Graphology: Person behind the pen

Learn how to create a personality profile with a basic lesson in graphology.

Whether you are an employer making an important hiring decision, an interrogator extracting information from a suspect or a lawyer negotiating a settlement, the ability to measure a person’s personality is imperative. Instead of referring to a plethora of complex personality theories, you can simply take a lesson in graphology that acts as a window into a personality by analysing their handwriting.  

There is some debate on what is the best place to start: the speed of handwriting or the emotional energy of the writer (this entails the physical pressure exerted to write). Looking at speed helps you draw a detailed sketch of the writer.

While fast writers are often taken to be spontaneous, impatient, ambitious, negligent and quick thinkers, average writers are considered to be cautious, creative, organised and slow thinkers. To be able to profile your writer, it is important to examine speed using an objective criterion — correlating the speed of writing to the speed of thought of the writer. Factors which serve as distracting influences must also be taken into account. In Your Character from your Handwriting: The New Graphology, Harry Brooks makes this easier by establishing the 18 indicators of speed, half of them used to identify slow writers and the other half for fast writers. For instance, frequent corrections or readjustments, lines sloping towards the right, accurate placement of the tittle for the ‘i’ (dot on top) and ‘t’ bars and strokes moving towards the left are all characteristics of slow writing with the reverse holding true for fast writing. And as a rule, two or more indicators of any style will determine the speed of the writer.

After establishing the speed, the next step is to determine the emotional responsiveness of the writer. This involves observing the strokes: upstrokes (measured from the baseline to the apex of the letter) and the downstrokes (measured from the apex to the baseline of the letter). For instance, while writing the letter ‘j’ you are making a downstroke on the lower part of the letter and making an upstroke in the upper part while writing an ‘h’. The strokes represent life force and energy flow and the slant of the two strokes in particular, represents emotional responsiveness or reactions to immediate circumstances. In this regard, Angelina Jolie comes across as determined because of the pointy downward strokes at the end of her signature. The more the letter slant leans toward the right, the more an emotional response can be expected. Such writers often show a willingness to comply and possess the ability to get along with co-workers while extreme left-slanted writers are sometimes antisocial, non-communicative and even defiant at times.

With the two fundamental calculations out of the way, the spotlight can be cast on the intensity of certain traits in individuals. Each behavioural trait can be represented graphically and this is determined by the structure pattern for each letter and its frequency of occurrence.

Although this science of character reading has come under great criticism in the recent past, being labelled as a pseudoscience, its value in the workplace as an additional method of gaining an insight into the personality of others cannot be written off. The claim that “handwriting is brainwriting” therefore continues to play a significant role in mapping the inner self.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, June 9^th, 2013.

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