Is it accurate to infer a person's character from handwriting?

Many people think that handwriting can infer a person's personality, but no one has come up with clear data to show that there is an inevitable correlation between them. On the contrary, in 1992, psychologist Geoffrey A. Dean made a meta-analysis of more than 200 studies on handwriting and personality, and found that the correlation coefficient between handwriting analysis and personality was only 0. 12, which means that the proportion of graphology accurately predicting personality was less than 2%. So the conclusion is that handwriting has little to do with people's personality.

Since handwriting analysis is so inaccurate, why do many people want to believe it?

First of all, the simple thinking of graphology caters to the public's thinking mode. Personality itself is invisible, but graphology links abstract personality characteristics with specific handwriting characteristics, and establishes an intuitive corresponding relationship through semantic association. This system is approachable and can meet the needs of ordinary people to know themselves and others.

Secondly, in the practice of handwriting analysis, handwriting analysts often use many clues other than handwriting to infer, so it sounds reasonable. For example, some analysts will analyze the characters of historical figures or contemporary celebrities according to their handwriting, and make a clear statement, but this analysis is actually to understand the personality characteristics of the target characters first, and then put the handwriting characteristics on them. In addition, the content of writing will also provide clues. For example, the author of a very sad text is more prone to depression, and this inference has nothing to do with handwriting clues. As mentioned above, under strict scientific inspection, the accuracy of analysts is almost the same as pure speculation.

Finally, there is the famous Barnum effect, also known as Fowler effect. From 65438 to 0948, psychologist Fowler proved through experiments that people tend to think that some vague and general descriptions are particularly suitable for them, even if they are randomly selected. Pseudo-sciences such as constellation and graphology all make use of this cognitive bias, and their predictions and inferences are extensive and applicable. Barnum effect makes it easy for us to accept this statement and think it has some truth.