignore others’ concerns or welfare.”

One of difficulties for disagreeable people is creating alliances.

However, what applies in the workplace may not apply in politics, Professor Anderson said:

“Having a strong set of alliances is generally important to power in all areas of life.

Disagreeable politicians might have more difficulty maintaining necessary alliances because of their toxic behavior.”

→ Read on: How to change your personality

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Anderson et al., 2020).

Here is a list of the 10 types of personality disorder, including cluster A, B and C from the DSM 5 manual.

People with these types of personality disorder feel, think and behave in quite a different way to the average.

Symptoms of personality disorders vary depending on the type.

Treatment for a personality order usually involves talking therapy, although the condition can improve with time (see below).

For problems associated with personality disorders, such as depression, medication is sometimes prescribed.

There are ten types of personality disorder, which are grouped into three main types.

Each of the three types — or ‘clusters’ in psychiatric speech from the DSM 5 — has various different disorders within it.

Types of personality disorders are controversial

As you read through, bear in mind that personality disorders are controversial for mental health professionals.

The reason is that many people diagnosed with them do not fit neatly into one category or the other.

Many are diagnosed with more than one personality disorder, or have symptoms of one and some of another.

This suggests the categories may not be helpful.

Personality disorder type A: Eccentric or odd

1. Schizoid personality disorder

A person with a total lack of interest in social relationships.

They live alone or have a very lonely lifestyle.

They are typically cold, apathetic and secretive.

It is very difficult to get close to them emotionally: they avoid all emotions, whether positive or negative.

If you can get closer, though, you will discover they have a rich imaginative inner life.

2. Schizoptypal personality disorder

A very socially anxious person who also has other strange or eccentric beliefs.

For example, they may endorse paranormal or superstitious beliefs.

They may have strange patterns of speech and dress unusually.

They may also experience delusions and hallucinations — perhaps believing they can read other people’s minds.

It is difficult to get close to this type of persona because of their natural suspicion of others.

3. Paranoid personality disorder

A paranoid person who is extremely mistrustful of others.

They are very sensitive and are always on the look out for things that confirm their worst fears: that everyone is out to get them.

They assume others are hostile, they bear grudges and find it hard to have an emotional connection with others.

Personality disorder type B: Emotional, dramatic or erratic

1. Borderline personality disorder (BPD)

A history of unstable relationships characterises those who have a borderline personality disorder (BPD).

This is partly caused by unstable and impulsive emotions.

At one time people with borderline personality disorder can idolise someone else, and soon after they hate them.

People with BPD are terrified of being abandoned and they have a very unusual and disturbed sense of self-identity.

They may also be depressed and/or substance abusers.

2. Antisocial personality disorder

Typically have no regard for other people’s feelings or judgments.

Likely have a history of crime or impulsive and borderline illegal behaviour.

They see themselves as free of society’s rules and standards.

Often similar to what we think of as a psychopath.

3. Histrionic personality disorder

This type of person loves to attract attention to themselves.

They love to flirt, to be dramatic and enthusiastic.

They desire approval from others above all else.

They will exaggerate their emotions, indulge themselves and perhaps manipulate others to get what they want.

4. Narcissistic personality disorder

Narcissists are convinced of their own superiority to others.

Naturally, then, they appear arrogant and conceited.

At the same time, they are also envious: they want power, prestige and adoration.

It goes without saying that they are extremely self-absorbed.

Personality disorder type C: Fearful or anxious

1. Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder

One of the most well-known of personality disorders, those with OCPD are typically perfectionists who are also highly fearful or anxious.

They want control and find it very hard to relax.

They will plan everything down to the last detail.

Those with OCPD carry out certain rituals in response to their fears (checking ovens are off, doors locked and so on…)

There is relatively little difference between OCPD and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

2. Dependent personality disorder

A person who is highly dependent on others.

This dependence is so strong that it is very difficult for them to lead any kind of independent life.

3. Avoidant personality disorder

These are people who very much want to be close to others, but find it difficult.

They consider themselves socially inept and fear humiliation and rejection.

That fear causes them to avoid all social situations for fear of extreme embarrassment.

Causes of personality disorders

All these types of personality disorder are thought to be caused by a combination of genes, environmental circumstances and early life experiences.

Environmental factors linked to personality disorders include:

• a chaotic or unstable family life,
• little support from caregiver,
• bad experiences at school,
• poverty and dislocation.

Adverse early life experiences include:

• losing a parent,
• often feeling afraid, upset,
• neglect
• and being involves in major accidents or incidents.

Treatment for personality disorders

The treatment for personality disorders is usually talk therapy and possibly medication for associated conditions, such as depression.

However, time can slowly remedy personality disorders, even without treatment, research shows  (Lenzenweger et al., 2004).

Psychologists and psychiatrists had long thought that people with personality disorders cannot change.

Personality was thought to be like eye colour or height — very difficult to change.

But, personality disorders can improve, the study of 240 people over 4 years found — even without any kind of treatment (although treatment can help).

Professor Mark F. Lenzenweger, who led the study, said:

“Although the disorders are common, with 1 in 10 people affected, the good news is that we now know the disorders can change with time.”

The results showed that over time the features of personality disorders reduce, by an average of 1.4 per year.

People who did get treatment for their personality disorder during the study also saw an increased improvement in their symptoms.

The study’s authors conclude that:

“… [personality disorder] features show considerable variability across individuals over time.

This fine-grained analysis of individual growth trajectories provides compelling evidence of change in PD [personality disorder] features over time and does not support the assumption that PD features are traitlike, enduring, and stable over time.”

Studies on particular personality disorders, such as borderline personality disorder have found something similar.

One study concluded that borderline personality disorder is not a ‘death sentence’ for patients (Sharp et al., 2021).

The personality disorder can be treated and it generally improves over time even without specialised treatment.

However, early intervention in young people is the best approach.

Psychotherapies and even time can both help to heal the disorder, researchers found.

Dr Carla Sharp, the study’s first author, said:

“Like adult BPD, adolescent BPD appears to be not as intractable and treatment resistant as previously thought.

That means we should not shy away from identifying BPD in adolescents and we shouldn’t shy away from treating it.”

The results of that study showed that most people got better over time, with or without specialised treatment.

Currently, the best treatments for borderline personality disorder are mentalisation-based therapy and dialectical behaviour therapy.

→ Read on: How to change your personality