HANDWRITING OF INTROVERTS AND EXTRA VERTS 69 



For the purpose of the present test, namely the study of graphic charac- 

 ters, the results relative to each sample of handwriting are of more sig- 

 nificance than the results in terms of a mean. In percentage terms the range 

 of right judgments was from 8.3 per cent on one sample to 100 per cent on 

 two samples. The group judgment in the first instance is, of course, not 

 a chance one; it suggests a distinct reversal of temperamental signs. 



As a convenient method of studying the results the samples may be 

 thrown into three groups: seventeen on which the group judgments were 

 from 66.6 per cent to 100 per cent correct; five on which the group judgments 

 ranged from 41.6 per cent to 58.3 per cent correct; three on which the per- 

 centage of correct judgments was from 8.3 to 33.3. In checking these results 

 the first procedure was to get the average difference in scores on the Root 

 Test for the three groups. They were as follows: first group, 25.3; second 

 group, 18.5; third group, 29.2. The difference between the first and second 

 group is in the direction anticipated but the third group offers a curious 

 problem. 



Study of the eight individual pairs of the second and third groups is, of 

 course, of interest but cannot be given any very great weight because of the 

 inclination to rationalize such results. A few remarks may be ventured. 

 Of the five pairs in which right judgments were scarcely more than chance, 

 one was the handwriting of a woman of seventy matched with that of a 

 much younger woman, an unfortunate pairing mentioned earlier. In 

 another case backslant influenced unduly the judgments given. Of the 

 three cases in which there was a reversal of judgment there is, possibly, in 

 spite of the care used in selection, a wrong classification of one individual. 

 The outstanding reversal (8.3 per cent right and 91.6 wrong) is of con- 

 siderable interest. Eleven of the twelve judges agreed on classification 

 of the members of this pair; the one discrepant judgment came from the 

 poorest judge of the group although he was in this case the only one ob- 

 jectively correct. The penmen themselves are outstandingly extravert 

 and introvert. The latter is characterized by a certain amount of bluster 

 and affectation and writes a sharply individualized hand with many flour- 

 ishes, one of the most pretentious of the group. Two of the best judges 

 stated that it was definitely an introvert hand, one pointed out the evidences 

 in it of hesitancy and angularity and remarked on the tightening of the 

 muscles apparent in the final Y-loop. But, however introvert it appeared, 

 its mate appeared more so since this sample was marked by excessive control 

 throughout. This writing, that of the extravert, is small, regular, con- 

 trolled. The writer of it is a naturally left-handed individual who had been 

 shifted to right-hand writing; he is, moreover, a teacher in a school of Com- 



