Problem 6
Judge & Cable – the effect of physical height on workplace success and income
- societal impression that taller people are more successful
- evolutionary origins: animals use height as an index for power and strength and
demands more respect
- psychological importance on people’s dispositions, personalities and behaviors
- Napoleon’s complex: being short makes people feel inadequate, leading to
inferiority complex and overaggressive behavior
- previous research suggests a positive relationship between height and performance
& leader effectiveness
3 aims of this study:
- address a process model of the height-career success relationship
- a meta-analysis to test the implications of the model
- 4 new investigations of height and personal incomes
Theoretical model of physical height and career success
- career success as an outcome of work measured by earnings and leadership positions
- height affect career through mediating factors self-esteem and social esteem
- these affect job performance as well as supervisor evaluations which in turn affects
career success
Height Social Esteem
- social esteem: how positively one is evaluated or regarded by others in society
- evolutionary aspect - interpret height as power
- perceptual bias: people perceive more valuable things as larger, and less valuable
things smaller
- social norms: height is a metaphor for importance and power, heuristic for
dominance
- people are more likely to be persuaded by tall people
- “big man”, “looking up to someone”
Height self-esteem
- short people might be dissatisfied with their physical stature and these insecurities
reflect to their personalities
- people tend to take on the attributes that society ascribes them
1
, - tall people have greater self-worth and self-confidence because they are viewed and
treated with more respect by others
- height is positively associated with external locus of control and emotional reactivity
- short people score higher on inferiority and depression
Social esteem performance
- 2 types of job performance:
o objective: job or task outcomes and results
esteem leads to objective performance in socially interactive positive
self-fulfilling prophecy: esteemed people are more able to deliver job
results that make them even more esteemed
o subjective: how others evaluate performance such as managers
esteem affects job results so naturally affects manager appraisals
regardless of actual performance, height lead to biased hypothesis
testing (initial beliefs about employees) and a self-fulfilling process
Self-esteem performance
- self-esteem mediates the link between height and performance
- even when controlled for productivity, people with higher self-esteem have higher
performance ratings bc self-positive people are viewed more favorably
Performance career success
- high productivity is desired
- companies can give rewards based on both objective (what’s accomplished) and
subjective (how it was accomplished) results
Hypotheses:
- 1) Height is positively related to leadership and earnings.
- 2) Height shows a simplex relationship with status, performance and career
o height is most strongly related to status and least strongly related to career
success
- 3) Height is more strongly related to subjective outcomes than objective outcomes
Meta-analysis results:
- 71 articles
- Positive correlation of height with career success (p=0.26) and earnings (p=0.31)
- Career success higher for men p=0.29 than for women p=0.21 (not a significant
difference)
- All 3 hypotheses were supported
- Controlled variables:
o Gender: women get payed less, gender negatively predicts earnings
o Age: age and height positively predict earnings
o Weight: weight negatively predicts earnings
o Intelligence: they speculated that height and intelligence are positively
related, but controlling for intelligence doesn’t affect the relationship of
height and earnings and intelligence is not a mediator
o Time: validity of height in predicting earning doesn’t decline over time
2
Judge & Cable – the effect of physical height on workplace success and income
- societal impression that taller people are more successful
- evolutionary origins: animals use height as an index for power and strength and
demands more respect
- psychological importance on people’s dispositions, personalities and behaviors
- Napoleon’s complex: being short makes people feel inadequate, leading to
inferiority complex and overaggressive behavior
- previous research suggests a positive relationship between height and performance
& leader effectiveness
3 aims of this study:
- address a process model of the height-career success relationship
- a meta-analysis to test the implications of the model
- 4 new investigations of height and personal incomes
Theoretical model of physical height and career success
- career success as an outcome of work measured by earnings and leadership positions
- height affect career through mediating factors self-esteem and social esteem
- these affect job performance as well as supervisor evaluations which in turn affects
career success
Height Social Esteem
- social esteem: how positively one is evaluated or regarded by others in society
- evolutionary aspect - interpret height as power
- perceptual bias: people perceive more valuable things as larger, and less valuable
things smaller
- social norms: height is a metaphor for importance and power, heuristic for
dominance
- people are more likely to be persuaded by tall people
- “big man”, “looking up to someone”
Height self-esteem
- short people might be dissatisfied with their physical stature and these insecurities
reflect to their personalities
- people tend to take on the attributes that society ascribes them
1
, - tall people have greater self-worth and self-confidence because they are viewed and
treated with more respect by others
- height is positively associated with external locus of control and emotional reactivity
- short people score higher on inferiority and depression
Social esteem performance
- 2 types of job performance:
o objective: job or task outcomes and results
esteem leads to objective performance in socially interactive positive
self-fulfilling prophecy: esteemed people are more able to deliver job
results that make them even more esteemed
o subjective: how others evaluate performance such as managers
esteem affects job results so naturally affects manager appraisals
regardless of actual performance, height lead to biased hypothesis
testing (initial beliefs about employees) and a self-fulfilling process
Self-esteem performance
- self-esteem mediates the link between height and performance
- even when controlled for productivity, people with higher self-esteem have higher
performance ratings bc self-positive people are viewed more favorably
Performance career success
- high productivity is desired
- companies can give rewards based on both objective (what’s accomplished) and
subjective (how it was accomplished) results
Hypotheses:
- 1) Height is positively related to leadership and earnings.
- 2) Height shows a simplex relationship with status, performance and career
o height is most strongly related to status and least strongly related to career
success
- 3) Height is more strongly related to subjective outcomes than objective outcomes
Meta-analysis results:
- 71 articles
- Positive correlation of height with career success (p=0.26) and earnings (p=0.31)
- Career success higher for men p=0.29 than for women p=0.21 (not a significant
difference)
- All 3 hypotheses were supported
- Controlled variables:
o Gender: women get payed less, gender negatively predicts earnings
o Age: age and height positively predict earnings
o Weight: weight negatively predicts earnings
o Intelligence: they speculated that height and intelligence are positively
related, but controlling for intelligence doesn’t affect the relationship of
height and earnings and intelligence is not a mediator
o Time: validity of height in predicting earning doesn’t decline over time
2
