Not-so-idle hands

One of the primary ways experts can assess an individual is by studying hand movements and gestures. Hands in motion are a dead giveaway of what a person is feeling at any given moment to an expert like David Givens, director of the Center for Nonverbal Studies and author of The Nonverbal Dictionary, though stationary hands are just as telling, he says. Hands are naturally expressive because they are so in-tune with what the rest of the body is doing and feeling, Givens says.

“The brain is making everything happen,” Givens says. “By looking at the movements of the hand, you can open a window into the brain.”

Two of the most basic gestures are the palms-down and palm-up poses, which reveal a lot about a person’s confidence level and conviction. The palms-down stance is one of assertion and domination, Givens says. It conveys stubbornness: Politicians often use a palms-down hand position to project confidence during speeches and debates. The palms-up position, on the other hand, is a softer and friendlier gesture. It is related to the shoulder shrug and projects a level of uncertainty. It is a pleading sign that opens up a connection with an audience and allows the speaker to ask for a little help. Like the shrug, it’s a type of crouching pose used to cower away from danger, or, perhaps in this case, just a dangerous conversation. Basic gestures like these are universal, Givens says, which is why they are so easily understood, interpreted and mimicked.

Fidgeting is also easily analyzed, and, according to Givens, a natural behavior for everyone.

“The human hand is a great fidgeter,” Givens says. “It rarely ever stays still.”

And these movements, like the ones accompanying speech, have meanings behind them: fidgeting usually conveys nervousness, anxiety and stress. The most common type of fidgeting is known as “self-touching,” a built-in consolation mechanism. It works by diverting attention away from the pain or stress of one part of the body by stimulating another part of the body. Givens cites the example of a person rubbing a spot that is sore or has just been injured. “It doesn’t make the pain go away,” he says. “You just make the pain compete for attention.”

Givens puts this idea in context for University students, setting the scene with a professor questioning a student in front of a large class. The student will hesitate at first, Givens says, and will then probably touch his or her neck before answering. This self-touching is a way for the student to draw attention away from the source of the stress, almost like performing acupuncture or hugging himself.

Regardless of the ultimate message, Givens says it’s always better to use gestures than not. Gestures help animate the words you’re speaking and help the audience remember important points. They express personality as well, and make a conversation more personable.

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Rosie Palm and her fore friends

Look at your hand. Turn it over and follow the lines of your fingers and palm. Most likely, you can’t read the information that’s written there: the number of children you might have, how many relationships you’ll be involved in, and if you’ll ever find your perfect career. That is where Ellie Crystal comes in. Crystal, a New York-area intuitive researcher and co-author of Sarah and Alexander: The Alchemy of Time, says that a palm print is a theoretical blueprint of a person’s life experiences.

“Every single thing that you do — who you are — is on your hand,” Crystal says. “If you know how to properly read a palm, you can know a person’s destiny.”

Everything about the hand is important, Crystal says. She assesses the presence or absence of certain lines on the palm, the depth of these lines and the length of the fingers. And instead of using the standard method of simply examining a client’s palm, Crystal uses ink prints of her clients’ palms to make a more detailed and accurate reading. She takes the client’s dominant hand — the one with which he or she writes — rolls black ink on the palm and makes two prints. The first always turns out darker and the second one lighter, allowing Crystal to make a more accurate reading.

There are four main lines on the palm: the heart line, the head line, the life line and the career line.

While these are the four main lines of the palm, Crystal says that the lines appear over time. Younger people have not fully developed yet, so they will most likely have less defined lines, and some lines might still be absent.

Your fingers are also very telling, Crystal says. She takes into account everything from the length of each finger and relative size to the amount of space between the fingers of an open palm. Each finger, like the lines of the palm, has its own classification: thumb (Venus), index (Jupiter), middle (Saturn), ring (Apollo) and pinky (Mercury).

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the write stuff

Almost everyone here at the University can remember time spent in middle school, when nothing was written in anything other than cursive. Some teachers even said that in high school cursive was the only acceptable form of writing and nothing could be turned in written in print. Almost everyone here also probably remembers the first time they found out that this was a huge lie. Once in high school — and now in college — many students discovered that as long as their handwriting was legible, teachers were happy to accept writing in either form. Most people kicked the cursive habit once out of junior high, but the methods of teaching students how to write in cursive are pretty uniform across the board.

This is important when looking at graphoanalysis (handwriting analysis) because it’s a science based on variation. Essentially, it’s a field of study that reveals facets of people’s personalities by investigating their handwriting and analyzing how it differs from the standards originally taught. A handwriting sample can tell a lot about a person, says Dan Aldridge, a handwriting analyst.

“People learn handwriting basically the same,” Aldridge says. “It’s the deviations you make that give away the clues we need.”

The best handwriting samples are written in cursive. “Cursive flows better,” Aldridge says. “It’s freer and allows your true self to come out.”

There are 108 basic traits of handwriting, but not everyone expresses all of them, Aldridge says. Two of the main characteristics are pressure and slant.

Pressure is the amount of force exerted on the writing utensil, and it can both measure physical energy and gauge a person’s senses. For instance, a person who exerts more pressure when writing is more likely to enjoy spicier foods, louder music and more extreme sensations. A person who writes softer, then, is someone who is likely to enjoy more modest sensations.

The slant of the letters can assess an individual’s emotional responsiveness. For example, a slight forward slant is indicative of a sympathetic person who reaches out and tries to make connections with others.

A far forward slant indicates that someone is extremely emotional and often reacts quickly and vigorously to events (and, according to Aldridge, this group would include many of the wild fans you might see at basketball games).

An upright or nearly vertical slant tends to signify a more objective person, one who does not lean too far either way.

Another characteristic of handwriting is size. Aldridge says that bigger handwriting usually denotes a person who looks at the bigger picture and is less concerned with details. Smaller handwriting, then, points to a person who focuses on details rather than assessing the overall scenario.

Compatibility testing for couples is another service available through scrutinizing handwriting samples. Aldridge says he looks for the dominant traits in each sample and evaluates whether these qualities mesh well with one another. Aldridge says that when people come in to see them, they often have an inaccurate view of themselves. He cites an example of a married couple he once analyzed. Every time Aldridge would explain what a certain aspect of the husband’s handwriting meant, the husband shook his head and disagreed. The wife, however, affirmed that everything was true.

The accuracy of a reading depends on the experience and quality of the analyst, Aldridge says. He estimates that he is about 85 percent accurate in his analyses. He says he’s been told both that he was completely correct and that he was completely wrong. Regardless, Aldridge would tell any skeptic to write something down and let him take a look at it.