Is graphology science or pseudoscience.

[Brian-M]

Instead of getting people to copy a given text, why not just let them write whatever they want, and then cut-up the result, giving the graphologist a group of 5 randomly selected "A"s, 5 randomly selected "B"s... and so on, from each person?

There would be no content to skew the graphologist's analysis.

 

[ArrantPrac]

That's an interesting problem.

Would it work if people were orally told what to write? Not copied off another paper, but instructed to write out a specific passage?

Perhaps if they got people who could write in a language that the graphologists didn't understand?

 

[oldhat]

Instead of getting people to copy a given text, why not just let them write whatever they want, and then cut-up the result, giving the graphologist a group of 5 randomly selected "A"s, 5 randomly selected "B"s... and so on, from each person?

There would be no content to skew the graphologist's analysis.

Randi destroyed a graphologist on British TV using you (scientific) method. It on YouTube somewhere.

To the guy upthread who said people who TYP3 LYK3 TH1S or use "bad" grammar on the internet must be stupid or of low intelligence, that's a perfect example of older people misunderstanding youth culture and misattributing someone's tradititonal education level with IQ.

The single most objectively intelligent person I have ever met in person, an I'm not exaggerating, was a former co-worker of mine when I worked as a bank teller. He was a high school dropout ex-drug dealer who spoke in "bad" ghetto English but had a seriously eerie aptitude for math, statistics, human psychology (sales) and understanding of the financal markets, which he studied compulsively. He regularly raked in $300 in sales commissions monthly, which sounds like nothing but was the equivalent of batting .400. Did the bank ever promote him? No way, he made too much money as a bank officer and they would lose his monster sales.

In more just world he would have been a trader at Goldman Sachs. In fact, I told him to apply for a job in investment banking (Morgan Stanley had a regional office across the street) but he was too insecure about his education and he was convinced he couldn't stop smoking weed long enough to pass a drug test.

 

[Elaedith]

Instead of getting people to copy a given text, why not just let them write whatever they want, and then cut-up the result, giving the graphologist a group of 5 randomly selected "A"s, 5 randomly selected "B"s... and so on, from each person?

There would be no content to skew the graphologist's analysis.

Strangely, none of the published studies that I recall were done that way, although there probably are some. It would be essential for them to agree they can do it isolated letters, because it would be easy to duck out afterwards by saying they need to see spacing of words, or letters in a more 'holistic context' etc.

 

[Rrose Selavy]

Randi destroyed a graphologist on British TV using you (scientific) method. It on YouTube somewhere.

I remember that when it was first broadcast and have just watched it again . Given the alleged purpose of Graphology in that case It was a poor test in that it assumed that the people were already happy and/or competent in their jobs and that it is not possible for a person with a very different "personality" to do the same job well . The whole premise (right or wrong) was that according to the Graphology (said Randi) 40% of people were in the "wrong" jobs for their personality type.
So by that criteria the conclusion could still have been that the other four were still in the "wrong" jobs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeYkOHQ683k

From the books I read on the subject many years ago , the two things that supposedly could not be deduced by graphology were age and sex.

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[Brian-M]

Strangely, none of the published studies that I recall were done that way, although there probably are some. It would be essential for them to agree they can do it isolated letters, because it would be easy to duck out afterwards by saying they need to see spacing of words, or letters in a more 'holistic context' etc.

That could be gotten around by cutting out common words like "the" and "and". Asking the participants to compose an impromptu essay on a given subject would result in even more common words for comparison.

 

[ben m]

From the books I read on the subject many years ago , the two things that supposedly could not be deduced by graphology were age and sex.

That's surprising; I would have guessed that sex was the easiest thing to guess.

And with regard to age: hasn't cursive changed dramatically over time? If you know a writing sample was created in the present day, you don't need to make judgements like "This writer is age 60-70", you need to say "This writer learned mid-Palmer-method cursive and thus must have been in grade school in the 1950s." (Or something.)

 

[Rrose Selavy]

Why would sex be easier to guess? What would distinguish "female" writing from "male" writing? Lots of heart shaped loops in pink?

The principal behind the graphology I looked at was that regardless of how you were originally taught or learn to write , you would eventually deviate from the prescribed forms in small but significant ways. But there was what was called "copybook style" which if I remember correctly meant either you have only recently learnt to write, the language was not your native language , or possibly you were of er..lower intelligence having to make the effort to write but not relaxed or skilled to forget the "correct form" and write completely intiuitely as it were, without needing to consciously think about it.

If you want to give a Graphologist a hard time, just write entirely in BLOCK CAPITALS. It gives them much less to intepret if anything, it's the forms of the lower case letters, and how they join and slant that in theory give them most "information" to interpret.

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[Rrose Selavy]

Problem with that is that there might still be certain 'content' introduced... I'm thinking of things like spelling errors... which might give a clue to identity.

If you told them to write the words to "Mary had a little lamb", and they spelled it "Mary had a littl lam" the graphologist may (correctly) assume the individual is younger and/or uneducated because they spelled 'lamb' wrong rather than because of the way individual characters were written (part of what graphology is based on).

It's true to "analyse" you "read" the form not the content and separate the two . After a little practice it gets quite easy to do so. However fairly banal content makes this easier rather than also reading say what appeared to be psychotic ramblings but they could still be faked so the actual form might indicate different.
The simplest way to provide a sample would probably be to get someone to write a short letter with fairly banal content . eg: The size of the signature compared to the rest of the text was supposed to indicate the person' sense of self/ego or how they tried to present themselves to the world.

 

[ben m]

Why would sex be easier to guess? What would distinguish "female" writing from "male" writing? Lots of heart shaped loops in pink?

In my high-school yearbooks (recently unearthed during a move), yes, exactly---little circles over the i's and occasionally purple ink. But I suspect that's an unusual sample.

In the pile of exams I graded this spring, anecdotally speaking, I think women were more likely to be responsible for the "parallel lines of legible cursive text" and men for the "printed letters of variable size and spacing scrawled at an angle". That's entirely non-blinded, though---if expert experience is to the contrary I won't defend it.