People who are shorter and dissatisfied with their height have more dark personality traits, study finds. People who are relatively short and those who wish to be taller tend to have more “Dark Triad” traits, according to new research published in Personality and Individual Differences.
Research suggests shorter people gain traits such as narcissism and psychopathy as part of an evolutionary mechanism to overcome their lacking physical stature. A new study has found that people who are shorter than average and wish to be taller tend to have “darker” traits, U.S.-based news website Psypost reported.
For males in particular, height seems to be linked to greater happiness and self-esteem (though some studies suggest that the effect is modest), and a markedly reduced rate of suicide. Doubtless, these psychological advantages stem in part from the pervasive tendency to associate height with power.
"The implication is that greater height can make you more confident in social situations," he says. "All of us can recognize that when we feel worse about ourselves, we can hunch up and stoop and take up less space, but when we feel more confident we feel taller and take up more space."
Being smaller than average can have a negative effect on the way people see themselves. It can reduce any positive attributes they may have and diminish their self-esteem. Being shorter than average can also make a person feel more vulnerable. Of course, not all people with a short stature have low self-esteem.
Certainly, some men are insecure about their height and some men do turn to extremes to compensate for what they think is missing from their height. According to a new study, one of those extremes is less external and more internal. Shorter men are indirectly aggressive toward their taller counterparts.
Such height-dependent perceptions may then contribute to the increased dominance of taller individuals if shorter individuals act on their perceptions, and treat those who are taller as more competent, authoritative, and dominant than they are, and so yield to them in competitive situations.
Taller men and women are more likely to report enjoyment and happiness, and less likely to report pain and sadness, with the difference in sadness particularly large. Taller men, although not taller women, also worry less.
More Confident. Just as others perceive tall people as leaders, tall people themselves tend to feel more confident in social situations. This is not universally true, of course. But as a general trend, tall individuals tend to display more confidence than others.
Tall people are not only more likely to maintain healthy weights, but they are also less likely to develop problems with their heart or diabetes, as well as Alzheimer's disease and dementia, and less likely to experience a stroke.
Men were much less likely to say that height mattered, and for those that did, they preferred shorter women, but not so short that it would cause problems with physical intimacy. "I like it when the body of your partner fits yours," said another study participant, a male who is 5 feet 11 inches tall.
A preliminary analysis of the diagnostic profile of a sample of male military personnel treated for mental health indicates that men both shorter and taller than average by 1 standard deviation may be predisposed to higher rates of depressive but not anxiety disorders.
Taller people say they are more content, and are less likely to report a range of negative emotions like sadness and physical pain. "Happiness is just one more thing that taller people have going for them," says Angus Deaton, a Princeton economist and co-author of the study, who stands a smug 6 ft. 4 in.
US scientists have deduced after a thorough study of the condition known as Napoleon Complex, that shorter people might possess a 'Dark Triad' of personality traits. These characteristics include a lack of remorse, an inflated sense of self-importance and narcissistic tendencies.
The trait "tall" is dominant (T) while "short" is recessive (t). If two parents are both heterozygous for the trait and have a child, what is the probability that the child would be phenotypically short?
The relationship between height and earnings is non-linear for American men. Being an inch shorter than average correlates with annual earnings of about 5% lower. But being an inch taller than average does not have much impact (though men who are about 4 or more inches taller than average earn slightly more.
Tall men are seen as protective and strong.
When a shorter woman is with a taller man, she might feel like she doesn't have to worry about her own security or protection. In modern times, though, many women aren't looking for someone to “protect” them in daily life.
Study after study has found that taller men and women are generally considered more attractive. Intriguingly, you can even guess someone's height from their face, meaning a mugshot on a dating website is not going to hide a more diminutive frame.
In the U.S. population, about 14.5 percent of all men are six feet or over. Roughly 1% of US women are 6 feet tall or taller.
According to a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, both men and women who are above average height (for men 5'10'' and for women 5'4'') reported higher levels of happiness than those who were shorter.
Height may influence anger in men. New research published by the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia shows short people are angrier and more violent than tall people.
Across studies, the correlation coefficient of height and intelligence was generally found to be around 0.2, indicating a positive association between height and intelligence which is weak but still statistically significant.
Judge offers a possible explanation for the height bias: Tall people may have greater self-esteem and social confidence than shorter people. In turn, others may view tall people as more leader-like and authoritative. "The process of literally 'looking down on others' may cause one to be more confident," Judge says.
The reason that taller people are found to be intimidation by so many people is because of a primal recognition of power. In the animal kingdom, there exist hierarchies. In these hierarchies we often find the “alpha male”, or in other words the largest strongest mammal of the group.
On average, women have a strong preference for tall men. In fact, women care more about dating taller men than men care about dating shorter women. A study on women's and men's height preferences found that women are most satisfied when their partner was 8 inches (21cm) taller.