In many countries, including some countries in Western Europe that really ought to know better, it is acceptable for employers to analyze a prospective employee's handwriting as part of the job application. Even in the States, where such practice is against the law, there is a wide range of literature available on the subject as well and I'm surprised that the field is so popular, since I can't really tell much of a difference between handwriting analysis and phrenology.

What do you guys think about it? Can anyone give me a clue as to what all this handwriting analysis business is about, and whether there is any scientific basis for it?

Best,
Summer

Hi Martius,

Yes, handwriting analysis is used even in the US, both formally and informally. As a psychologist who sometimes encounters this practice, I can say that it is not entirely like phrenology, and it sometimes can be informative in some contexts, when done by a professional team. Unfortunately, many people who claim to be "handwriting experts" are not really such. The same can be said of the practice of "lie detection" via examining a person's body language and facial expression. It is possible, to some extent, but it is a very tedious and intricate practice that can only successfully be done by people who have worked for years as hard-core researchers in the field, not by people who've read some pop-culture books about it or took a mini-course of some sort. But many of the people who capitalise on this practice have no idea what they are doing and over-generalise the contexts in which this practice can be used. When, in addition to this, both practices are used unlawfully (for example in considering job applicants), the problem is compounded.

QM2

One branch of Handwriting Analysis: Forensic Document Analysis: See document attached

Plus a web site that you might enjoy:
http://www.questioneddocuments.com/Questio...0overviews.html

I have never heard of this practice. I certainly don't generally write anything longhand for a prospective employer until they are already hiring me.

I think it depends on what degree you intend to take the analysis to... I personally think that a lot of handwriting analysis is quackery much like phrenology. Graphology with an aim to see the actual almost unconscious psychology of the writer is pure fantasy in my eyes, much like the original form of psychoanalysis as Freud practised. I remember reading a book that claimed that if you cross your T's and dot your I's to the left you are intellectually challenged, it you do it centrally you are about average and if you do it to the right you excel in intelligence, oh and I think if you miss them you are slovenly. All that sounds like phrenology to me. I also read that sentences sloping up are optimism and sloping down is pessimism... I really don't buy any of that stuff since there are WAY too many variables involved! It is unscientific.
If you are analysing handwriting forensically, for example trying to see if a letter was forged and who wrote it, I can see that that could be fairly scientific given the analyst had enough samples to work with. If they didn't have enough to work with though, I can see that it may start to stray near opinion rather than fact, certainly not enough to stand up in court.
If you are looking at handwriting from the view of making a medical diagnosis I think that it is as scientific as the forensic standpoint. Doctors do use handwriting of patients who are suspected as having a nervous disease or other nervous problem to determine what may be wrong. This works as the handwriting gives a unique insight in to the specific motor disability the patient has.
Another way handwriting can be looked at is to identify obvious psychological/personality traits rather than those traits I referred to at the beginning. What I mean is I think you can tell if someone does not care about their writing or if they are nervous. One good example is in history nervousness has shown through signatures, Guy Fawkes of the gunpowder plot had a much more nervous signature after torture, Adolf Hitler's signature became more scrawled during the later years of the war. I think this is the way employers probably analyse prospective employees writing, their obvious personality traits and general state of mind, how they present themselves, though I would not be surprised if they did dabble in the rather more unscientific realm...

I don't think it's at all a reliable method of establishing personality .. if you are asked to do this on a job application most people would take more care with their handwriting so it negates the analysis, plus if you have developed a house style like architects do then it doesn't say anything about that person at all.
Physcometric testing is probably more valid. ~ even then that's limited.

Having said that a guy I was in school with was very gifted & could identify handwriting samples with people who wrote them

Pure Bunk.
start here.
"in properly controlled, blind studies, where the handwriting samples contain no content that could provide non-graphological information upon which to base a prediction (e.g., a piece copied from a magazine), graphologists do no better than chance at predicting... personality traits...."

