If you were extremely ill and found out that the surgeon most likely to save your life was a very short man, that probably wouldn’t compel you to look for a different doctor.
But should we then find it disturbing that in politics–and even in the workplace, apparently–height translates directly to success?
This year is no different. In Illinois, the major-party candidates for the U.S. Senate stand 6 foot 2 and 6 foot 3. (I won’t tell you which is which; you’ll have to guess whom to vote for.)
The leading presidential candidates are 6 foot 4 and 5 foot 11, noticeably taller than the U.S. male average of 5 foot 9.
Of course, there’s feisty little Dennis Kucinich, who has pursued his campaign beyond reasonable expectations of success. I say “feisty” only because little guys are feisty; tall guys are Lincolnesque, confident and bold.
Even if the Ohio congressman were dead-on with the issues, that probably would matter little to his chances. The last time someone Kucinich’s size–Time magazine says 5 foot 6–reached the presidency was more than a century ago. Taller presidential candidates have dominated the TV Age, and tall men have dominated the presidency in general.
Kucinich may be the best candidate, however, if only because he hasn’t suffered diminished mental capacity due to a lifetime of bumping his head on things. But–whoa–that’s a gross generalization.
Nevertheless, favoring someone due to height is an even grosser generalization. Yet, according to a report to be published in the June issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology, that is precisely what we do.
Building on earlier research showing that height equates to perceived leadership ability, two professors have found that every inch in height correlates directly to an average of $789 a year more in pay.
One of the professors, Timothy Judge, a management professor at the University of Florida, suspects this is an old bone left over from evolution.
It’s “plausible that despite thousands of years of evolution, some basic predispositions are within us,” he said. “After all, they took millions of years to develop through a process of natural selection.”
So at perhaps the most dangerous time in history, we may well be choosing people based on a caveman scale of how far a person’s head is from his feet. Should we also consider how loud a candidate can grunt?
In ancient times, it would have made sense to have a leader whose head poked above the rest, so he could be seen and heard in a crowd. That, of course, didn’t guarantee that he was sane.
But now with amplification, we have the technology to elect shorter people.
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And perhaps short people have some good natural attributes. For example, despite suppositions about a Napoleon complex, people of smaller stature might well be inclined to negotiate rather than obliterate. After all, they’ve had to negotiate their way around danger their entire lives. The big boys might simply push their by-God agenda at all costs, because that’s the way the world has been for them.
Virtually any treatment of this issue of height and leadership tends to come across as a joke written by short men with their tongues in their cheeks.
Well, I may have only an inch on Kucinich, but I really don’t think this is funny, not at a time when we’re so long on huffy bravado and in need of good sense.
Perhaps the only consolation now is that because all the top candidates are tall, maybe we can choose based on merit.
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Send e-mail for Ross Werland to [email protected].