FIREWALKING
For years people have been amazed, or at least puzzled, by the ability of people in some “primitive” cultures to walk across beds of hot coals, usually during a religious celebration, without burning their feet. This ability is usually attributed to some vague power of “mind over matter.” It was one Tony Robbins who popularized firewalking in the United States in the 1970s. Robbins, one of numerous self-help gurus based in California, used firewalking as the gimmick in his self help seminars. He persuaded thousands of people to walk across beds of red- hot coals without suffering bums. This was said to show the amazing power of mind over matter. In other words, it was the sheer power of the mind, perhaps a psychic power, that prevented the feet from being burned as the basic laws of physics surely dictate they must.
In reality, it is those very basic laws of physics that prevent people’s feet from being burned while firewalking. The power of the mind has nothing to do with it. Leikind and McCarthy (1985–86) have analyzed the physics of firewalking and find that two well-known physical principles account for the rarity of burned feet. First there is the
But the Leidenfrost effect is not sufficient to explain the lack of burning. The material upon which one walks is a very important factor. Consider an example given by Leikind and McCarthy (1985–86). You’re baking something in a pan in the oven at 400 degrees. You open the oven to remove the pan. Naturally, you use a potholder to pick up the pan. If you were to try to pick it up with your bare hands, you’d be burned because it’s at a temperature of 400 degrees—but so is the air in the oven, and that certainly doesn’t burn your hand, even if you leave it in the oven for a minute or so. Why not? The answer is that “different materials at the same temperature contain different amounts of thermal or heat energy and also have different abilities to carry the energy from one place to another” (p. 29). Metal is high in both heat capacity and thermal conductivity, while air is low in both these variables. Thus metal at 400 degrees will burn one badly, while 400-degree air has very little effect. What about the coals one walks on at a Robbins demonstration? Coals are hot (up to 1,200 degrees) but they have low heat capacity and thermal conductivity. Thus, if one walks fairly rapidly over them, no burns will occur. Of course, if one lingers, burns can and do occur. Leikind and McCarthy also note that firewalking as practiced by other cultures involves walking on material (coals or porous stone) that is low in both heat capacity and thermal conductance. It would be interesting to see if believers in the “mind over matter” explanation of firewalking would accept a challenge to walk barefoot over, say, fifty feet of solid metal plates heated to, say, 1000 degrees.
GRAPHOLOGY
According to the claims of graphology’s proponents, it is possible to determine various characteristics of an individual, especially those relating to personality, from his or her handwriting. In the early 1980s about three thousand U.S. firms use graphology in employee selection (Rafaeli and Klimoski 1983). Eighty-five percent of firms in Europe were said to use graphological analyses in making their hiring decisions (Levy 1979). Van Deventer (1983, p. 74), managing editor of the periodical United States Banker, states that “graphoanalysis reveals capabilities and aptitudes in an individual, many of which the applicant may not even be aware of.” Given the popularity of graphology and the importance of the decisions that depend, at least in part, on its use, it is important to discover if one’s handwriting really does reveal anything about one’s personality characteristics.
There is a growing body of empirical research literature on graphology. It is almost uniformly negative as regards graphologists’ claims. Most tested among these claims is that job success can be determined or predicted from handwriting. Ben-Shakhar et al. (1986), Keinan (1986b), Rafaeli and Klimoski (1983), and Zdep and Weaver (1967) have all found that graphological analysis did not reveal anything about job success. Drory (1986) did find significant positive correlations between job ratings and graphological analysis, but a serious problem with this study is that the handwriting samples used were autobiographical sketches. Thus, the graphologists may have based their judgments on the content of the writing rather than on the handwriting itself. That this is the explanation for Drory’s findings is strongly suggested by the fact that studies using such information-filled autobiographical sketches find that when graphologists perform better than chance and a control group of nongraphologists also makes judgments based on the written sketch, the nongraphologists do as well as or better than the graphologists (Ben-Shakhar, Bar-Hillel, and Flug 1986). Ben-Shakhar, Bar-Hillel, and Flug showed that nongraphological information (autobiographical information, presence or absence of spelling and grammatical errors, and so forth) in the sketches predicted job ratings as well “as the professional efforts of experienced graphologists” (p. 187).
Studies of graphology have been conducted on variables other than job success. Keinan (1986a) found that graphologists could not distinguish at a level above chance between writing samples provided by soldiers in a highly stressful situation (half an hour before their first night parachute jump) and a nonstressful, relaxed situation. Jansen (1973) found no relation between graphologists’ judgments and various personality ratings. Frederick (1965) found that graphologists could not distinguish between mental hospital patients and undergraduate college students.
Some studies have reported positive results in which graphological analysis does allow above-chance discrimination between groups. The differences in the handwriting between the groups studied, however, reflect nonpersonality variables and do not support the graphological claim that personality is reflected in handwriting and can be assessed from it. Sex can be determined from handwriting with about a 70 percent accuracy (Goldberg 1986). Professional graphologists and nongraphologists are equally accurate at making this judgment (Goldberg 1986). Goldberg also found that nongraphologists could distinguish the writing of Americans and Europeans at a level higher than chance. This is presumably due to the different writing styles used and taught in the United States and Europe. Wing and Baddeley (1978) found that drinking alcohol changed some characteristics of handwriting so it should be possible to distinguish the writing of sober from that of intoxicated individuals.
Ratzon (1986) found that handwriting could be used to distinguish Holocaust survivors from psychiatric patients and from a group of “Nazipersecuted” individuals who escaped the Holocaust by leaving Germany. A subgroup of the Holocaust survivors with organic brain damage could also be distinguished from the other groups by their handwriting. This last finding is not at all surprising, as brain damage can easily be expected to affect, for the worse, almost any type of motor behavior. The finding also gives an important clue to the explanation of the more unexpected finding that the non-brain-damaged survivors’ handwriting differed from those of the Nazi-persecuted group and the psychiatric group. The individuals who suffered through the Holocaust, even if not brain-damaged, were very likely in poorer health, due to their horrendous experience, than were individuals in the other two groups. Poorer health would be expected to result in changes in handwriting.
Nevo (1986) reanalyzed data from a paper by Honel (1977) in which it was claimed that criminals and noncriminals could be distinguished by their handwriting. Nevo’s reanalysis shows that statistical problems contributed to the large effects that Honel reported. The positive effects were greatly reduced when appropriate statistical analyses were performed, but there was still a small ability on the part of a group of graphologists, considered as a whole, to classify the criminal versus the noncriminal. One variable that contributed much to Honel’s finding was socioeconomic class. Criminals tend to come from lower socioeconomic classes than noncriminals, and socioeconomic class does seem to be reflected in handwriting, perhaps as a function of better education and more emphasis on good handwriting in the upper as opposed to the lower ranges of the socioeconomic class structure.
One study exists that seems to demonstrate graphoanalytic ability for which no obvious alternative explanation comes to mind. Frederick (1968) found that graphologists could discriminate between suicide notes written by actual suicides and the same notes copied by normal writers, who copied from typed versions of the notes. Police detectives and secretaries could not make this discrimination. This is an intriguing study and should be replicated. To my knowledge it never has been.
With the exception of the Frederick (1968) study, the results of studies of graphological claims that
