Graphology is the analysis of handwriting in an attempt to determine the writer's personality traits. Its methods and conclusions are not supported by scientific evidence, and as such it is considered to be a pseudoscience. Graphology has been controversial for more than a century. Although proponents point to positive testimonials as anecdotal evidence of its utility for personality evaluation, these claims have not been supported by scientific studies. It has been rated as among the most discredited methods of psychological analysis by a survey of mental health professionals.
Etymology The word "graphology" derives from the Greek γραφή (grapho-; 'writing'), and λόγος (logos; 'theory').
History In 1991, Jean-Charles Gille-Maisani stated 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 from 1622 is considered to be the first book. Around 1830, Jean-Hippolyte Michon became interested in handwriting analysis. He published his findings shortly after founding Société Graphologique in 1871. The most prominent of his disciples was Jules Crépieux-Jamin, who rapidly published a series of books that were soon published in other languages. Starting from Michon's integrative approach, Crépieux-Jamin founded a holistic approach to graphology. Alfred Binet was convinced to conduct research into graphology from 1893 to 1907. He called it "the science of the future" despite rejection of his results by graphologists. French psychiatrist Joseph Rogues De Fursac combined graphology and psychiatry in the 1905 book Les ecrits et les dessins dans les maladies mentales et nerveuses. After World War I, interest in graphology continued to spread in 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 major contribution to the field can be found in Handschrift und Charakter. Thea Stein Lewinson and J. Zubin modified Klage's ideas, based upon their experience working for the U.S. government, publishing their method in 1942. In 1929, Milton Bunker founded The American Grapho Analysis Society teaching graphoanalysis. This organization and its system split the American graphology world in two. Students had to choose between graphoanalysis or holistic graphology. While hard data is lacking, anecdotal accounts indicate that 10% of the members of International Graphoanalysis Society (IGAS) were expelled between 1970 and 1980. Regarding a proposed correlation between biological sex and handwriting style, a paper published by James Hartley in 1989 concluded that there was some evidence in support of this hypothesis. Rowan Bayne, a British psychologist who has written several studies on graphology, summarized his view of the appeal of graphology: "[I]t's very seductive because at a very crude level someone who is neat and well behaved tends to have neat handwriting", adding that the practice is "useless... absolutely hopeless". The British Psychological Society ranks graphology alongside astrology, giving them both "zero validity". Graphology was also dismissed as a pseudoscience by the skeptic James Randi in 1991.
In his May 21, 2013 Skeptoid podcast episode titled "All About Graphology", scientific skeptic author Brian Dunning reports:In his book The Write Stuff, Barry Beyerstein summarized the work of Geoffrey Dean, who performed probably the most extensive literature survey of graphology ever done. Dean did a meta-analysis on some 200 studies: Dean showed that graphologists have unequivocally failed to demonstrate any validity or reliability of their art for predicting work performance, aptitudes, or personality. Graphology thus fails according to the standards which a genuine psychological test must pass before it can ethically be released for use on the public.
Dean found that no particular school of graphology fared better than any other. In fact, no graphologist of any kind was able to show reliably better performance than untrained amateurs making guesses from the same materials. In the vast majority of studies, neither group exceeded chance expectancy. Dunning concludes:Other non-scientific techniques like iridology, phrenology, palmistry, and astrology also have differing schools of thought, require years of training, offer expensive certifications, and fail just as soundly when put to a scientific controlled test. Handwriting analysis does have its plausible-sounding separation from those other techniques though, and that's the whole "handwriting is brainwriting" idea — traits from the brain will be manifested in the way that it controls the muscles of the hand. Unfortunately, this is just as unscientific as the others. No amount of sciencey sounding language can make up for a technique failing when put to a scientifically controlled test.
Use by employers Although graphology had some support in the scientific community before the mid-twentieth century, more recent research rejects the validity of graphology as a tool to assess personality and job performance. Today it is considered a pseudoscience. Many studies have been conducted to assess its effectiveness to predict personality and job performance. Recent studies testing the validity of using handwriting for predicting personality traits and job performance have been consistently negative. Measures of job performance appear similarly unrelated to the handwriting metrics of graphologists. Professional graphologists using handwriting analysis were just as ineffective as lay people at predicting performance in a 1989 study. A broad literature screen by King and Koehler confirmed that dozens of studies showing the geometric aspects of graphology (slant, slope, etc.) are essentially worthless as predictors of job performance.
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