Source: Global Times [10:35 August 19 2010] Comments
By Chen Dujuan
A strange commercial has been replaying on TV recently: A woman goes up her a manager and says, "Manager, the two applicants had the same performance in interview, which should we choose?" Despite the unlikely situation of two people being exactly equal in an interview, the manager replies, "Let me see their handwriting…[a short pause during which said writing is scrutinized] Guo Jing is better, because his handwriting shows he works harder!"
No, the manager hasn't suddenly developed psychic powers to identify how hard working a prospect is; rather, he's an adherent of graphology, or handwriting analysis.
He isn't the only one; recently, the Evaluation of Professional Skill Aptitude for Talents (EST), a Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security program that aims to encourage development of professional skills by awarding professional certificates, started a new certificate program in handwriting analysis. The course is part of the Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) for human resources professionals. Wondering if there could possibly be any truth behind this popular science, Lifestyle dropped by to find out.
Hou Tongmei, co-founder of www. du-xin.com and one of the organizers of the first graphology training courses for the EST-EAP program, said, "There are primary, intermediate and advanced courses, all including 5-day 4-night classroom study. The primary course ended earlier this month. We had more than 20 students, most of them are employed in human resources, psychology or education. Once you get a lower level certificate, you can progress to classes at the next level." All this expertise does not come cheap, of course. Classes in handwriting analysis cost 2,280 yuan for the beginning class, 4,550 yuan for the intermediate class, and a whopping 6,820 yuan for the advanced class, plus 500 yuan to 1,200 yuan for the requisite exams and certificates.
In an interview with the Jinghua Times, EAP's director, Zhang Pu, said that handwriting assessment can be a useful skill, but probably not an occupation in-and-of itself. Because it is a "very precise, detail-oriented art," there are unlikely to be more than a handful of people capable of mastering it to a professional level.
Hou describes it as "graphological psychology" and considers it a branch of behavioral science. "As the saying goes, 'the style shows the man,'" she says. "Handwriting is a person's [long] habit unconsciously controlled by the brain and therefore believed to relate to personality, mood and even diseases by some graphologists."
According to Hou, empirical research of 1,000 or more samples demonstrates that handwriting analysis to judge personality and traits is 80- to 90-percent effective. A graphologist can judge a person without meeting them, though Hou says it's better if the analyst knows the subject's gender and age because "feminization of men and masculinization of women is very common nowadays."
Also, handwriting reflects psychological age, Hou says, so she might assess that a child with mature handwriting is a lonely person, but the same handwriting would have different implications for a 30-year-old.
And how exactly does your handwriting betray your innermost turmoil and darkest secrets? Hou says it's a matter of "row spacing, speed, pressure, baseline, word space and 'slantiness'."
Fear not, though, this works on foreigners and Chinese alike. "Letters are special features of English writing, while strokes are particular parts of Chinese writing," observes Hou. " For Chinese people, we always judge them by their Chinese handwriting, but we can also judge them by their English handwriting if they use it a lot."
Mr Liu, director of the Xiamen Senior Talent Market, said graphology has been widely used in Xiamen for more than a decade, mainly in corporate recruitment, to determine the personalities of students so they can receive personality-specific instruction, and to conduct criminal investigations.
Li Feng, another co-founder of du-xin.com and one of the teachers of the EST-EAP program, offered to give us a live demonstration by analyzing the handwriting of us and our friends. He said one 26-year-old female's speedy writing means she has good attention to detail, while her small characters tell him it's difficult for her to make changes or organize large activities. The sharp corners of her characters mean she's straightforward and moody, while her upward-slanting horizontal strokes show she's active and motivated.
According to Li, another 28-year-old man's large, slowly written characters mean he's not hurried, but moody and doesn't like it when things don't go his way? He's also tactful less when dealing with personal relationships. The third sample, belonging to a 27-year-old woman, included big, evenly spaced characters, indicating that she can see a problem (or a page) as a whole and plan ahead accordingly. Li suggests that she's probably organized. He also says the shape of her curves indicate tolerance, and the small spaces between words mean that she's close with people and good at communicating and controlling her mood.
The last sample, from a 29-year-old woman, wasn't as flattering as the third, but she got off better than the other two. Her page was well laid-out, and her characters were differently sized, meaning she's good at considering small and large things at the same time.
We checked in with the writers, and they said part they thought it was pretty accurate. Whether handwriting analysis is science or a parlor trick remains foggy, but what's clear is that the practice has its adherents in the professional world. If you want to take part, classes are available at for between 2,280 and 6,820 yuan.
Development of graphology
Hou tells us that graphology allegedly originated in France during the 1870s whenpriest Labbé Mi-chon recorded his observations on the subject in three books. Later his student Jules Crépieux-Jamin refined the system. It has its believers all over the world, especially among the members of the International Graphology Association (IGA). Graphologists say that graphological analysis is widely used for employee recruitment.
In China, there are two main schools of graphology. One follows the Western system and emphasizes uncovering personality traits from the shape of characters and letters. The other, founded by Xu Qingyuan about 30 years ago, emphasizes the relationship between writing pressure and speed with personality.