THE VALIDITY OF HANDWRITING ELEMENTS IN RELATION TO SELF-REPORT PERSONALITY-TRAIT MEASURES

Research on graphology has provided mixed results regarding its validi ty in applied settings. Increasing popularity of this method (Edwards & Armitage, 1991) calls for continued evaluation. The current study so ught to validate a popular graphoanalysis method proposed by Bunker (1 979), which links specific handwriting elements to personality traits. Content-neutral handwriting of 49 college students was analyzed for 3 0 elements (e.g, length of t-cross) by two trained coders working inde pendently. Participants also completed the Jackson Personality Invento ry-Revised (JPI-R; Jackson, 1994), which measures 15 normal personalit y traits. Inter-rater agreement in handwriting analysis was moderately high (median reliability = 0.80). Both predicted and non-predicted co rrelations between handwriting elements and JPI-R scales were signific ant at around chance levels (i.e. 5%). In particular, of the 119 predi cted relations, only six (5.0%) were significant in the expected direc tion and five (4.1%) were significant in the opposite direction. All t old, current findings replicate those of previous studies and suggest limited value in handwriting analysis as a predictive tool. Copyright (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.