In general, passive means you will allow others to ride rough shod over you.  You may not like it, but will do little to prevent or stop it. 

The aggressive person always tries to get their own way even if it is at the expense of others. They may be physically, psychologically or verbally aggressive. 

Your handwriting is body language, and just as your other body language will show whether you are aggressive, assertive or passive, so will your writing.

The other bonus from identifying it from writing is that if you don’t like which you are, you can change it by changing your writing.

So how do these three behaviors show in your writing?

Aggressiveness shows in writing in the lower extender (the line going down below the baseline.)

When the lower extender of “g”, “y” and “j” goes down and then forms a sharp angle and swings abruptly out to the right and up towards the baseline this writer will be pushy and overly forceful in his attempts to get his own way. (If a “g” is written in this way, it will look like a “q”)

Normally you would expect the lower extender to curve around to the left, forming a loop and going back up to the baseline.

Or it may go down and either just end there, or go down and form a “knot” – a small counterclockwise loop at the end of the lower extender.

None of these are aggressive – only the sharp, right-ward swing.

When this stroke occurs only occasionally in a writing sample, the trait is mild and may even appear as enterprising, but whenever it re-occurs frequently, it is strong determination to have things done your own way and in your own time.

Passive behavior involves yielding to others wishes.

The trait in handwriting that shows this appears in the lower case “s.” If the “s” is printed (to look much like this typewritten form) then yielding or passive cannot show.

Written in script form, the lower case “s” as taught in school, would have a straight line from the baseline going upwards to the right, then a rounded, curving shape coming back downwards, curving towards the left until it closes the letter.

When yielding or passivity is present the entire letter will be rounded and curving.

The letter will look almost like an “o” drawn in the clockwise direction. (The normal way to write an “o” is anti-clockwise.)

The more often this soft, angle-less “s” appears, the stronger the trait of yielding. When it is really strong it means someone who is more or less a push over.

Assertiveness in writing shows in the lack of either the sharp, right swinging lower extender of the pushy writer and the soft rounded "s" of the yielding writer.

It also shows in firm, straight down strokes which end at the baseline.

For example, a lower case “t” which comes downwards in a straight line and ends strongly, without fading out or curving, at the baseline. This is assertiveness. It will also show in any other letters which have the same stroke. An “l” and last stroke of an “m” or an “n.”

Handwriting traits follow the same rule of thumb as traits observed in behavior: the more often the trait strokes show the stronger the traits are.

So a trait which shows consistently throughout the writing is strong, and one which shows up once in an entire page is very slight.

If you have more than one of these traits in your writing, the mix is in the same proportion as the number of times each appears.

For example: if passiveness shows occasionally, and assertiveness shows constantly, you are mostly assertive but will once in a while choose to be passive.

And remember, if you don’t like what you’ve got – you can change it!

More on thinking techniques for self improvement..