According to recent research that was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, persons who are short and dissatisfied about it could act antagonistically in an effort to make up for their short stature disadvantage.
To gather 367 adults from the US, a mix of men and women, for a study the researchers used Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing platform.
The Dirty Dozen Dark Triad questionnaire, which measures degrees of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism—a personality trait characterized as being manipulative, cynical, and lacking in morality—was given to the participants.
After that, participants were asked to state their height and indicate whether they were happy with it or desired they were taller.
The researchers found that shorter people and those who were unsatisfied with their height were more likely to exhibit signs of psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism.
“Shorter people, especially those who wish they were taller, are more characterized by traits that are likely to make them show-off, be confrontational and interested in power,” lead author Peter K. Jonason, of the University of Padua in Italy, said according to PsyPost.
“These relationships may be best understood from an evolutionary framework, suggesting that when people cannot be physically formidable, they may then be psychologically formidable instead.”
This reaction can also provide advantages in survival and mating, the researchers suggest.
Comparing the two sexes, short males tended to display narcissistic tendencies slightly more frequently than short women. Yet, a person’s likelihood of displaying psychopathy and Machiavellianism was unaffected by their gender.
“We expected these relationships to be stronger in men given evolutionary and Freudian considerations but we found only scant evidence for differentiation of these correlations by sex,” Jonason said.
But not everyone who is short hates their height. Some short men have turned their shortcomings into movement, as seen last spring when it was declared “Short King Spring.”
“Dave’s a one-in-a-million in terms of being super confident,” internet personality Carolina Vazzana told The Post of her man, David Lopez. “He isn’t ashamed or embarrassed to stand next to me in 6-inch heels.”