I disagree to some degree. I owrk in law enforcement, and there are traits of individuals that can be picked up in their writing, and it is possible to detect deception in the manner in which a person writes, say a written statement to police.

During an interview for a job as a solicitor's clerk, I was asked to copy a printed paragraph in longhand.

Having done so, I handed it to the chap interviewing me who smiled and put it to one side, explaining that he had to be sure that he could read my handwriting.

I got the job

QM2 and Hardyb have explained it very well. Is not quackery, and if studies in context, useful for analysis and Psyquiatry. Even for common practice. Just off the cuff, Alzheimer's patients show a distinct witting pattern. So those Western European countries actually do know better.

To some extent...
Looking at my shaky hands you might infer medical issues and from there decide it might affect my personality. From my use of italic rather than the junk most of my generation was taught in 3rd grade, you might deduce something about me from having made that choice. And so it goes.

But the double-blind testing is very specific. Have people copy the same passage of text, and give the stack to your experts. Have them predict personality traits based on the sample. See if they do better than guessing or non-experts. I suppose the hard part is deciding what traits are accurate, ahead of time. It might be worth looking up the cited study to see if your feelings fall outside that.

--John

Here is just a handful of citations, abstracts included, of recent research published on this topic in well-respected scientific publications (in experimental psychology, neurology, physiology). Basically, you have to be one of the people doing this kind of research in order to truly understand what "handwriting analysis" actually involves. As you can see by these texts, the actual research is not phrased in a sexy and exciting way as are pop-culture books. As has already been said here by a psychologist and a policeman, this stuff can be done, and often successfully -- but the people who do it properly do not approach it with the same understanding as is projected by pop-culture notions of "handwriting analysis". So yes, when phrased in the way some people have phrased it here, the practice indeed seems silly. But that is not how experts in the field phrase it.

Enjoy the citations : )
QM2


Approaches to analysis of handwriting as a task of coordinating a redundant motor system. Latash, Mark L.; Danion, Frederic; Scholz, John F.; Human Movement Science, Vol 22(2), Apr 2003. Special issue: Advances in the Study of Drawing and Handwriting. pp. 153-171.

Abstract: We consider problems of motor redundancy associated with handwriting using the framework of the uncontrolled manifold (UCM) hypothesis. Recent studies of finger coordination work during force production tasks have demonstrated that the UCM-hypothesis provides a fruitful framework for analysis of multi-finger actions. In particular, it has been shown that during relatively fast force changes, finger force variance across trials is structured such that a time pattern of total moment produced by the fingers with respect to a point between the two most lateral fingers involved in the task is stabilized while the time pattern of total force may be destabilized. The findings of selective moment stabilization have been interpreted as being conditioned by the experience with everyday motor tasks that commonly pose more strict requirements to stabilization of total moment than to stabilization of total force. We discuss implications of these findings for certain features of handwriting seen in elderly, children, patients with neurological disorders, and forgers. (PsycINFO Database Record © 2007 APA, all rights reserved)

Evaluating the coordination dynamics of handwriting. Athènes, Sylvie; Sallagoïty, Isabelle; Zanone, Pier-Giorgio. Human Movement Science, Vol 23(5), Nov 2004. pp. 621-641.

Abstract: This study aims to test the hypothesis that handwriting is governed by the dynamics of nonlinear coupled oscillators. Accordingly, its first goal is to identify preferred, basic graphic shapes corresponding to spontaneously stable combinations of the two frequency-locked oscillatory x-y components of the trajectories. Six participants were required to produce 26 ellipsoids of varying eccentricities and orientations presented consecutively on a graphic tablet. These shapes corresponded to a systematic manipulation of the relative phase and the relative amplitude of the oscillators by a constant step. Results showed that among those, only eight ellipsoids were produced in a spontaneous and stable fashion. They were characterized by attraction of nearby shapes, and by a higher accuracy and velocity. Alike all periodic motion, graphic skills, hence handwriting, exhibit preferred coordination patterns, which can be ascribed to the non-linear coupling of two oscillators. (PsycINFO Database Record © 2007 APA, all rights reserved)

Letters lost in space: Hemispace dependent handwriting errors. Ortigue, Stephanie; Landis, Theodor; Michel, Christoph M. Neuroreport: For Rapid Communication of Neuroscience Research, Vol 15(16), Nov 2004. pp. 2545-2548.

