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Critical Analysis of King and Koehler's Research The research was conducted by Roy N. King and Derek J. Koehler of the University of Waterloo in 2000. The authors wanted to present their theory that graphology, using a persons handwritten specimen to predict and probably reveal his personality profile, has no direct relationship whatsoever with a persons real and actual personal qualities.
The study also tries to explore the illusionary correlation phenomenon as a possible contributing factor to the persistence use of graphology to envisage and picture a prospective employees character. There were two experiments conducted to two groups of students enrolled in an introductory psychology course. All of the participants, in answer to one of the items in the questionnaires, indicated that they have no familiarity with any writing analysis. Both groups were asked to examine several writing samples or casebooks which are paired with manufactured personality profiles.
In the first experiment, the handwriting samples were randomly pared with the personality profiles. While in the second experiment, perceptible correlations were established between targeted handwriting-feature-personality-trait pairs which are in a congruent and others, incongruent direction with graphologists' claims. In the two experiments, the judgments of the participants on the correlations between the designated handwriting-feature / personality -trait pairs concurred with that of the graphologists. They are of the same opinion that certain features of a persons writing specimen can predict that persons general characteristics even though their real statistical associations were contrived and controlled by the experimenters. The researchers found out after both experiments were conducted that the semantic association of the words used to describe the characteristics of the writing samples and the personality traits was the source of the biases in the distinguished and recognized relationship between both variables. The results of the different but parallel experiments point out to a high degree of probability that these are the reasons why despite the strong evidence against the predictive validity of graphology, more human resource departments around the world (and their number is increasing) are still using it as a basis for hiring staff and workforce.
In an evaluation of almost 200 studies and researches conducted all over the world to measure the validity of the assumptions and inferences regarding graphology, one researcher found only a very small effect of a persons writing characteristics that has a correlation to his personality and character. According to the analysis (Dean, 1992), the effect result is so small (and negligible) that it is too small to be discernible and observable to a human judge, much more to a non-professional, untrained one. The effect is not enough to be of any practical use and so therefore has no impact on the variables (both dependent and independent) at all. Deans assessment of these 200 graphology-based studies found out that only gender (Furnham, 1988), socioeconomic status (Mines, 1988), and degree of literacy (Osborne, 1929) are predictable from the analysis of handwriting that may in turn predict some personality traits. Thus, any (weak) ability of graphology to predict personality may be merely based on gender or socioeconomic status information assessed from handwriting (in King & Koehler, 2000) and not any other personality traits as most graphologists claim.
There was not one emotional trait or personality characteristic that any of the 200 writing analysis proved to have predicted. On the other hand, the experiments conducted in the University Waterloo proved that even with very little knowledge or no background at all of the process and methods of graphology, the participants were able to discover and predict the correlation between certain personality features with particular facets and characteristics of writing specimens. One must consider the fact that the casebook given to each participant was basically manufactured and the personality traits identified were not necessarily that of the owner of the specimen writing; that the participating judges have acknowledge that fact that they do not know or are not familiar with writing analysis. Yet, most of them were able to arrive to the same conclusion that is similar and complements that of the professional graphologists. Now, how did this happen? This only goes to show that the hypothesis about the illusionary correlation between particular writing features and personality traits is proven and true.
King and Koehler's research points out the factor that the main contributory issue to the illusionary correlation between writing features and personality traits lies on the relationship of the meanings and connotations of the words used to describe both the writing features and personality traits (e. g. big-small for egoism-modesty; slow-fast for cautious-impulsive; compact-expansive for introverted-extroverted; ascending-descending for optimism-negativism). It is clear that the semantic association people most probably placed on the descriptive terms used in graphology, specifically in the experiments, suggested the relationship between the variables involved.
Because of this observable fact, the judges came to an assessment which is bias on the terms used; the examiners have the preconceived notion of the connotation of the terms used in describing the writing specimen features and so therefore relate these to the characteristics and personality traits of a person. The terms utilized in the writing evaluation influenced the examiner-judges assessment of the seeming connection and thus consider it is so easy to attribute relationships and correlations between these two variables when in reality there is really none. The research findings might just be rational, detailed and valid yet a lot of conscientious and fastidious companies and firms all over the world are still using and employing graphologist even with the evident discredit a lot of researches have stack on it. The popularity of this method of predicting a persons characteristics and personality seems to belie the facts that discredit it as an efficient and effective measurement in assessing ones personality.
Dean, G. A. , Kelly, I. W. , Saklofske, D. H. , & Furnham, A. Graphology and Human Judgment. In B.
L. Beyerstein & D. F. Beyerstein (Eds. ), The Write Stuff: Evaluations of Graphology, the Study of Handwriting Analysis (pp. 342 - 396). Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1992. Driver, Russel, M.
Ronald Buckley and Dwight D. Frink. "Should We Write Off Graphology?" . International Journal of Selection and Assessment 4 (2): 7886, 1996. Gardner, Ruth. Instant Handwriting Analysis: A Key to Personal Success (1 st ed. ), New Mexico, USA: Llewellyn Publications, 2002. King, Roy N.
and Derek J. Koehler. Illusory Correlations in Graphological Inference. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2000, Vol. 6, No. 4, 336 - 341. Hayes, Reed. Between the Lines.
Tucson, AZ: Mostly Books, 1993.
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