Comments | differenceblog: Differences in effect of Height

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Differences in effect of Height

May 10, 2007 10:33

While the effects of physical height on job success for men are well documented, it has been suggested that women would have a ceiling effect on height benefit, being negatively judged as too tall. However, Judge and Cable (2004) found that physical height was related to financial success for both men and women. Effects appeared to be slightly ( Read more... )

stature, timothy judge, height, sex differences, careers, nancy eisenberg, gender similarities, donald egolf, work, physical height, barry harper, daniel cable, lloyd corder, gender differences, sociology

Comments 23

mrsmalkav May 10 2007, 16:14:04 UTC

i am 50th percentile for men, >95 percentile for women. i am also mostly big boned (large boned lower half, small boned upper half) and of athletic build.

i have always been/worked in a male dominated field.

i DO NOT DOUBT that my height has given me privileges (e.g. to be treated as an equal). i have learned the benefits of standing taller/bigger and looking people in the eye as an intimidation/defense technique.

so i have better self-esteem? i did not when i was younger. many other things have added to improved self-esteem. none of which are height.

do i have better confidence? and do i believe some of it comes from my height? yes.

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mrsmalkav May 10 2007, 19:03:13 UTC

hmm.

until i was roughly 13, i was too-tall and too-thin per the doctors' charts...

i wasn't involved in sports at all, being a computer quasi-recluse that i am.

ukelele May 11 2007, 00:25:12 UTC

Were those studies broken down by sex? Teaching all boys I definitely see that height matters -- the boys are very aware of and sensitive about it (they compare themselves on every possible metric and height is an obvious one); size in general and height in particular are dominance things; and height is a major plus in most sports, and sports prowess confers social status. But I don't remember these things mattering as much for girls (not teaching any girls it's hard to say but I would expect that height plays a lot less into social status and, insofar as physical development does, it uses other markers). I wonder how much of that difference can be explained solely by the boys ( ... )

laurenhat May 10 2007, 17:11:57 UTC

What measures are available for making oneself taller? I didn't realize there were any such possibilities (safe or otherwise).

I didn't realize I was as tall as I am compared to women my age -- definitely past 95th percentile. 50th percentile for men my age. Huh. I've always pretty much enjoyed my height.

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differenceblog May 10 2007, 20:25:55 UTC

see my response above.

differenceblog May 10 2007, 20:21:47 UTC

Limb lengthening surgery is not generally available to people of normal height in this country, AFAIK, but I have cynical faith that with money, I could convince a surgeon somewhere to perform it on me.

Thread 9

njyoder May 11 2007, 03:45:46 UTC

I'm below the 5th percentile for women and I'm a man. I was born with a form of dwarfism called Cartilage Hair Hypoplasia (CHH), aka McKusick type metaphyseal chondroplasia (sp?). It's similar to the most common bone dysplasia, which is called achondroplasia.

I had my legs lengthened, bringing me from 4' to 4'11". I've had my arms lengthened too, adding 4" on each humorus. With work, we got insurance to pay for all of the operations. The tibia lengthening also including correction of bone deformities.

I haven't read much into studies like these beyond their summaries. I think I'll read them more later and come back and comment. All I'll say for now is that until I was about 19 years old, I was totally oblivious to the degree to which people mistreated me due to my condition, largely because I was very optimistic and simply assumed that odd treatment of me was due to personality quirks or something.

differenceblog May 11 2007, 03:54:03 UTC

Thank you for sharing about this. If you have any trouble getting any of the studies, let me know, and i'll be happy to send them to you, if you are interested.

I wish it wasn't the case, but your comments about not getting limb-lengthening do carry more weight bearing this comment in mind. Just saying "don't do that; it's dumb" isn't nearly as effective as "don't do that; it sucked."

njyoder May 18 2007, 08:48:30 UTC

No problem. Few people know about this kind of thing, so I felt it good to share. From a pain and disability standpoint, the procedure is hell. You even get medieval like devices on your legs (Ilizirov), although there are some newer devices now with different advantages/disadvantages.

Some people really don't understand just how difficult it is, probably because it's not something any regular person could relate to their personal experience. I remember one guy (5'5") talking to me about it and he didn't seem to want to accept that it would soooo not be worth it for him.

Can you please send me the studies in this post? My email is still njyoder livejournal com

Thanks in advance.