HANDSHAKING AND PERSONALITY
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shaking have a compelling face validity. However, there has been
little systematic empirical study of the handshaking-personality
relation. Thus, the validity of these conjectures is largely unknown.
Indeed, a search of literature revealed only three articles, all
studies conducted in Sweden by the same first author, that empir-
ically address the relation between personality traits and handshak-
ing characteristics.
One study (Astroem, Thorell, Holmlund, & d'EUa, 1993) was
restricted to 29 psychiatric inpatients, so its generality is somewhat
limited. A second study (Astroem, 1994) focused on normal adults
and included 25 men and 25 women. However, the handshakes
were initiated and evaluated by only one male experimenter who
assessed all the participants. The handshakes were rated on four
dimensions: temperature, dryness, strength, and consistency of
grip.
In addition, the vigor was assessed with a hand dynamometer,
and eye contact was assessed by an independent rater. A variety of
personality variables were assessed using a Swedish personality
inventory based on Murray's theory of needs called the Cecarec
Marke Personality Schedule {Cecarec & Marke, 1968). The results
of this study suggested that temperature was related to rational
dominance in women but not men, whereas dryness was related to
sociability in men but not women. The most consistent findings
were obtained for the strength of the handshake, which was pos-
itively correlated with aggression, dominance, exhibition, and ra-
tional dominance, and negatively correlated with sociability and
defense of status (interpreted by the author as neuroticism). As-
troem (1994) concluded, "As far as is known, this study is the first
one confirming some theses of the conventional wisdom which
hold that a handshake provides information on character" (p. 889).
The final study (Astroem & Thorell, 1996) did not directly assess
handshaking-personality relations, but was based on interviews
with 47 individuals (therapists, clergyman, and car salesmen) who
were thought to be experienced at engaging in and interpreting
handshaking. The authors concluded that the inferences of the
experienced handshakers were consistent with the empirical find-
ings in their previous studies.
Handshaking and First Impressions
Regardless of any empirical support for a relation between
handshaking and personality, it is generally believed that the
handshake is an important component of the first impression that
one forms of a person. This belief
is
evidenced in the large number
of professional and business training seminars (e.g., Leader-
ship Skills Inc., http://www.etiquette42day.com; Protocol School
of Palm Beach, http://www.psopb.com; Polished Professionals,
http://www.polishedprofessionals.com) that advertise proper hand-
shaking as a component in their curriculum. However, empirical
studies of the relation between handshaking characteristics and the
initial impression or evaluation of a person are lacking.
In many circumstances a handshake provides an initial, stan-
dardized behavior sample from a person one is meeting for the first
time.
Moreover, nearly everyone will have an extensive set of
handshake observations in their memory against which new hand-
shakes can be compared and evaluated. Thus, it is reasonable to
expect that a handshake might have an impact on the first impres-
sion one forms of an individual's personality. However, recent
studies on the relation between specific behavioral cues and per-
sonality inferences (e.g., Borkenau & Liebler, 1992; Gangestad,
Simpson, DiGeronimo, & Biek, 1992) have not included a hand-
shake in their repertoire of behavioral cues, so this conjecture
remains untested.
The Present Study
Our study is designed to overcome some of the limitations of
previous research and was guided by the consistent, but untested,
beliefs about handshaking that we found is the literature on hand-
shaking etiquette. We selected eight characteristics of handshaking
that were frequently mentioned or implied by the existing litera-
ture.
These characteristics were dryness, temperature, texture (to
differentiate the cold, clammy handshake from the warm, dry one;
Vanderbilt, 1957), strength, vigor, completeness of grip, duration
(to differentiate the firm handshake from the boneless, limp one;
Reid, 1955), and eye contact.
On the basis of the handshaking literature and the findings of
Astroem and his colleagues (Astroem, 1994; Astroem & Thorell,
1996;
Astroem et al., 1993), we selected nine personality dimen-
sions to assess in our study. The view that good handshakes
communicate sociability, friendliness, and dominance, whereas
poor handshakes communicate social introversion, shyness, and
neuroticism led us to select the Big Five Factors of Extraversion,
Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience as pos-
sible correlates of handshaking. We also included Conscientious-
ness to complete a broad representation of personality in our study.
We supplemented the Big Five with an assessment of Shyness
(Cheek & Buss, 1981), Emotional Expressiveness (Friedman,
Prince, Riggio, & DiMatteo, 1980), and Positive and Negative
Affect (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988).
One of the major goals of this study is to assess the consistency
of an individual's handshake. Although Astroem et al. (1993)
reported some reliability in the assessment of handshaking dimen-
sions,
his studies did not include a systematic assessment of
handshakes across time or situations. Although the situation in the
present study is limited to strangers participating in an experiment,
we systematically assess the generalizability of handshakes across
a 2 (times: greeting the participant and thanking the participant at
the end of the experiment) x 2 (gender male and female handshake
coders) x 2 (individual coders within each gender) design. Thus
each participant's handshake is rated a total of eight times during
the entire study.
A second goal of the study is to describe any gender differences
in the characteristics of handshakes. We expected that women's
handshakes would be less strong, less vigorous, have a less com-
plete grip, and be of shorter duration then men's handshakes. We
expected the texture of men's handshakes to be rougher than
women's, but on the basis of the general literature about eye
contact (e.g., Argyle
&,
Dean, 1965), we expected women to have
more eye contact than men. We did not expect any gender differ-
ences on dryness or temperature.
A third goal of this study is to assess the relation between
personality characteristics and handshaking characteristics. We
intend to assess these relations in general, but on the basis of
Astroem's (1994) finding that some of the relations between
handshaking characteristics and personality differed for men and
women, we will also consider the moderating effect of gender on
these relations. In addition, because the handshake coders were
aware of the participants' gender while evaluating the handshakes,