October 21, 2004

Debunking graphology
Posted by jr@jrothman.com">Johanna Rothman at 11:13 AM -

I thought handwriting analysis had been debunked years ago, as inadequate to predict job performance. But it seems as if it's still around. If your company is still considering handwriting analysis as a technique to judge candidates, read Wendell Williams' Using Graphology to Predict Performance?. Here are the quotes I found most telling:

• Graphologists were unable to predict scores on the Eysenck personality questionnaire using writing samples from the same people (Furnham and Gunter, 1987)
  
• Graphologists were unable to predict scores on the Myers-Briggs test using writing samples from the same people (Bayne and O'Neill, 1988)
  
• Using meta-analysis drawn from over 200 studies, graphologists were generally unable to predict any kind of personality trait on any personality test, let alone predict job performance (Jennings, Amabile & Ross, 1992).
  

We'd all love to have a test that would tell us whether a candidate would fit into the organization. But, the "tests" that work are behavior-description questions and auditions. Those two techniques are the most likely to predict how a candidate will work as an employee. Sorry, no shortcuts.

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