This page discusses character identification on the basis
It covers -
supplements discussion elsewhere on this site regarding
Identity and biometrics.
Graphology - aka grapho-analysis - purports to determine
a person's character (eg honesty, loyalty, independence,
jealousy) and other attributes (eg creativity, aptitude
for financial analysis, sexual orientation) through analysis
of that individual's handwriting. Typically the analysis
involves scrutiny of handwritten text - what appears on
paper - without observation of how the person gets the
ink or graphite onto the paper.
Some enthusiasts assert that an accurate and meaningful
analysis can be provided without access to information
regarding the individual's left/righthandedness, age,
ethnicity, health and other circumstances or without any
consideration of the content of the writing (eg syntax).
Others, like all good fortune-tellers, request background
information that will serve as clues for interpreting
what the questioner wants or likely characteristics of
Acceptance of graphology is culturally determined, reflecting
its basis as a system of belief - with mantras such as
"the pen is the tongue of the mind", "handwriting
is x-rays of the mind", is "brainprints"
or "brainwriting" - rather than a science founded
on principles susceptible to empirical validation. As
a result there is significant variation in use of graphology
by business, government and individuals. A "large"
- although unquantified - number of French businesses
for example (including Air France, FNAC and Moulinex)
are reported to use graphologists in recruitment and promotion
Although there appears to be some reliance on graphology
among Australian, UK and US organisations - primarily
among single-owner small businesses - it is likely to
remain a human resource tool that is viewed as exotic
or simply derided as akin to consulting a Ouija board,
the intestines of a goat or a Scientologist's e-meter.
signs and wonders
What do graphologists look for (apart from cues provided
by the person who has engaged their services or inferences
on the basis of the text)?
Proponents of the 'analytic' approach - now superseded
after being readily debunked - attribute specific traits
on the basis of isolated "graphological signs"
or "movements", such as location of dots on
i's and crosses on t's.
Abbe Jean-Hyppolyte Michon based his analysis on "elements"
in handwriting - the formation and location of the 'stroke',
'letters', free movements (dots and crosses), 'the 'words',
'baseline', 'flourishes', 'paragraphs', 'punctuation'
and 'paragraphs'. Michon claimed that a particular movement
represented a specific feature of the individual's character,
with the absence of that sign signalling the contrary
In contrast, proponents of the 'holistic' or 'integrative'
approach advocated by Jules Crépieux-Jamin (1859-1940)
rely on a less mechanical parsing of the script, claiming
that character is signalled through the combination and
frequency of those signs and attributes such as letter
size and spacing between words. They claim an affinity
with the gestalt psychology of Koffka and peers in the
1920s and 1930s, advising on the basis of an impressionistic
"resonance" with the script.
One cannot, it seems, have too many signs and Crépieux-Jamin
in L'Écriture et le Caractère (1888)
and ABC de la graphologie (1929) thus provided
seven categories - Dimension, Form, Pressure, Speed, Direction,
Layout and Continuity - comprising 175 signs.
Successors have written about 'Three Dimensions' ("vertical
movement, horizontal movement, depth") and added
other "dimensions" such as "speed"
What do graphology enthusiasts claim?
A sense of ambitions is provided by a UK practitioner's
claims regarding -
- Graphology is able to reveal strengths and weaknesses
that may not show up in the interview. A candidate's
capabilities may be masked by interview nerves, while
another, who could be less suitable, may interview well.
- Graphology can save time, money and effort in this
area by seeing that the essential characteristics required
for the job are present.
in to the team - If four candidates appear right for
the post, the handwriting can reveal the character that
will fit in best with the rest of the team.
a team - When it is not desirable to recruit
new people, it may be helpful to reassess existing staff
and change their duties so that they can become more
efficient and productive. Analysing the writing will
highlight strengths and weaknesses and pinpoint the
- Handwriting analysis will help in determining promotional
prospects, thus saving the embarrassment and inevitable
problems caused when someone is promoted beyond their
- Graphology can be useful in determining an employee's
goals, and thus in helping to find the right slot in
the organisation for mutual benefit.
- Handwriting can help to determine people's stress
levels and how they cope with various situations.
- Changing behaviour patterns and attitudes occur over
time. When one sees the same people daily, the differences
may not be apparent. Handwriting analysis is particularly
useful in monitoring individuals as it can chart progress
or decline. It can also track changing habits of a serious
nature, eg stemming from alcohol or drug abuse.
solving - Graphology can be used when problems occur
(communication, ethics, disputes, etc). It also introduces
the advantage of impartial intervention. This is helpful
when a client has problems and needs an objective discussion
without fear of the outcome going around the company
- Graphology can be practical when redundancy is inevitable.
It can detect new directions in which the employee could
channel his energies
A competitor advises that graphology can be used -
decide which person to use as your accountant, who you
should hire as your baby-sitter, who you should go into
business with, who you should date, who you should trust,
and innumerable other applications.