Abstract: Although handwriting is a daily life activity commonly attributed to the left hemisphere in the majority of right-handers, it is also known to require attentional and spatial mechanisms that rely on right hemispheric processing. The underlying spatial organization of handwriting in patients with right brain damage remains unresolved. Here we show in a patient with circumscribed right superior parietal damage that handwriting systematically depends on the hand's position in space with respect to her body-midline. Most importantly, handwriting in contralesional space not only leads to spatial but also to language errors. This suggests that the right hemisphere's role in handwriting may surpass its generally assumed purely spatial contribution. We discuss our results in term of co-registration between both cerebral hemispheres in language processing. (PsycINFO Database Record © 2007 APA, all rights reserved)


Kinematical analysis of handwriting movements in depressed patients. Mergl, R.; Juckel, G.; Rihl, J.; Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, Vol 109(5), May 2004. pp. 383-391.

Abstract: Motor disturbances are a relevant aspect of depression. Kinematical analysis of movements can be applied to explore which type of motor dysfunction is associated with depression. We hypothesized that depressed patients draw and write significantly slower than controls and that motor disturbances become more pronounced under bi-manual demands. Method: We examined 37 depressed patients and 37 healthy controls using a digitizing graphic tablet and subsequent kinematical analysis of handwriting and rapid drawing movements. Results: Depressed patients performed drawing with significantly less regular velocity than controls (P<0.001), but normal velocity. Motor differences between patients and controls did not increase under bimanual demands. Handwriting of patients was abnormally slow (P=0.04). Conclusion: Irregular patterns of velocity peaks in depressed patients point to basal ganglia dysfunction and/or deficient activity of the sensorimotor cortex and the supplementary motor area as a possible substrate of hand-motor disturbances in depression. (PsycINFO Database Record © 2007 APA, all rights reserved)


Sex, Gender Role, Attribution of Pathology, and Handwriting Tidiness. Sappington, John; Money, Molly; Perceptual and Motor Skills, Vol 97(2), Oct 2003. pp. 671-674.

Abstract: An archival study sampled personality test protocols with spontaneous handwriting specimens from 73 men and 168 women for signatures and scores on selected scales from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2. Judges applied a 5-point scale to sort signatures for tidiness. Interrater agreement was .93. The mean handwriting tidiness score for men was 1.8 and 2.8 for women, a significant difference of 1 point. Correlations between handwriting tidiness and MMPI-2 scores did not support the hypothesis that erratic handwriting is associated with pathology but scores for gender role correlated significantly with handwriting tidiness. Masculine Gender Role predicted sloppy penmanship and Feminine Gender Role predicted tidy writing, independent of the writers' biological sex. (PsycINFO Database Record © 2007 APA, all rights reserved)

OK, you can study handwriting for issues of pathology and neurology. They also measured dynamics directly, rather than final appearance.

But those citations don't lead any credibility to the idea that you can predict personality traits from final appearance of writing.

It's like my earlier example: you can tell that my hands shake, and maybe gleam medical information from that. But you will find no correlation between the writing appearance and scores from other so-called personality tests.

---John

The abstracts also mention depression, gender roles, and forgery, among other things. Plus, "pathology and neurology" are not divorced from personality traits. Personality is a dynamic combination of nature and nurture. The "nature" bit includes neurology, which includes motor control styles. Also, if you look at pathologies or "psychological abnormalities", they are not in a separate category from a "normal personality", but are extensions of standard personality traits into extreme directions. One of the best way to study a personality attribute, is to study its pathological extreme. Depression therefore is useful not only as clinical information, but also as a way to understand normal variations in traits and mood states among healthy individuals.

