November 28, 2006

Are tall people better because they are tall...

... or tall because they are better? Let me rephrase that: Is the relative success of taller people the result of the favoritism they receive from people who admire tallness, or is it that the good nutrition that produced tallness also produced smartness?

18 comments:

MaoBi said...

You may also want to read the book entitled Blink by Malcolm Gladwell which discusses this phenomena. ISBN 0316010669.

tiggeril said...

I'm 4'10", which is hell during the holiday season since it's all too easy to get trampled on the sidewalks.

Eli Blake said...

I wonder, then, why you never hear anything about Manute Bol anymore.

I really think that height has more to do with genes than any other factor. And along these lines, might it be that tall people get ahead because they started out ahead, because their parents benefitted from a 'tall' bias, and so are the beneficiaries of perhaps many generations of accumulated 'tallness' bias.

Susan said...

Each generation of Americans is getting taller. But does anyone think they're also getting smarter?

Mortimer Brezny said...

The answer is obvious.

Tall people eat their smaller siblings.

Or push them behind bookcases. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6185854.stm

wv: wtflasep

Lasep: I crashed your car.
Me: WTF, Lasep.

Bruce Hayden said...

Until I see a study that shows that tall people are smarter than shorter ones (given equivalent nuitrition - so don't mention the Bushmen or the Aboriginies), I will continue to believe that being tall is advantageous because it gets one noticed and the intimidation aspect.

I am reminded of one 6'9" software consultant whom I worked with in the later 1980s. He was very bright and one of the TCP/IP architects. But he had less experience than we did in debugging protocol designs. So, he would usually win arguments based on his smarts, but when that failed, he would just lean over you until you backed down - if you were a guy. It is instinctive behavior for guys to do so. Didn't work though with women - as they are used to guys being bigger than they are.

My experience is that really big guys tend to dominate whatever situation they are in, due almost entirely to their size. This can be 6'4" and 250, or 6'9" with a similar weight. But the guy has to carry himself erect for this to work - one of my best friends in HS was 6'5" and slouched to about 6'2" and didn't dominate, whereas his brother an inch taller who stood up straight did.

If there is a genetic component here, it would most likely be because the bigger the guy, the better his breeding potential. My experience is that the bigger the guy, the more sex they have over their lifetimes with more women. Again though, this appears to be a somewhat hardwired response in women (maybe not for east-Asian women who seem to give more preference to education, success, and brains).

hdhouse said...

this of course explains the NBA.

Maxine Weiss said...

Each generation of Americans is not getting taller.

SCIENTIFIC THEORY: With all the darkie illegal aliens, and Mestizos, inbreeding with Whites....it's producing a darker, shorter, stouter populace.

CRISIS: High school and college football teams have fewer candidates in the potential player pool to pick from, because with each class, potential players are becoming shorter and shorter.

Basketball too. Blacks are tall, but once they mate with Mestizo illegals.....it dilutes it.

Height is not always a dominant trait.

The real problem is the dating pool. The guy must be taller than the gal, but the pool of tall men, suitable for dating, has become very slim.

A woman won't date a man who's shorter than her.

Peace, Maxine

Maxine Weiss said...

Automatic, inbred authority and dominance over other lesser endowed individuals.

Plus, a statuesque and regal countenance.

-versus-

Danny DeVito, little man's syndrome. Napoloen Bonaparte (sp?) was only 4'9 ???

Shorter men have huge egos to overcompensate.

These are scientific facts which are irrefutable.

Love, Maxine

Mortimer Brezny said...

I can't tell is Maxine is kidding or just ifqaih.

wv: ifqaih

Bissage said...

Mort: That's to keep you on your toes.

You have Maxine to thank for those extra three inches.

Ha!

Gordon Freece said...

Mortimer Brezny - You?! Never! Did the Kenosha Kid...?

Revenant said...

I'd have to see more data on any correlation between height and intelligence. There are too many easy examples that disprove the alleged correlation.

You appear to have fallen victim to the common misconception that "X is correlated with Y" means "those with more X always have more Y". That is not the case.

The statement "height is correlated with intelligence" just means that the average tall person is smarter than the average short person. Given that both height and intelligence are themselves positively correlated with childhood nutrition, it is hardly surprising that height and intelligence would also be correlated. That there are smart short people and dumb tall people isn't really relevant.

Kirby Olson said...

