Psycho-Physiognomics

As a psycho-physiognomy is called a kind of structured development of prejudices which are the features divides a person in archetypes, and so from his physiognomy , in particular its skull shape and facial features they derive. It is a further development of pseudoscientific physiognomics , which is combined with elements of phrenology .

The founder of this teaching was the autodidact Carl Huter , who judged the appearance of a person according to the respective characteristics of the so-called germ layers: movement, sensation and nourishing nature. These are different in almost everyone. The respective expression arises during conception and growing up in the womb. Huter determined several hundred analysis points on the human skull and assigned certain properties to them. Amandus Kupfer , who published Huter's writings in the first half of the 20th century, tried to portray this method as "scientific".

There are no fixed, objectifiable criteria according to which the tens of thousands of possible features are to be weighted, which is why the diagnosis depends on the arbitrariness of the interpreter. With the help of pathophysiognomics , esoterically oriented therapists believe they can recognize which organic diseases a person has, especially on the head and face.

Uwe Peter Kanning, professor of psychology at the University of Osnabrück , has pointed out since the 2000s that "dubious" psycho-physiognomics - instead of the declining, equally pseudoscientific graphology - is being increasingly used again in educational and personnel consulting and this is called a dangerous trend.

literature

Uwe Kanning : Psycho-Physiognomy - Renaissance of a dangerous pseudoscience. In: Business Psychology Current. No. 2, 2007, pp. 59–61 (PDF on the first page).
Uwe Kanning: Diagnostics between incompetence and charlatanism: phenomenon, causes, perspectives. In: Report Psychology. Volume 37, 2012, No. 3, pp. 100-113, here pp. 106 f. (PDF).

Web links

Bärbel Schwertfeger : Obscure personnel selection: Failed because of the skull interpreter. In: Spiegel Online , April 26, 2011 (interview with Kanning).
Florian Freistetter : Skull Science: Success comes with the right shape of the head. In: Der Standard , March 18, 2015.
Uwe Kanning: Skull interpretation - your head shape at work! “15 minutes of business psychology”. Video. In: YouTube , uploaded September 6, 2017.

Individual evidence

↑ See for example Amandus Kupfer: The new healing method based on the scientific doctrine of constitution types Carl Huters and Meine Heilmittel. 2nd Edition. Schwaig near Nuremberg 1953.
↑ In addition to the titles mentioned in the literature, see Kannings also Andreas-Kristin Schubert: Diversity in personnel selection - between fairness and validity? In: Günther Vedder, Florian Krause (eds.): Personal und Diversität (= series of publications on interdisciplinary ergonomics. Volume 5). Rainer Hampp, Hamburg, Munich, Mering 2016, pp. 17–34, here p. 18.

[1] See for example Amandus Kupfer: The new healing method based on the scientific doctrine of constitution types Carl Huters and Meine Heilmittel. 2nd Edition. Schwaig near Nuremberg 1953.

[2] In addition to the titles mentioned in the literature, see Kannings also Andreas-Kristin Schubert: Diversity in personnel selection - between fairness and validity? In: Günther Vedder, Florian Krause (eds.): Personal und Diversität (= series of publications on interdisciplinary ergonomics. Volume 5). Rainer Hampp, Hamburg, Munich, Mering 2016, pp. 17–34, here p. 18.