What you probably think of as personality traits are actually not that hard to "predict", be it via nonverbal communication, handwriting, or even internet behaviour. The problem is, that personality traits are not in themselves good predictors of specific behaviours, which is usually what the police and employers really want to know, but only of very general behaviour patterns. You can deduce personality from behaviour fairly easily, but you cannot as easily deduce behaviour from personality. The point being, that inferring personality from handwriting is actually not terribly useful if what you really want is to determine whether a person is lying, whether they will perform well on a certain task, and so on.

If somebody were to ask me to write something for them to analyse, I would alternate each word between copperplate and fraktur. Lets see what they make of that .

Handwriting analysis is common practise in the UK for job applications above a certain grade. It is not used in isolation but can lead to canditates being binned at the first hurdle and not even offered an interview. Only in exceptional cases where the ahndwriting really just doesnt seem to fit the actual application responses does an interview get offered and then it is more out of interest. (I speak from experience in Retail, Banking and Finance and Project Management recruitment).

Just out of interest many companies (like B&Q) now have a telephone multiple choice that you have to pass before they will even post you an application form - and thats for floor staff as well!

For a start probably that you are schizophrenic

Hey, if you can write in Fraktur I would hire you on the spot, schizophrenic or not!

Maybe they would think you were George Bickham reincarnated, actually that is not likely since they probably never would of heard of him. More likely they would think you had been around at least a few centuries, maybe more.

Isn't there a large difference between document analysis and handwriting analysis? One proving the person wrote a sheet and the other reading the person who wrote the sheet.

Can anyone identify any form of psychological assessment/testing which does not have considerable limitations?

As a few people have written , when practised skilfully, graphology has, IMO, some value as a means of assessing the personality of the writer. It also has its limitations.

If, for example, the writer is aware that the handwriting sample is to be analysed, it loses some validity, rather in the same way that most people do not behave 'naturally' at a job interview.

Many years ago, I had a long and interesting discussion with a respected forensic document examiner, Joan Cambridge, who was also a well-known graphologist. She never made 'excessive' claims for graphology, but was very interested in a form of 'therapeutic graphology' which she was trying with a group of 'troubled' children, with, she said, varying results.
(She is mentioned briefly in Wikipedia)

I used to write 'handwriting analyses' for a machine. It looked like a computer from the outside, but all it did was spew out my pre-written generic feeds on ticker tape.

Hand writing analysis to detect personality traits, have been throughly debunked time and time again, if you think it does, you might have yourself a million dollar prize winner from randi.org

A mental state cannot be assessed through the asthetics of handwriting, anymore than another emotion. You could certainly read the content of a paper to assess the mental state of an individual, but there is no criteria by which the mechanisms of handwriting change to a degree due to emotion, that can be measured and proven through scientific means. Nervousness, can be easily mistaken for motor neural problems, the example of Hitler's signature towards the end of the war is a perfect example because he was suffering from Parkinson's by that time. He might have been nervous, sure, or he could have been perfectly calm but there is also the possibility that he could not have had complete control of his hands. Again the body of scientific evidence that supports a claim such as emotional states can be easily contradicted with valid explainations. This is why graphology in this realm is not a science, nor is it accurrate enough that we should concentrate our efforts on.

Which one of him would you hire?

Fraktur, of course. Copperplate can go home.

Just as a matter of interest, why, in Western Europe, ought we to know better, and why is this practice against the law in the States?

Putting the serious questions to one side, I remember the advice (in the finest traditions of non-pc!) that you should ask the applicant to write something longhand.

If they take out a fine fountain pen and write with a clear, legible and elegant hand, hire them on the spot; if they pull out a well-used biro, continue to question their suitability, particularly if the end is chewed; but if they write in crayon, call security.

Chris