Title

The validity of handwriting elements in relation to self-report personality trait measures

Abstract

Research on graphology has provided mixed results regarding its validity in applied settings. Increasing popularity of this method (Edwards & Armitage, 1991) calls for continued evaluation. The current study sought to validate a popular graphoanalysis method proposed by Bunker (1979), which links specific handwriting elements to personality traits. Content-neutral handwriting of 49 college students was analyzed for 30 elements (e.g. length of t-cross) by two trained coders working independently. Participants also completed the Jackson Personality Inventory-Revised (JPI-R; Jackson, (994), which measures 15 normal personality traits. Inter-rater agreement in handwriting analysis was moderately high (median reliability = 0.80). Both predicted and non-predicted correlations between handwriting elements and JPI- R scales were significant at around chance levels (i.e. 5%). In particular, of the 119 predicted relations, only six (5.0%) were significant in the expected direction and five (4.1%) were significant in the opposite direction. All told, current findings replicate those of previous studies and suggest limited value in handwriting analysis as a predictive tool. Copyright © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.

Publication Date

1-1-1997

Publication Title

Personality and Individual Differences

Volume

22

Issue

1

Number of Pages

11-18

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(96)00183-3

Socpus ID

0030640683 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/0030640683

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