In preparation for my meeting with graphologist Maresi de Monchy, I was told to supply a handwritten text on a sheet of unlined paper. The content was irrelevant, the written words enough to analyze my handwriting—and with that, my personality. It sounded strangely old-fashioned, a little like having your palm read or your astrological chart drawn.
And therein lies the main criticism of graphology, the study and analysis of handwriting: you just cough up a few vague generalizations, add a couple of uncertainties and contrasts, and keep it primarily positive and flattering. This is known as the Forer effect, named after Bertram Forer, a psychologist who showed in 1948 that his students found their “individual personality analysis” accurate even though he gave them all the same text from an astrology column. Referring to the Forer effect, and the lack of validation and consensus among practitioners, several damning reports have summarily dismissed graphology.
However, as recently as a few decades ago, graphology was considered standard procedure for evaluating job applicants in the business world. In some countries, such as Switzerland, two-thirds of companies still ask for handwritten letters to analyze a candidate’s personality, ambitions, and work ethic. Today, an accredited degree in graphology is offered at a handful of universities around the world, mainly in Europe, where the “science” of graphology was developed in the late 19th century by Frenchman Jules Crépieux-Jamin. He believed specific handwriting elements correlated with particular human traits. In his system, leaving a narrow margin on the right-hand side of the page, for example, meant you were anti-social.
While to some this may sound like baloney, surprising evidence shows graphology can in fact provide insights at least as valuable as those of psychology. De Monchy led a study at the Open University of the Netherlands that found graphologists and psychologists came up with similar results when they screened clients for leadership qualities, social skills, intelligence, and emotional stability. 150 graphologists analyzed the handwriting of people who were also evaluated according to several personality assessment systems, like the WAIS, a general intelligence test. Both groups came to similar conclusions. Psychologists and graphologists were asked to give scores on a scale of one to five for these four traits, and often even came to the same score for individuals. “This study shows that graphology can be just as valuable as psychology in determining certain aspects of one’s personality,” says De Monchy. “Never before has this been shown in such a rigid way.” The study will be published next year in Global Graphology, the journal of the International Graphological Colloquium in Québec, Canada.
