The Happy Sceptic: Graphology: Truth or Pants?

Don't Eat Yellow Snow: The Truth About Graphology

1. The parable of the weeing sage
2. What is graphology
3. How is it meant to work?
4. What evidence is there for it?

5. So what's going on?
6. The graphology scam
7. Conclusions
8. Further Reading

Master Po: One cold winter, the great sage known as the Happy Sceptic stood weeing in the street, chuckling to himself and seeing how many times he could write the word "Rumplestiltskin" in the snow. A dodgy-looking geezer approached him. "Son," growled the stranger, "I am a graphologist, and your writing tells me many things. Firstly," he continued, "the slant of the 't' shows that you have an odd sense of humour. Second: the large, looping 'l's are indicative of an extroverted personality. Lastly, the spacing of the letters are a sure sign that you are hung like a Brahma bull." What do you make of this, Grasshopper ?

Grasshopper: Master Po, that is ridiculous! The graphologist is just stating the bleedin' obvious, innit? He could tell all those things just from the sage's actions, the context, and what he wrote. And every man considers himself well-endowed.

MP: Very wise, Grasshopper - you are indeed correct. But many people believe that our infinitely complex personalities and behavioural patterns are somehow encoded in our writing, and that these squiggles can then be decoded to provide very specific and detailed character profiles.

G: Decoded - by whom?

MP: They call themselves 'graphologists'. They advise people on life-changing issues such as career choices; they are used to vet people for jobs; and they even provide character profiles in legal cases.

G: Such responsibility Master! You must be very wise and train for many years to gain such skills.

MP: Alternatively, you can skim a book on one of the many inconsistent, pseudoscientific graphology systems and get certified, via a correspondence course, by a self-accredited Institute for a few quid. Anyone, Grasshopper, may call themselves a graphologist. For what it's worth.

G: Master, this makes me very sad indeed….

Anyway, enough of the pseudo-Kung Fu shit already. This is serious stuff.

What is graphology?

Graphology is the study of behaviour and character as it manifests in handwriting. The graphologist's mantra is 'handwriting is brain-writing': what is in your head, they say, is somehow expressed unconsciously when you write. They claim to be able to make accurate assessments of a person's character, behavioural patterns, even their health simply by analysing their writing.

Most proponents of graphology claim that it is based on established scientific principles, even though this is patently untrue. (Grab any graphology book from the bargain bin of your local bookshop if you don't believe this. You will find lots of pseudoscientific waffle, but no actual science.) Others maintain that it is both science and an art. How convenient.

How is it meant to work?

The British Institute of Graphologists (BIG) tell us that:

"Arbitrary as it may at first appear, all handwriting movements are governed by complex universal laws, which, when fully understood and accurately applied, are found to be as valid as the universal laws which govern chemistry, mathematics, etc."

Let's pass over the ludicrous - outrageous - claim that graphology is equally as valid as chemistry or maths. Let us accept though, for the moment, that graphology is indeed governed by validated, 'universal laws'. (Look - it's a thought experiment, OK?! Just pretend for a while that you are have been lobotomised or something.) As any fule kno, a 'law' in this context is a scientific principle that is invariable under certain stated conditions.

Now, BIG advise that "word spacing deals with the writer's need for space within the environment". So on this basis, everyone in the world who is lonely, for example, will have large spaces between their words. This would be bound by a universal law. (I'm going to be accused of simplifying things here, but I mean - for ***** sake.)

Every single lonely person will write like this.

(Try it now. Write some angst poetry. If it has big spaces then you are Billy No-Mates and I pity you.) It's rather an extraordinary claim when you think about it: that complex, brain-wide behavioural traits such as motivation or loyalty are expressed in how joined up your writing is, or how you dot your 'i's. As the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) point out:

"Graphology 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...?"

