For years, Donald Trump’s unique, huge and impressive signature has captured the general public’s consideration. Now not simplest did it not too long ago come to mild that his signature seemed in a e book that Jeffrey Epstein won for his fiftieth birthday, nevertheless it suits well along Trump’s lengthy historical past of brash self-adulation. “I love my signature, I really do,” he stated in a Sept. 30, 2025, speech to army leaders. “Everyone loves my signature.”
His signature additionally occurs to be of explicit passion to me, given my decades-long fascination with, and low educational analysis on, the relationship between signature dimension and private attributes.
An extended-time social psychologist who has studied The us’s elite, I made an unintended empirical discovery as an undergraduate greater than 50 years in the past. The hyperlink that I discovered then – and that a lot of research have since echoed – is that signature dimension is expounded to standing and one’s sense of self.
Signature dimension and conceit
Again in 1967, all through my senior yr of faculty, I used to be a work-study scholar in Wesleyan College’s psychology library. My job, 4 nights per week, was once to try books and to reshelve books that have been returned.
When scholars or college took books out, they have been requested to signal their names on an orange, unlined card present in every e book.
Sooner or later, I spotted a trend: When college signed the books out, they used a large number of area to signal their names. When scholars checked them out, they used little or no area, leaving a large number of area for long term readers.
So I made up our minds to review my statement systematically.
I accrued no less than 10 signatures for every college member and comparability samples of scholar signatures with the similar choice of letters of their names. After measuring by way of multiplying the peak as opposed to the width of the volume of area used, I discovered that 8 of the 9 college participants used considerably extra space to signal their names.
So as to take a look at for age in addition to standing, I did every other learn through which I when compared the signatures of blue-collar staff corresponding to custodians and groundskeepers who labored on the faculty with a pattern of professors and a pattern of scholars – once more matched for the choice of letters, this time on clean 3-by-5-inch playing cards. The blue-collar staff used extra space than the scholars however lower than the school. I concluded that age was once at play, however so was once standing.
After I advised psychologist Karl Scheibe, my favourite instructor, about my findings, he stated I may measure the signatures in his books, which he have been signing for greater than a decade since his freshman yr in faculty.
As may also be noticed within the graph, his e book signatures most commonly were given larger. They took a big soar in dimension from his junior yr to his senior yr, dipped slightly when he entered graduate faculty after which higher in dimension as he finished his Ph.D. and joined the Wesleyan college.
I did a couple of extra research, and revealed a couple of articles, concluding that signature dimension was once associated with vainness and a measure of what I termed “status awareness.” I discovered that the trend held in numerous other environments, together with in Iran – the place folks write from proper to left.
The narcissism connection
Even supposing my next analysis incorporated a e book in regards to the CEOs of Fortune 500 firms, it by no means crossed my thoughts to take a look at the signatures of those CEOs.
Alternatively, it did move the minds of a few researchers, 40 years later. In Might 2013, I won a choice from the editor of the Harvard Industry Assessment as a result of the paintings I had achieved on signature dimension. They deliberate to run an interview with Nick Seybert, an affiliate professor of accounting on the College of Maryland, in regards to the possible hyperlink between signature dimension and narcissism in CEOs.
Whilst Seybert advised me his analysis had now not discovered direct proof for a good courting between the 2, the potential of the relationship he inferred however intrigued me.
So I made up our minds to check this the usage of a pattern of my scholars. I requested them to signal a clean 3-by-5 card as though they have been writing a test, after which I gave them a extensively used 16-item narcissism scale.
Lo and behold, Seybert was once proper to infer a hyperlink: There was once a vital sure correlation between signature dimension and narcissism. Even supposing my pattern dimension was once small, the hyperlink due to this fact led Seybert to check two other samples of his scholars. And he discovered the similar important, sure correlation.
Others quickly started to make use of signature dimension to evaluate narcissism in CEOs. By means of 2020, rising passion within the matter noticed the Magazine of Control submit an editorial that incorporated signature dimension as one in all 5 techniques to measure narcissism in CEOs.
A rising box
Now, nearly six years later, researchers have used signature dimension to discover narcissism in CEOs and different senior company positions corresponding to leader monetary officials. The hyperlink has been discovered now not simplest within the U.S. however in international locations together with the UK, Germany, Uruguay, Iran, South Africa and China.
As well as, some researchers have studied the impact of bigger as opposed to smaller signatures at the audience. As an example, in a up to date article within the Magazine of Philanthropy, Canadian researchers reported on 3 research that systematically various the signature dimension of any individual soliciting price range as a way to see whether or not it affected the scale of donations. It did. In one in all their research, they discovered that expanding the scale of the sender’s signature generated greater than two times as a lot income.
The unexpected resurgence of analysis the usage of signature dimension to evaluate narcissism leads me to a couple of conclusions.
For one, signature dimension as a measure of sure sides of character has became out to be a lot more tough than I imagined as an observant undergraduate operating in a faculty library again in 1967.
Certainly, signature dimension isn’t just a trademark of standing and conceit, as I as soon as concluded. Additionally it is, as fresh research recommend, a trademark of narcissistic inclinations – the type that many argue are exhibited by way of Trump’s giant, daring signature.
The place this analysis is taken subsequent is somebody’s wager, least of curious about the one that spotted one thing intriguing about signature dimension such a lot of years in the past.