McNichol delightfully claims that graphology will allow
readers to effectively identify a murderer, a dishonest
tradesman, a gay man and a babysitter who might use drugs
or to appropriately deny parole to a prison inmate.
One mechanism is the so-called felon's claw, claimed to
be exhibited by 80% of convicted criminals and glossed
by one enthusiast as being -
with bitterness, bad instincts and guilt. The higher
the claw, the worse the situation is, and the more conscious
the writer is of her guilt and criminality.
script from "criminals" lacks "the elasticity
found in the writings of non-criminals"! One enthusiast
advises that "potential rapists" can be detected
by the way they shape the letter g. Alas, graphologists
do not seem to have had much success in forecasting the
perpetrators and victims of domestic violence. You do
not have to be a graphological guru to sense that something's
awry with Charles Manson's handwriting but what about
the folks next door?
Readers of McNichol's book are invited to answer the question
you figure out who the murderer is from these samples?
And, by the way, if you can, you might also be able
to find out who his next victim is.
astute murderer may, however, have foiled that prognostication
by reading a book or taking a course - often from the
very same graphology gurus - that reportedly changes character
(or merely disguises undesirable traits) by changing the
individual's handwriting. The "x-rays of the mind"
can apparently be tweaked with a little graphotherapy.
Western graphologists have resiled from traditional claims
that physical ailments (cancer, heart disease, kidney
problems and bad breath) can be accurately determined
through scrutiny of how people cross the i's, dot the
t's and space the letters. Arguably one reason for that
reticence is the application of law regarding misleading
claims to possess diagnostic expertise.
Graphologist Miriam Wilson wrote in 1986 that
is ironic that a reliable, accurate method of personnel
selection is available to American business, but rarely
utilized. ... It is time in America to get graphology
out of the carnival atmosphere and into the professional
world where it belongs.
Barry Beyerstein subsequently commented
Graphology is a pseudoscience that claims to be a quick
and easy way of saying how someone's wired, but there's
no evidence that this is encoded in handwriting. In
these litigious times you can't ask people about their
sexual orientation or previous run-ins with the law
or their home life or marital status. But graphologists
make statements that no legitimate personnel person
could make with such a degree of certainty and you can
find a lot of gullible people who'll sign on. You'd
think hard-nosed businesspeople would be the last to
be taken in, but they lap it up.
graphologists understandably elide graphology's dark past
and are circumspect in referring to founding figures such
as Ludwig Klages (1872-1956), the father of German graphology.
Klages was a member of the Stefan George kreis
and a visceral antisemite, who bizarrely claimed in Handschrift
und Charakter: Gemeinverständlicher Abriss der graphologischen
Technik (1929) that graphology was effective in
detection of 'non-Aryans' - including individuals who
had never used a Hebrew script.
practitioners and consumers
Are there many providers and consumers of graphology services
The answer is unclear, given that there is no official
registration of graphologists and reports of their activity
are usually anecdotal, with individual practitioners tending
to exaggerate the size of their customer base.
There is recurrent reference to substantial numbers of
businesses in France relying on graphology for personnel
selection, for example claims that 90% use such services.
The credibility of those claims is uncertain; some observers
have estimated that under 30% or 50% of French employers
use graphologists and that fewer than 1% of UK employers
In Australia, the UK and US use by business appears to
be as part of broader psychometric testing (often as capricious
as graphology, despite the aura of scientific rigour and
the high fees charged by service providers). Use by individuals
appears to centre on what one contact dubs the 'ouija
board demographic' - people whose credulity is greater
than their grasp of psychology, statistics or physiology.
graphology and law
How does law respond to use of graphology for recruitment
The British Columbia Council of Civil Liberties in its
1988 position paper on The use of graphology as a
tool for employee hiring and evaluation commented
employee ought not to be expected to give up his or
her right to privacy when the test in question really
does not provide the relevant information. Nor should
a job applicant be tested by means of a procedure that
is arbitrary and which does not in fact determine the
abilities it claims to determine.
went on to note that
has an incredibly low a priori probability
for anyone who has the remotest understanding of neurophysiology
and physiology. Is it probable (as the graphologists
must be maintaining if their theory makes the slightest
amount of sense), that traits such as promiscuousness
or honesty (already complex dispositions, not simple
things located in a few localized neurons in the brain),
could have a somatic representation that is channeled
into the motor cortex, down the pyramidal tracts, and
out the alpha motor neurons to produce a unique writing
style unique to all honest or promiscuous people whether
they are left- or right-handed, male or female, taught
to write by the Maclean's Method in Vancouver in 1928
or the system taught in Topeka, Kansas in 1973 ...?
