October 29, 2003

Grow Tall; Make More Money?

Well, this should work out well for me. A University of Florida management professor has come out with a study showing that tall people earn about $789 dollars a year more per inch than short people.

The author claims the results to be "troubling." I think that it's interesting, but I'd want to see a corroborating study before I truly bought into the idea. This sounds like one of those studies in which the data fits the hypothesis, but the results only represent a loose correlation, not causation. I don't know. Show me that it replicable.

That being said, if it is true, I'm going to have to ask for a raise. I am obviously not getting paid what my height dictates I'm worth.

Interesting stuff.

Posted by Chris at October 29, 2003 09:39 PM | TrackBack | Linked by:
Comments

In my own experience I have always felt there was *some* truth to this, but one can always find counter-examples of very successful shorter people (Napoloeon is probably the most historical, and we even have the term "Napoleon Complex" for short, aggressive people who are success driven).

One thing the study wasn't controlled for was "good looks", or maybe "charisma", which I think is a more important factor. I think a charismatic short person will typically be rated "better" than an ugly tall person if they have equal skills.

I believe there was even a study recently with young children who had an "ugly" teacher and a pretty one read the same story and then leave the room. The children rated the pretty one as being the better teacher even though both teachers did the exact same thing.

Posted by: Director Mitch at October 30, 2003 11:31 AM


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