The question of standards should mean that height is irrelevant but:

In a recent article in the Journal of Applied Psychology (June 2004, 428-441), University of Florida management professor Timothy Judge published an article entitled, “The Effect of Physical Height on Workplace Success and Income: Preliminary Test of a Theoretical Model.” These findings have since been summarized in mainstream media journals such as USA Today and Psychology Today, as well as Medical News Today.

Judge argues that salary climbs irrespective of any other perceived merit and even takes in the basketball objection (where height is truly linked to excellence in that one area).

But there are "bigger" issues at stake here than tallness or smallness, fatness or svelteness. The notion that all standards have gone out the window with the window doesn't mean that we shouldn't still all be interested in fairness.

Even my kids who are 1 and 3 are very interested in issues of fairness.

Give one a cookie and not the other and the one without cookie will cry out to God almighty.

Fairness does matter. Isn't it the basis of all law?

Maxine Weiss said...

Take "handsome" out of the equation.

We're not talking about "handsome".

We are talking about height = protection.

And, women usually want protection, even in the animal kingdom. This goes back to anthropogy.

(Is there no end to my specialties?)

Protection comes in many forms.

Sometimes it's height. Sometimes it's money.

1) A tall wealthy jerk
2) A short poor gentlman

Guess which one gets picked.

Plus, the tall and the wealth blunt the jerkdom.

Shortness magnifies the least bit of flaws.

Of course if this:

1) Tall working class gentlman
2) Short wealthy Danny DeVito

Decisions, decisons....

Peace, Maxine

Eli Blake said...

Wow.

A lot of biases come out all over the place.

maybe not for east-Asian women who seem to give more preference to education, success, and brains

I think you are seeing an Asian cultural bias favoring hard work and success. But I think you'll find that many women of any background would, given a choice between 'rich' and 'tall,' choose 'rich.'

Women won't date men who are shorter than them.

Wrong. I'm 6'0". When I was single, I dated (among others) three women who were 6'2", 6'1" and 6'0". I found tall women at the time to be attractive, so I went out with all three of the above because I took the time to meet them and later asked them for a date. Flowers work just as well with a tall woman as a short one. True, I no longer date and am now married to a woman who is 5'3", but I don't buy the idea that tall women won't date a guy who is shorter than them because they dated me.

Rusty and Shanna:

Most guys will behave at their best when trying to meet a girl (Shanna is right about that) but if you get to the second date and he's still pretending to be something he's not, you should be able to figure it out by then.

I like the way my great-great grandmother (then a charming and beautiful young maiden) made her decision.

It was a cold night in the middle of winter, and she had two suitors-- my great-great grandfather and another gentleman. They both came over that night to press their suit, to ask her to marry her. All three of them knew why they were both there, so they sat around and made small talk while each guy waited for the other one to leave, or at least leave the room for a moment. Well, the fire got low, and my great-great grandmother asked, 'Who will go out to the woodshed and get me some wood to put on the fire?' The two guys looked at each other for an instant but my great-great grandfather jumped up, put on his coat and went out to get the wood. When he came back in the room, he saw the other fellow brushing the dust off of his knees. He quickly put on his coat and hat, and left hurriedly. Then my great-great grandfather pressed his suit, and she said yes. And no, I don't know which of the men was taller, nor does it matter.

LoafingOaf said...

Dale B:

When I was a kid, the bullies never picked on me. They should have as I was the perfect geeky target. I never thought about it at the time but I suspect my size had a lot to do with them leaving me alone.

Totally. I shot up very tall, very fast from the the earliest years in school, and no one ever tried to bully me around. A huge plus for males. Even the most drunk jerk at a bar who's looking for fights over the slightest "disses" steers clear, which always gives me a chuckle. Some of us tall guys never had to learn how to fight and might not be so tough, but fine by me that people don't know this!

On the downside, I was a shy little boy up through high school and tallness was a factor in that. When you feel like Big Bird, all awkward and standing out too much, with everyone asking, "How's the weather up there?". lol

Now the only downside is, as you say, not fitting into things. Envying those who look comfy in their seats on buses, trains, planes, wherever.

If I had a choice, I'd rather be shorter, maybe 6'.

Yeah, I'm 6'4" and wish I'd stopped growing at 6'. Even little things like needing extra long ties can be a hassle (A salesman at Brooks Brothers told me he'd never HEARD OF extra long ties!). I use that as an excuse to over-spend on ties. It's not my fault Nordstrom's tiny selection of extra-longs happen to be from the fanciest designers.

Mortimer Brezny said...

Hmm, I never want to be in a position to have to thank a woman for the extra three inches. That just sounds quefnn.

wv: quefnn