PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS AND RESEARCH | ISSN 2613-7828
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*
Correspondence to: Marianna Mazza, Institute of Psychiatry and Psychology, Department of Geriatrics, Neuroscience and Orthopedics, Fondazione Policlinico
Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy; E-mail: mariannamazza@hotmail.com
Review Article
Graphology: An Interface Between Biology, Psychology and Neuroscience
Giuseppe Marano
1,2,3,4
, Gianandrea Traversi
5
, Eleonora Gaetani
6
, Gabriele Sani
1
, Salvatore Mazza
1
and Marianna
Mazza
1*
1
Institute of Psychiatry and Psychology, Department of Geriatrics, Neuroscience and Orthopedics, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli
IRCCS, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy
2
Associazione Grafologica Italo-Francese (AGIF), Italy
3
Istituto Analisi Grafologiche (IANG), Italy
4
Associazione Grafologi Professionisti (AGP), Italy
5
Department of Science, University of Rome “Roma Tre”, Rome, Italy
6
Division of Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore,
Rome, Italy
A R T I C L E I N F O
Article history:
Received: 19 December, 2020
Accepted: 29 December, 2020
Published: 7 January, 2021
Keywords:
Graphology
handwriting
psychology
neurosciences
biology
A B S T R A C T
Introduction
In the second half of the nineteenth century, between
1
806 and 1881, in
France, the Abbé Jean-Hippolyte Michon coined the term graphology
catalogued as a series of recurrent graphic signs and empirically linked
to specific aspects of the character. The term derives etymologically
from the Greek, consisting of the word graphè meaning “to write” and
logos signifying “word, study”, therefore graphology is the study of
writing. It is a discipline connoted by an experimental nature which seeks
to outline the complexity of individual psycho-physical behaviour,
through the rigorous and meticulous analysis and interpretation of
graphic signs detected in handwriting.
According to the ethical code adopted by the Société Française de
Graphologie, graphology is described in terms of a “human science,
technique of observation and interpretation” that “allows the study of
personality through handwriting analysis”. The medical dictionary
defines graphology as “a technique of personality investigation that
assigns to the manual handwriting a revelatory significance of the writer
attitudes and behaviours” [1]. In addition, “the graphic aspects such as
the pressure of writing on the paper, the size of the letters, the closure or
Handwriting analysis dates back to many centuries ago. Graphology is a discipline that investigates
personality and intellect of the individual through writing, indeed handwriting of the human being is an
expression of his or her essence. Graphology examines a writing in order to extract unfiltered information
about innate temperament and subconscious nature of who has traced the letters. The present paper
highlights the historical and methodological approaches of graphology and its usefulness in human
knowledge in order to give a glimpse of the complexity of this discipline. We have gradually focused on the
description of the various fields with which, over time until today, the graphologists have dealt according
to experimental and epistemological methodologies along a spectrum that ranges from studies on the
character, the neuronal and biological correlates, the use in the forensic field, until to the contributions to
career counseling and personnel selection. This manuscript aims to provide a quantitative picture of the
handwriting analysis trying to combine insights from different sources and exploring conditions, limits and
possibilities of its subject matter and methods involved. Handwriting analysis draws reliable conclusions
about the spirit personality of a writer. We suppose that graphology and psychology could complement each
other, and in this perspective, we explore the hypothesis of the existence of a bidirectional relationship
between psychology, graphology and neuroscience which allows to gain insight into ourselves and others.
© 2020 Marianna Mazza. Hosting by Science Repository.
© 2020 Marianna Mazza. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
http://dx.doi.org/10.31487/j.PDR.2020.03.05