Handwriting And Personality

Contents

• Introduction
• Conditions Affecting Handwriting
• Personality and It's Development
• Link Between Personality and Handwriting
• Graphology
• Important Features Of Handwriting And Its Corresponding Personality Traits
  • 1. Baseline
  • 2. Connecting strokes
  • 3. Line spacing
  • 4. The slant of words
  • 5. Writing pressure
  • 6. Letter ‘f’
  • 6. Letter ‘t’
  • 7. Dimensions
  • 8. Margins
• Disease Identification
  • 1. Narcissistic personality disorder
  • 2. Dissociative identity disorder
  • 3. Antisocial personality disorder
  • 4. Depression
  • 5. Specific learning disorder
• Forensic Importance of Graphology
• Conclusion
• References

Introduction

Handwriting is a technique of drawing strokes to form letters or words of a particular script with a writing tool on a writable surface. Handwriting is a skill taught to an individual during the very initial phases of life since it is one of the easiest and most common methods of communication. Though the world is getting digitalised nowadays, where most of the work is computerised, writing by hand is still considered an important ability for an individual’s character development. The ability of handwriting to give information about an individual’s personality has been exploited for a long time. Personality defines a person and is reflected through his behaviour, feelings, emotions and actions. Every person is unique in showing a set of personality traits. These traits can be found in various combinations among individuals. The essence of being becomes consistent over time, and the person develops a characteristic nature that determines how they reacts to different life aspects. With the help of graphology, which is the study of handwriting to analyse an individual’s personality, the writer’s personality can be identified by analysing the strokes applied while writing.

Conditions Affecting Handwriting

A large part of a person’s handwriting remains constant and unique. However, certain conditions in the lifetime can lead to temporary alterations in the handwriting, some of which are discussed here. A gradual change in handwriting can be seen as the person ages with time. Writing can be characterised as feeble during childhood, and broken lines can be seen. With age, as the individual reaches adulthood, the writing becomes more confident, firm and strong, depicting a lot about the personality of the writer. In old age, the muscles and nerves become weak, creating tremors in the writing. Environmental, behavioural and circumstantial factors can also affect handwriting development over time. When the lighting conditions are not optimum, or the surface of the writing is rough and uneven, these come under environmental conditions whose effect can be traced in the handwriting produced. Behavioural conditions like improper vision, motor nerve coordination between eyes and hands, emotional balance, state of mind and physical state of the body are reflected in the handwriting development of a person. There can also be some circumstantial factors like time and place of writing and societal or peer pressure, which in turn significantly affect a person’s handwriting. Despite all the above-mentioned factors, handwriting can still be used for individualisation or personality identification because of its characteristic nature depicting uniqueness.

Individual Characteristics of Handwriting

Personality and It’s Development

Personality is an amalgamation of the way a person is, how he thinks, behaves, decides, feels and expresses himself. Various researchers have defined personality in their own ways. In 1950, Cattel defined personality as “that which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a given situation”. The personality greatly affects the being of a person and his living. Different traits that comprise an individual’s personality are used for characterisation. Personality development is an overtime process that depends on what an individual faces during the growing years of life. It can be understood as a moulding procedure that takes place due to the form of events in life and their impact. Happy events form a strong, positive, cheerful and joyous character, whereas sad events develop a negative, weak and melancholic character. Factors like education, environment, genetics, society, family, and friends are responsible for developing one’s personality. Graphology determines the personality trait the individual was trying to express while writing, based on which the personality can be determined.

Link Between Personality and Handwriting

Neurological brain patterns that develop certain neuromuscular movements can represent different personality traits. These movements are specific to personality traits, and the same can be found in individuals with the same personality traits. These small movements occur unconsciously while writing, so handwriting can also be called brain writing. Therefore, these movements can be traced to identify a person’s personality traits through a study called graphology.

Graphology

The art of handwriting is used to study and infer an individual’s personality through graphology. Graphology identifies the personality traits from the neuromuscular movements. Several researchers believe an individual’s handwriting can be analysed to interpret their personality. Graphologists mostly use manual methods to compare the handwriting of different samples to study specific features. However, due to the error rate, computerised graphology is becoming more popular. The computerised method can automatically predict the writer’s personality from handwriting by analysing specific features and generating a profile. The techniques used by graphologists generally compare the frequently appearing traits in handwriting. How an individual writes, i.e., size of letters, pen pressure, spacing between the words, dotting of the letter ‘i’, crossing of the letter ‘t’ can reveal great information about their personality traits, mental state, individual behaviour and psychological state.

Important Features Of Handwriting And Its Corresponding Personality Traits

The handwriting of every individual is unique and distinguishable. Even though a similar script might be found between two handwritings when considered for comparison, the specific writing style in terms of strokes applied can be used as an important feature for identification. A person’s personality can be understood by noting down specific characteristics in the writing. Every feature in handwriting has a specific meaning and says something about the writer’s personality. Personality traits like emotional state, concentration level, impulsiveness, extroversion, organisation level and stress level can be figured out. For example, here in this article, we will focus basically on a few features: –

Class Characteristics of Handwriting

1. Baseline

It refers to the line of writing. The line a person follows while writing is indicative of their personality. An ascending line reflects a positive or optimistic personality, a descending line indicates a negative or pessimistic personality, and a consistently levelled line indicates a person with good reasoning.

