Short People Got Lots of Reasons to Legitimately Feel Paranoid

Your physical height can affect your emotional state of mind, according to a new study.

We already know that language bestows positive value on people of tall stature: We look up to them rather than down. And various studies have found correlations between being taller and earning more.

Now virtual reality is adding to the understanding of the short state of mind. A study conducted at Oxford University and published in December 2013 used avatars to let participants go through the virtual experience of riding a subway at their normal height and then at that height reduced by ten inches.

For the study, 60 womennone with a history of mental illness, but all of whom had recently reported mistrustful thoughtsdonned headsets and viewed monitors as they participated in two 3-D virtual-reality trips on the London subway system. They were able to move and interact with other virtual passengers, exchanging glances or looking away from others, for instance.

The virtual train trips journeyed between subway stations, took about six minutes each, and were programmed and animated identically except for one thing: In one ride, the avatar representing the participant was reduced in height by 25 centimetersa little less than ten inches. That's "approximately the height of a head" in the words of Oxford clinical psychologist and lead researcher Daniel Freeman.

The results: Participants reported that during the ride in which they were made to feel shorter, they felt more vulnerable, more negative about themselves, and had a greater sense of paranoia. "The key to this study was there were no reasons for mistrust," says Freeman. Yet when the participants saw the world from a height that was a head shorter than usual, "they thought people were being more hostile or trying to isolate them."

Short on Confidence

That doesn't suggest that if you're short you're always less trustful or more paranoid, says Freeman. But the findings do reinforce common perceptions about height. "Height seems to affect our sense of social status," he says, and being taller tends to be socially desirable.

"The implication is that greater height can make you more confident in social situations," he says. "All of us can recognize that when we feel worse about ourselves, we can hunch up and stoop and take up less space, but when we feel more confident we feel taller and take up more space."

There may be some reality to the virtual reality, too, as expressed in a comment from a study participant. "I noticed the second time I was shorter. People, even suitcases, were feeling high. I was frustrated to feel like a child again, felt out of place on the tube, because I wasn't an adult." Being shorter, in other words, replicated the sense of vulnerability of a little child, not yet grown into the full height of adulthood.

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Short People Got Lots of Reasons to Legitimately Feel Paranoid