by Theodore Barnett

Nearly a year ago, on November 19, 1997 , there appeared on American public television a program about graphology, terming it a "pseudo-science", akin to tea leaf reading and palmistry. The program was an episode of the Scientific American Frontiers series, created by Chedd-Angier Productions of Watertown, Mass, and sponsored by a major corporation.

Two of the other segments in the hour-long episode which was entitled, "Beyond Science" were about dowsing and aliens from outer space. Someone was definitely out to damage graphology in the eyes of the public, given that company.

The producers had selected Barry Beyerstein as the program expert on graphology. Need more be said? The producers went on to select a Virginia company called "Datagraph" as the experts to do the graphological analysis of the subjects chosen for the experiment along with a William and Mary clinical psychologist who had been administering the Cattell 16 PF test to people who agreed to have their scripts analyzed by Datagraph.

Datagraph had developed a method of graphological analysis by having trained graders rate the scripts in question by assigning a certain number to each of 400+ separate indicators such as different kinds of t-bars, and different kinds of a's. In developing their program, they had equated each stroke or letter with some trait so that the more "hits" a grader got of a particular kind of stroke or letter form, the more the scriptor was considered to have that particular trait. The rating numbers were fed into Datagraph's computer and out came a graph with 14 different major personality characteristics shown with bars. It was mainly on the basis of the length of these bars that a personality profile was created.

When the psychologist, Dr. John Nezlek and Datagraph compared the results of the Cattell 16 PF tests and Datagraph's findings, Dr. Nezlek in a memo dated August 3, 1997 characterized the results as "very encouraging". He stated, "(Datagraph's) descriptions of individuals' personalities ..., are similar in meaningful ways to the descriptions provided by standardized and objective personality inventories that are known to be valid."

Datagraph claims that their system is over 90% accurate and that they have many satisfied clients. They were shocked by how the producers edited out all the positive information about Datagraph's performance which came up again and again during the 100 hours the producers are said to spent with Datagraph and their clients.

I gathered the above information in Virginia in the spring after being requested by the Executive Committee of the Colloquium to conduct an investigation into this matter. I spent three hours interviewing both Dr. Nezlek and the two principals of Datagraph. Datagraph was entirely willing, it should be said, to cooperate in an experiment with traditional graphologists to see to what extent the results obtained by each method resembled one another.

Thus it was that all of graphology, including both computer graphology and mainstream graphology, was dismissed in that public television program as rubbish.

Before going to Virginia , I had made several unsuccessful efforts to interview the program's producer, Dave Huntley. We did talk at length on the phone twice but he refused to see me. He asserted that he was not prepared to do anything about the program, that he was satisfied with the research that his company had done which resulted in that program. He was civil but very firm.

By early summer I was getting more and more caught up in preparing for the Colloquium and could not proceed further on the Scientific American Frontiers investigation at the time.

One problem to which I could not find a ready solution was how to make such a strong case for the validity of graphology that I could go further in trying to level the playing field, first to the corporate sponsor and then, if necessary, to the TV channel which distributed the program nationally and possibly eventually to national television in Washington.

It seemed to me that a corporate sponsor as well as public television has an on-going obligation to the public to sponsor and air documentaries which are objective and carefully researched, which obviously was not done in the case of the segment on graphology.

It is all well and good to leap to the defense of graphology as Pat Siegel of ASPG and Rose Matousch of AAHA did competently when this highly-biased program was aired, but I see three problems here:

1) Are we in possession of sufficient credible evidence to persuade by a preponderance of the evidence that graphology is not a pseudo-science as Beyerstein continues to assert?

2) Even should we be in possession of such evidence, what are we defending when we rise to the defense of graphology? Are we defending the field - which is well accepted in certain countries like France and the Netherlands ? Or are we defending those who purport to practice it, which in the United States is a very mixed bag indeed. In my research into the state of graphology in the United States which I conducted for the past three years and which I continue to conduct, I've found very few professional graphologists who had anything good to say about any other graphologist. I usually asked the question, "If you had to be away on holiday and wanted to make sure that your best clients' needs were properly taken care of during your absence, what graphologist would you call on to substitute for you?"

Usually the person being interviewed became silent at that point and when I pressed him (or her) for an answer, it was like pulling teeth. He might mention one other graphologist or at the outset two. It became clear to me very soon that most professionals in the United States do not have much respect for the graphological competence of other professionals.

There are, in fact, outside of IGAS ranks, relatively few full-time professional graphologists in the U.S. When several of us were organizing a comparative analysis session to be held last October in New York, the leaders of ASPG and NSG could only come up with a handful of full-time professional graphologists out of both organizations, which the two which appear to have the highest standards; both are considered professional.

So it is then when one is moved to spring to the defense of graphology in a country where graphology is as undeveloped as it is in the United States, one must first pause and ask oneself the question, am I leaping to the defense of graphology or of the individuals in this country who hold themselves out to the public as graphologists? Can anyone who sees the true picture of graphology here be motivated to try to do that?

3) Whatever we decide to do, how can we do it effectively and get action? Writing a couple letters of protest, although praiseworthy, is highly unlikely to get results.

Finally, where should we go from here in the matter of the very biased TV program of last November 19?

The transcript of that program follows.

Theodore Barnett
October 1998