Personology
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Featured:  Illustration: Portrait fantaisiste du marquis de Sade (1866) by H. Biberstein |
Personology is a field of study which relies on physiognomy and facial features to analyze and predict character traits and behavior.
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History
According to Naomi Tickle, founder of the International Centre for Personology, the field of Personology was developed in the 1930s by Edward Vincent Jones, a Los Angeles Circuit Court judge, who took notes on the behavioral patterns of those who appeared in his courtroom, and eventually "proved" that he could predict people's behavior by observing their facial features and other physical attributes. Fascinated by his discovery, Jones abandoned his judicial career to begin "researching" the subject using relevant literature published by notable authors such as Johann Kaspar Lavater. Jones is said to have compiled a list of 200 distinct facial features; the list was later narrowed to 68. After Jones performed a cold reading on the wife of Robert L. Whiteside, a newspaper editor, Whiteside became an ardent supporter of personology, and is claimed by Tickle to have 'done the science' proving personology's validity in an experiment that "used 1,068 subjects and found the accuracy to be better than 90%."
Whiteside and other personologists used scientific methodology to validate personological traits three different times over the course of 20 years in the latter portion of the 20th century. (Much of the proprietary work is available through The Personology Institute).
Examples of supposed personology correlations
- Coarse hair: less sensitive
- Fine hair: extremely sensitive
- Wide jaw: authoritative in speech and action
- Square chin: can be combative
- Wide-flared nose: relies automatica
Applications of Personology
Naomi Tickle, and also the Personology Research & Development Center in the U.S., say that personology can aid in customer relations, hiring, and personal development, and can be beneficial in areas such as career counseling, conflict resolution, marriage partner compatibility, and stress management.
Personology as a Pseudoscience
According to The Skeptics Dictionary (a collaboration of literature attempting to demystify claims of the supernatural, paranormal and pseudoscientific), Judge Jones did not conduct any controlled experiments that would truly test the link between physical features and psychological traits. In reference to Stephen Carey's A Beginner's Guide to Scientific Method, Jones did not accurately follow the scientific method, casting further doubt upon his findings. He did complete the initial step of the scientific method in that he observed a correlation between facial features and personality, but did not test his observations in an unbiased, scientific manner. Whiteside became aware of the flaws inherent in Jones' methodology, but continued in his attempt to scientifically prove the legitimacy of the field. He supposedly conducted his own study which he claimed was 90% accurate.
See also