As might be inferred from the preceding paragraphs, literature
on graphology falls into three classes -
scientific studies (overwhelmingly negative)
studies (considering the emergence and acceptance of
graphology as a cultural artefact analogous to reception
of astrology and phrenology)
by true believers (often published by New Age publishers
and with a resolute disregard for scientific principles).
of entry to the scholarly literature include 'Graphology
and the Science of Individual Identity in Modern France'
by Roxanne Panchasi in 4(1) Configurations (1996),
1-32, 'Should We Write Off Graphology?' by Russell Driver,
Ronald Buckley & Dwight Frink in 4(2) International
Journal Of Selection And Assessment (1996) 78-86,
'Inferring personal qualities through handwriting analysis'
by Richard Klimoski & Anat Rafaeli in 56(3) Journal
of Occupational Psychology (1983) 191-202 and their
'Predicting sales success through handwriting analysis:
An evaluation of the effects of training and handwriting
sample content' in 68 Journal of Applied Psychology
(1983) 212-217, The Write Stuff: Evaluations of Graphology
- The Study of Handwriting Analysis (Amherst: Prometheus
1992) edited by Barry & Dale Beyerstein and cogent
'The Legal Implications of Graphology' by Julie Spohn
in 75(3) Washington University Law Quarterly
Other works include 'Can Graphology Predict Occupational
Success? Two Empirical Studies and Some Methodological
Ruminations' by Gershon Ben-Shakhar, Maya Bar-Hillel,
Yoram Bilu, Edor Ben-Abba & Anat Flug in 71 Journal
of Applied Psychology (1986) 645-653, Validation
of Graphological Judgments: An Experimental Study
(The Hague: Mouton 1973) by Abraham Jansen, 'Illusory
Correlations in Graphological Inference' by Roy King &
Derek Koehler in 6(4) Journal of Experimental Psychology
Applied (2000) 336-348, 'A Review of Scientific Aspects
of Graphology: A Handbook' by David Crown in II(1) Journal
of Forensic Sciences (1987) 287-288, 'The a priori
case against graphology' by Maya Bar-Hillel & Gershon
Ben-Shakhar in Scientific Aspects of Graphology
(Springfield: Charles C Thomas 1986) edited by Baruch
Nevo, 'Stereotypes in the judgement of personality from
hand-writing' by Vine in 13(1) British Journal of
Social and Clinical Psychology (1974) 61-64, Patrick
Lowe's 2005 dissertation
An Examination of Graphological Indicators of Sexual
Abuse, 'The graphoanalytic approach to selecting
life insurance salesmen' by Stanley Zdep & Herbert
Weaver in 51(3) Journal of Applied Psychology
(1967) 295-299 and 'A Comparison of the Validity of Handwriting
Analysis With That of the Cattell 16PF' by Ian Bushnell
in 4(1) International Journal of Selection and Assessment
Among estimates of corporate use of graphology
see 'Selection Methods and their usage' by Robertson
& Makin in 2(1) Recruitment & Retention
(1993) and 2001 'Companiesí Use of Psychometric Testing and the Changing Demand for Skills: A Review of the Literature' (PDF) by Andrew Jenkins.
Primers for fans include The Complete Idiot's Guide
to Handwriting Analysis (New York: Alpha 1999) by
Sheila Lowe, The ABC of sex and seduction: What handwriting
reveals about sexuality, compatibility and sensuality
(London: Aquarian Press 1986) by Jenny Halfon, Handwriting
Analysis: A complete self-teaching guide (Woodbury:
Llewellyn 1999) by Scott Hollander, Signature for
Success: How to Analyze Handwriting and Improve Your Career,
Your Relationships and Your Life (Riverside: Andrews
McMeel 2003) by Arlyn Imberman & June Rifkin, The
Secrets of Your Handwriting (London: Thorsons 1998)
by Margaret Gullan-Whur, How to know everything about
anyone through handwriting (New York: Sterling 1987)
by Anne Conway, The hidden language of your handwriting:
the remarkable new science of graphonomy and what it reveals
about personality, health and emotions (London: Souvenir
Press 1980) by James Greene & David Lewis, What
your handwriting reveals (London: Sphere 1980) by
Albert Hughes, Lovestrokes: handwriting analysis for
love, sex & compatibility (New York: Harper 1987)
by Hariette Surovell, Handwriting Analysis and the
Employee Selection Process (New York: Quorum 1990)
by Kathryn Sackheim and Handwriting Analysis: Putting
It to Work for You (Chicago: Contemporary Books 1991)
by Andrea McNichol.
One corrective is 'Handwriting analysis and personality
assessment: The creative use of analogy, symbolism, and
metaphor' by Peter Greasley in 5(1) European Psychologist
Legal perspectives include 'Distinction Between Graphology
And Questioned Document Examination' by Baxter in 6 Medicine,
Science And the Law (1966) 75-86, 'Handwriting Identification
and Graphology' by Jan Beck in 9 Journal Of Forensic
Sciences (1964) 477-484 and 'Behavior Factors In
Handwriting Identification' by Michal Naftali in 56 Journal
Of Criminal Law, Criminology And Police Science (1965)