Pseudoscientific methods of profiling and behavioral analysis

Translation from https://vk.com/wall-62262331_5770

You can send this article to profilers you are acquainted with, so we could discuss it. Up to the date, it is just a part of a document we are planning to send to businessmen and military forces. We know too well how pseudoscientific or old-fashioned conceptions are sold.

1. Personality types

It is probably not so pseudoscientific. Different classifications in psychiatry allow to prescribe the cure in different disorder cases. The main problem is that all the classifications are perfect in textbooks but are not much helpful in real life. This is the reason why worldwide physicians give up using them. Personal disorders are not divided into subclasses in ICD. So, worldwide psychiatry refuses personality types classifications.

2. Constitutional analysis

This one includes typologies by Sheldon and Krechmer who classified people basing on their body constitution. Their conclusions were never proved scientifically, that is why it’s sad to see how modern profilers keep using them.

3. Physiognomics

Some profilers think that there is a connection between face traits and character. It has never been proved. Poor scientific basis of physiognomics is well known by profilers, and they try to mask it, but every face-based analysis is unreliable.

4. Graphology

Handwriting adepts suppose that the way a person writes reveals his personality. It has been denied many times in a huge body of research publications. There is no connection between handwriting and character. Despite that, modern profilers keep using it and even publish scientific articles about graphology in military journals.

5. Chiromancy

The fact that chiromancy is just a superstition, yet many people try to mask it under scientific conceptions. An example is dermatoglyphics, which states there is a link

6. NLP

It has never been proved scientifically, what is not a barrier for NLP to be widely used and popular among businessmen and profilers. If one uses NLP he shows his incompetency. Body language analysis goes in line with NLP. Though gestures, pose etc are valuable markers, surface analysis is dangerous.

If a profiler uses nonverbal signals of a rape victim shown on a TV show and says these signals to be more than just entertainment, he definitely should change profession to a fiction writer.

 An important clarification is that TV shows can provide interesting examples for analysis, but only as case studies.

 All the methods mentioned above look absurd but are widely used by Russian profilers. It is especially worrying that they are applied to the cases of aviation safety and police working methods. One can easily imagine the results.