But you can't knock something just for low a priori probability or because it appears incredibly stupid. But us sceptics have a mantra too: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Today, though, I am feeling charitable and have decided to declare an evidence amnesty. Or something. I will accept any scrap of proof - however tenuous, however tiny, however contrived - as full confirmation that graphologists' claims are true. So what evidence is there for it?

Yes. What evidence is there for it?

Errrm. None. Not a sausage. Bugger all. There are, in fact, no controlled studies which support any of graphology's extraordinary claims. The only 'evidence' of its efficacy comes from the anecdotes of the practitioners themselves, and from the testimonials of clients. The former are suspect for obvious reasons. The latter are suspect due to, amongst others things, the Barnum Effect (see below).

That's not to say there aren't any studies on graphology. There are, and they make entertaining reading. BCCLA's well-researched piece confirms that:

"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 the personality traits".

In studies where there is content information, non-graphologists do as well, or better(!), than graphologists in predicting traits (BCCLA). This is the case even when the non-graphologist control group work from typed manuscripts.

So what's going on?

Graphology relies on some or all of the following:

cold & hot reading - stuff gleaned from feedback from the content of the written piece or from having other personal information made available beforehand;
'subjective validation' a.k.a. The Forer/Barnum effect - studies show that the majority of people will accept a generic, randomly-chosen graphologist's report as an excellent description of themselves if they think that it was prepared individually for them;
confirmation bias - the relevant bits from reports are selected and dwelled upon. The not so relevant, and downright wrong, are conveniently ignored;
communal reinforcement - lots of people know that graphology works, so there must be something in it;
the argument to authority fallacy - the Government/ University of X, etc. use it for vetting, so there must be something in it;
wishful thinking - brilliant! A simple, foolproof process to pigeonhole people!
self-deception - it seems 'right' that your character is expressed in something as personal as your handwriting. Graphology is basically just tarted-up sympathetic magic. For example, if you write with big, fat 'l's you are imaginative or dreamy, but if you letters are mean and pinched you are a boring git. This is very intuitive and appealing to many people.

The graphology scam

Unfortunately, like many of these things, wanting it to be true is not enough. Nor is believing in it because it 'seems right' or because it's 'harmless'. A lot of time and money are wasted every year on unproven, discredited nonsense such as personality tests and graphology. This includes money you and I have given to the government to maintain and improve the country, which they then pass on to some New Age, tree-hugging twat in a kaftan so that they can tell you that you are unsuitable for a job because they have decided that your capital 'G's are too curly. Worse, graphology is used in a discriminatory manner that is tantamount to an abuse of civil liberties.

It's not clear how widespread the use of graphology is in recruitment or, for example, law-enforcement scenarios. According to one source, 8% of companies in the UK and 80% in France use graphology as a pre-employment screening tool. Another reckons that the major use of graphology in the US is for pre-employment profiling, even though it is unlawful there to use unvalidated pre-employment tests if they have any discriminatory impact.

It should be noted, however, that graphologists like to elevate the importance of their art in the same way that they exaggerate its effectiveness, so such figures should be taken with a pinch of salt. Notwithstanding, graphology should clearly should not be used for such purposes at all - it has no scientific basis, it does not work, and it is discriminatory.

Conclusions

So there you have it. Graphology does not work. It is ineffectual, pseudoscientific cack, and should stay where it belongs: at Glastonbury, somewhere between the palm-reading tent, the Feng Shui booth and the PortaLoo.

As ever, Robert Carroll of the excellent Skeptic's Dictionary sums it up succinctly:

"Graphology is another pipe dream of those who want a quick and dirty decision making process to tell them who to marry, who did the crime, who they should hire, what career they should seek, where the good hunting is, where the water, oil, or buried treasure is, etc. Graphology is another in a long list of quack substitutes for hard work ..... If on the other hand, you don't mind discriminating against people on the basis of pseudoscientific non-sense, then at least have the consistency to use a ouija board to help you pick the right graphologist."

Further Reading

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