Are elements of personality revealed through handwriting?
Dear Cecil: In your column about handwriting analysis you wrote (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030418.html), “More than 200 objective scientific studies have demonstrated that graphology is worthless as a predictor of personality.” After I whined a bit, you conceded that you had misstated matters. It wasn’t that 200 studies had independently concluded graphology was worthless; rather, one researcher, Geoffrey Dean, made this judgment based on a “meta-analysis” of 200 previous studies. Even Dean’s study is seriously flawed and doesn’t support the conclusions drawn. Let me define what I believe is in contention. I specifically do not claim that handwriting analysis is useful for a purpose such as personnel selection; that people who practice it are honest, scientific, or consistent in their analyses; or that all or most of the personality traits they claim to find reflected in handwriting actually are. I propose simply that elements of personality are reflected in handwriting. That
