Handwriting analysts or graphologists use handwriting examples as a personality test, studying what a person’s writing style reveals about their psychological disposition. This short handwriting course will teach you how to have fun giving yourself and your family and friends a handwriting test.

Step 1: Collect Your Handwriting Examples

Put together some handwriting examples from yourself, your family and friends. Get examples from several different writers so you can have a basis for comparison.

Use lined paper, for reasons that will become evident later.

For each writer, include both a sample of regular writing and a sample of a signature. You will be learning how to compare and interpret differences between the way a person normally writes and how they write when they sign their name.

The regular writing sample should include a few lines that’s long enough for a good representation of different stroke types and lengths.

Step 2: Study the Size of Your Sample

The first thing you’re going to compare is the text size of your samples. Pick one sample at a time to evaluate and comparing it to the rest, decide if it is larger, smaller, much larger, etc., than the other samples.

Graphologists interpret large writing as reflecting a desire to stand out from the crowd and attract attention. Small writing, in contrast, is read as a preference for introspection, while very small writing is seen as an attempt to avoid attention. Medium writing is viewed as a tendency to conform. How would you classify your sample?

Now compare the same writer’s regular writing with their signature. When a writer writes in two distinct styles, graphologists interpret this as expressing a tension in their personality. Does the person sign their name larger than they normally write? That can be taken as an indicator of a normally introspective person trying to be noticed.

Step 3: Observe the Slant

Now let’s look at the slant in your writing sample. Does the writing tilt slightly to the right? Strongly to the right? To the left? Is it almost vertical? Or does it waver from one slant to another?

Handwriting analysis interpreters take slant as an indication of a person’s tendency to be decisive and outgoing or hesitant and withdrawn. A strong slant to the right is interpreted as impulsiveness and a drive towards social interaction. A slight slant to the right is viewed as goal-oriented and friendly. A vertical lack of slant is taken as cool-headed practicality and self-sufficiency. A slant to the left is seen as a sign of hesitancy and social reserve. A varying slant is taken as indicating inner conflict and moodiness.

As with writing size, consider how your sample’s regular writing slant compares to its signature slant. A regular right slant with a vertical signature may be taken to indicate a person trying to conceal emotional intensity by appearing level-headed. A regular left slant with a right signature slant may be viewed as a sign of a reserved person trying to appear more decisive and outgoing. Small vertical regular writing with a large right slant on signatures may be seen as meaning that an introspective, detail-oriented person is projecting an appearance of outgoing leadership.

Step 4: Analyze the Baseline

Remember when we said there was a reason when we were going to use lined paper for your samples? The reason is because now we’re going to analyze how well your writing samples follow the line your letters are written on, called the baseline.

Look at your sample. Does the writer stick parallel to the baseline? Does their writing ascend from the baseline? Does it descend towards it? Or does it wander up and down?

Graphologists analyze baseline as an indicator of a writer’s emotional outlook. Closely following the baseline is viewed as an indicator of task-oriented focus. Ascending from the baseline is seen as a sign of optimism. Descending from the baseline is viewed as pessimism. Wandering up and down is viewed as indecision.

Also consider differences between the baseline in your sample’s regular writing and that in your sample’s signature. Graphologists interpret such inconsistencies as an attempt to project a different emotional appearance to others than the person feels privately.

Step 5: Learning More

This is just an introduction to a few of the fun ways you can analyze handwriting samples from yourself and your friends. You can learn more by taking a more complete graphology course, available through correspondence, at your local library, or online.

Worthy Handwriting Training Resources

My Handwriting
International Graphoanalysis Center
American Handwriting Analysis Foundation
British Institute of Graphologists

Related Posts

No related posts found