Well, in response to the first paragraph, let me point out that the proposed experimental protocol called for the “control” to be party to the email conversations between Bill H. and the test subjects. I would think that the control would be able to glean at least some clues as to the way graphology works just by examining what questions are asked, and thus have a good idea of what’s important and what’s not. The control doesn’t see the whole “performance”, granted, but surely this is analagous to watching the free-throw shooter warm up. Does that taint the control? Well, you decide.
Secondly, and more importantly, I agree that if we want to test whether graphologists have special skills, then controls might be useful (subject, of course, to the reservations expressed above: is the skill intuitive? easy to learn? etc.). But… why would we want to test whether graphologists have special skills? Why is that interesting? What impact does that have on the core claim that graphologists can predict personality traits based on a writing sample? Now, if graphology works, then it doesn’t matter whether it’s a highly honed skill that only a few can perform, or an intuitive process that everyone can do, or a combination of the two. If it works, it works. And adding a control won’t test that.
Cicada2003: I think the objection to your proposal would be the same as the objection to my proposal way back on page 1: any rating of personality traits is bound to be subjective.
The cite for the Dean study is: Dean G., “The bottom line: Effect size,” in Beyerstein B.L., Beyerstein D.F., editors, The Write Stuff: Evaluations of Graphology – The Study of Handwriting Analysis, Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1992, pp 269-341.
To be charitable, I overstated the case when I wrote in my column, “More than 200 objective scientific studies have demonstrated that graphology is worthless as a predictor of personality.” That makes it sounds like 200 independent investigations found that graphology was worthless, whereas in fact that was the conclusion of one researcher examining 200 studies. The characterization in my column was based on an article in the March 9, 2002 issue of New Scientist entitled “You are what you write” by Raj Persaud, a consultant psychiatrist and senior lecturer at the Maudsley Hospital and Institute of Psychiatry in London. Persaud wrote, “To date more than 200 objective scientific studies have concluded the technique is of no practical value.” Dr. Persaud’s credentials notwithstanding, I should have looked up the underlying report before publishing the column, and will amend it forthwith.
A response from the Man, and a retraction large enough to stop the online presses, so to speak. I didn’t warrant a clever insult, but then Little Ed has personally told me to “eat shit and die,” so clearly I’m leading a charmed life.
It may not surprise anyone to know that I have some concerns with the article cited, starting with the fact that the main cite it references is in a book by the author of the original article.
And the claim in said cite was that the 200+ studies didn’t work for predicting “work performance, aptitudes, or personality”. Since neither Cecil nor I are concerned about the work performance or aptitude ones, I have to wonder how many cites are really debunking (or claiming to debunk) handwriting analysis as a predictor of personality.
However, I have sent my money to the author for a copy (and thanks to Musicat for the previous reference), and I’ll give it a good examination.
Also, for what it’s worth the article by Persaud concludes
Granted, he is (strongly) claiming my techniques are invalid, but his conclusion in this article is that in fact there does seem to be association between handwriting and personality.
Also, Cecil, the thread of “evidence” goes like this:
Persaud wrote an article, citing
-> an article by Beyerstein, citing
-> a book by Beyerstein, citing
-> research by Dean, analyzing
-> 200 studies
-> of which only a subset are about personality
So, there are at least 4 levels of referencing here. Plus there is a sizable amount of filtering of the 200 down to the relevant studies. You trusted the first article outright, and in your words “should have looked up the underlying report before publishing the column.” This error in judgment was severe enough to require you to “amend [the article] forthwith.”
I do hope you haven’t put this to bed by assuming that digging from the first to the second reference makes the analysis complete. May I humbly suggest you dig at least to the point of reading Dean’s study, and depending on it’s quality, perhaps even dig into the supporting studies. (as I will; the book’s on order.)
I say all this because a search on Beyerstein, who’s in the center of all this, shows him to be a controversial man at best.
Which Beyerstein? Barry L. or Dale F.? No, they’re not the same guy with a split personality.
Bill H., no one doubts that SOME human characteristics are reflected in handwriting. I’m perfectly willing to accept that a Parkinson patient will have shaky handwriting, for example. But where we get into trouble is assigning such characteristics as sexual orientation, introversion/extroversion or the ability to perform in a job to the shape of letters. (Writing low on the line means the writer is low, base, and perverted, etc.) This smacks of sympathetic magic – if the writer’s lines are long & loopy, his personality is long & loopy, too.
While this may seem like logic to a child or the uneducated, no mechanism has ever been shown to support this presumption. It reminds me of pareidolia, where a rabbit-shaped cloud in the sky has rabbit characteristics and controls reproduction on the ground below. Utter nonsense.
Graphology also has elements that compare closely to cold reading, the Forer (Barnum) Effect,wishful thinking, and astrology. Here’s an example, from a 1978 Reader’s Digest(!) pamphlet, Know yourself through your handwriting I picked up at a garage sale:
So the subject is either modest or not. The analyst can’t lose, and this statement supplies no useful information. But it does fool a lot of people. Let’s hope you’re not one of those.
I will look forward to your reading of the Beyerstein & Beyerstein book. You want references? I counted over 200 at the end of one chapter alone. And BTW, the book is a collection of articles by 17 authors, not just the Beyersteins, who are primarily editors.