2. Connecting strokes

These are lines that connect the letters between words. They can be connected, disconnected, partially connected, or fragmented. A person who makes connected strokes is inferred to be easy and quick to adapt to change. A person with disconnected lines cannot adapt to changes at all, and the one with fragmented lines can.

3. Line spacing

it is the space left by the writer between two consecutive lines. If the lines are evenly spaced and well separated, the writer is well-organised and has a clear thought process. The personality trait of a writer having overlapping loops with crowded lines indicates a disorganised nature and a confused thought process.

4. The slant of words

This feature describes the inclination of letters and words while writing. It can be any of the following types: vertical slants, extremely left slant, moderately left slant, moderately right slant, and extremely right slant. Each one of these has specific characteristics associated with the writer’s personality. A person with a vertical slant type of writing has great and easy control over their emotion. People with an extreme left slant have a self-rejection nature and want to have a permanent type of control over things. People with a moderately left slant find difficulty in expressing their emotions. Moderately right-slant handwriting is associated with people who can easily express feelings and emotions. In contrast, an extremely right slant is associated with people who are deficient in self-control and impetuous.

5. Writing pressure

It refers to the pressure that one applies with a pen on the paper while writing. There can be light writers who are least affected by trauma, medium writers who are moderately affected by trauma and heavy writers who are greatly affected by trauma.

6. Letter ‘f’

this shows how the letter ‘f’ is written. It can broadly be of five types: narrow loop, angular point, angular loop, cross-like and balanced. A narrow loop indicates that the person writing it might be mean-minded. An angular loop indicates that the person has a strong reaction to obstacles. An angular point denotes a revolting nature, a cross-like denotes high concentration, and a balanced pattern denotes good leadership qualities.

6. Letter ‘t’

it refers to how the bar is made on the letter ‘t’. if the bar of ‘t’ is marked at a lower level, it indicates lower self-esteem; if it is too high, it indicates higher self-esteem.

7. Dimensions

This indicates the self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-value one holds for oneself. If a person has big dimensions, he thinks highly about himself.

8. Margins

The margins on the sides of pages indicate a person’s nature. If a person leaves a narrow margin on the right, it shows that he is impatient and eager. If the right margin is broad, the writer might be fearing something.

Disease Identification

Several personality disorders can be claimed to be present based on specific calligraphic patterns in writing.

1. Narcissistic personality disorder

People with this disorder write in a way that saves space on the paper. This writing mostly includes decorative curls, uppercase letters, and circles on the letter ‘i’.

Instruments Used in Ink Analysis

2. Dissociative identity disorder

The way to identify the writing of people with this disorder includes great variation in a single text’s handwriting. For example, the presence of different writing sizes, different levels of pen pressure, and different spacing patterns indicate the expression of different personalities of one person.

3. Antisocial personality disorder

People with such a disorder aspire to deliver a message in their handwriting. They do not pay heed to margins, dimensions, or lines, often focusing on some easily readable words amidst the entire writing.

4. Depression

The handwriting of such people is analyzed, including a descending baseline, a low level of ‘t’ bar, and less pen pressure.

5. Specific learning disorder

Identifying this kind of handwriting is challenging and mainly involves careful observation of line alignment, speed, grammar, and spelling.

Forensic Importance of Graphology

Handwriting analysis is an important part of criminal investigation in cases related to questioned document examination. The graphologist analyses the questioned and known standards to find similarities or dissimilarities between the handwriting. This tells about the psychological state and personality of the writer to determine the modus operandi while doing any kind of forgery. The presence of psychiatric conditions like alcoholism, schizophrenia, neurotics, paranoia etc. can be determined by the graphologist. A clue about a person’s masculine and feminine nature can be determined from handwriting but not age.

Examination of Questioned Document

Conclusion

Along with personality identification, graphology is also used for other developmental purposes. A disadvantage of graphology is that the method is not very accurate. Graphology can only give some idea about personality traits at the time of writing but not exactly pinpoint all the traits. Also, a person with some knowledge of handwriting can try to manipulate it to deceive the analyst. The field of graphology is still developing, and current technologies are being used to counter its existing loopholes.

References

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2. https://psychologia.co/handwriting-and-personality/
3. https://handwritinggraphology.com/graphology-handwriting-analysis/
4. Achmy, Zati & Kadar, Masne & Razaob, Nor Afifi & Wan Yunus, Farahiyah. (2022). Factors Influencing Handwriting Development among Preschool Children: A Systematic Review. Kesmas: Jurnal Kesehatan Masyarakat Nasional. 17. 235. 10.21109/kesmas.v17i4.6209.
5. https://www.familyeducation.com/school-learning/subject/writing/factors-affecting-handwriting
6. Kinjal Chaudhari, Ankit Thakkar, Survey on handwriting-based personality trait identification, Expert Systems with Applications, Volume 124,2019, Pages 282-308, ISSN 0957-4174,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2019.01.028.
7. https://legaldesire.com/role-of-graphology-in-forensic-investigation/#:~:text=Forensic%20investigators%20use%20graphology%20to%20determine%20the%20personality,Handwriting%20reveals%20a%20person%E2%80%99s%20emotional%20status%20while%20writing.
8. Ron N. Morris (2000) Forensic handwriting identification: fundamental concepts and principle Academic Press