Judging expressive movement: I. Judgments of sex and dominance-feeling from handwriting samples of dominant and non-dominant men and women

Abstract

60 samples of handwriting were secured from 30 men and 30 women, 15 of each sex being rated at each extreme of dominance feeling on the basis of the Maslow social personality inventory and an interview. 10 judges were told to judge the writing as to the sex of the writer, asked to define the characteristics of male and female writing, and then told to judge writing for feeling of dominance in the writer. Sex judgments by the 10 judges were 72% correct. More errors were made in judging the sex of non-dominant men and dominant women than in the reverse cases. Judgments of dominance feeling from handwriting were little better than chance expectation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)