I haven’t read the article, so I may be repeating, but I would like to point out that “agreeableness” and “conscientiousness” are two of the five factors in the five-factor model that I was harping on earlier. It just so happens that I’m an extreme case in both of them - 99th percentile in agreeableness and 4th percentile in conscientiousness. And I do write rather slowly - maybe 30 WPM.
I was referring to Barry; Dale is his brother. (although some sites claim Dale to be his wife, but I diverge)
Well, I for one don’t know how you could determine sexual orientation or the ability to perform on the job from handwriting, but I do believe you can tell introversion/extraversion. And a host of other features.
Actually, I’ve never heard that one, and in fact I don’t know of a way to tell if someone is “low” or “base”. In fact, I’ve never seen anyone else claim that writing low on the line is an indicator of this. When you make this statement and the previous one, I get even more concerned that your source (the Beyerstein book) is flawed in it’s analysis. I get the distinct impression that it’s invalidating absurd claims, rather then the core message.
Well, that’s what’s at question here, isn’t it? To date, I haven’t seen one study to either side that I’ve trusted. I have seen studies, but they either a) did not test the question at hand, namely whether personality is reflected in handwriting, or b) were not scientifically valid. As you may imagine, those in group #a were sponsored by anti-handwriting analysis folks, and #b by pro.
For those of you who are less familiar with the claims of graphology, let me preface this post by saying that one of the tools used to analyze is to divide cursive writing into “zones”; upper, middle and lower. “The upper zone is the area covered by the upper stems of letters such as ‘d’ and capitals. The middle zone is the main body of the letters. The lower zone is the space taken up by lower stems of letters such as ‘g’.” [from Know yourself through your handwriting (loc. cit.)]
Both the size of the zones and their content are considered.
OK, so let’s try these, all from proponents of graphology:
The remaining quotes are all taken from Know yourself through your handwriting (loc. cit.)
RE: ability to perform on the job
Fun to read, interesting to ponder, but sheer, utter nonsense.
Not one of your quotes used the words “low” or “base”, as you claimed, and none implied what the words actually mean.
However, even if you do find someone who says they can find those qualities in handwriting (and you will find them, perhaps several), that does not in itself disprove that people reflect their personality in their handwriting. As I mentioned in the first posting, there are people out there who claim they can do medical diagnosis via handwriting analysis, which is obviously nonsense. But the fact that such claims are made by some does not disprove the more reasonable claims of others.
BTW, I’ve now read the chapter by Dean. And (surprise!) I have some serious concerns, which I’ll post shortly.
If you’ve read the Dean chapter, and I assume we are talking about Chapter 12 in The Write Stuff, “Effect Size,” aren’t you getting a little ahead of the program? The first 11 chapters, including ones entitled, “A Brief History of Graphology” and “The Origins of Graphology in Sympathetic Magic” are not be sneezed at.
They look darn close to me, expecially for a “science” that deals so flashily with vague and ambiguous concepts in the first place. “Sex deviation” doesn’t equate with “perverted” to you?
They aren’t even a little close. Please re-read your references. Explain how “down to earth, with strong instincts, and a good business sense” equates to “low and base”
If you re-read my post, you’ll see I specifically didn’t deny the perverterted claim, as I believe that may be claimable. That particular one is sticky as it’s really tough to validate.
Anyway, please re-read my last post, as when you do find references of Graphologists claiming some trait relates to “low and base” is irrelevant. Many people claim many things. That doesn’t invalidate the notion that personality is reflected in handwriting.
Stay tuned for my Dean critique, but as a teaser, the first thing it does is acknowledge that in fact handwriting does reflect intelligence at a very high correlation (slightly under law school ability test vs. 1st year law grade), and sex at a very high correlation as well. And how does Dean deal with this positive result? He discards these factors from his studies! But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I absolutely agree and I certainly will read them. But that’s beside the point. We are collectively here (in this thread), because of a (now-modified) claim by Cecil, which specifically calls out the Dean chapter. First things first.
Let me jump briefly into the fray. IMO, there are some aspects of graphology which are worth looking into, and for me those are the ones which have a physical explanation, and also the analysis of one individual’s writing over time. And I think this is something that any lay person can do, and probably does do it to some extent.
For example, when one is tense, one muscles tend not to be relaxed, and writing becomes more angular. If your writing is normally smooth and curvy, and all of a sudden I see a point in a letter, let’s say, where the writing gets all angular, then I think I can safely assume that something is causing this. It could be stress, it could be that you’re writing something intense and passionate, or it could be simply that you’re on a bus or writing in an inconvenient position.
All of us can usually tell when writing changes from spontaneous to deliberate or vice versa. Spontaneous writing tends to be less neat, bigger, perhaps more angular or heavier than deliberate writing.
For me, the question is most interesting in noting the variation within a given person’s writing, not so much using graphology as a predictor for personality. When approached in this manner, I think there may be something worthwhile in graphology. As a tool for employment or the such, I am very much against it.
I created a new thread as it’s really a letter to Cecil, and I wasn’t sure it’d be seen here. He’s already responded in this one, and the thread has grown enough to make it easy to miss my review of Dean’s work here.
