Here's the abstract from the article titled, "The Effect of Physical Height on Workplace Success and Income: Preliminary Test of a Theoretical Model" found in the Journal of Applied Psychology. 2004 Jun Vol 89(3) 428-441.
"In this article, the authors propose a theoretical model of the relationship between physical height and career success. We then test several linkages in the model based on a meta-analysis of the literature, with results indicating that physical height is significantly related to measures of social esteem (p = .41), leader emergence (p = .24), and performance (p = .18). Height was somewhat more strongly related to success for men (p = .29) than for women (p = .21), although this difference was not significant. Finally, given that almost no research has examined the relationship between individuals' physical height and their incomes, we present four large-sample studies (total N = 8,590) showing that height is positively related to income (ß = .26) after controlling for sex, age, and weight. Overall, this article presents the most comprehensive analysis of the relationship of height to workplace success to date, and the results suggest that tall individuals have advantages in several important aspects of their careers and organizational lives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)"
Here's a quote from the article:
"In addition to the standardized regression () coefficients reported in Table 4, the results revealed that the unstandardized regression (B) coefficients have appreciable effect sizes. The unstandardized coefficient estimates reveal that each inch increase in height results in a predicted increase in annual earnings of $897 in Study 1, $728 in Study 2, and $743 in Study 4 (it was not possible to obtain effect size estimates for Study 3 given that salary was
coded into categories). By averaging across these results, we find that an individual who is 72 in. tall could be expected to earn $5,525 more per year than someone who is 65 in. tall, even after
controlling for gender, weight, and age."
The rest of the paper was just a bunch of statistics 'n junk....BUT I BELIEVE 'EM!
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1 comment:
As a weekend statistician, I feel the compulsion to explain those p-values quoted in the article (i.e. performance p=.18). P-values are a measure of the statistical significance of each individual factor (i.e. how likely that the difference is random). With P-values, the SMALLER the p-value, the more likely the connection. A P-value of .18 means that there is an 82% chance of a connection. While a p-value that small is nothing to sneeze at, it's rather large. Most statistical studies don't report parameters with P-values larger than .05 or .10
Long story short, that's some shady statistics.
Plus, as a 6'2" person, the only thing my height has gotten me is a few bruises going through low doorways.
Alex Carmichael
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