"Science Explains Why Tall Women Are Considered Superior To Short Women"
"I think it’s universally acknowledged that the types of women that men find attractive vary wildly from man to man, apart from in the case of Megan Fox. Some men like women with blond hair, some men like women with a bit more padding and some men like women of Far East Asian origin. There are tens of major aspects to women that we judge.
One such aspect is a woman’s height. It’s one of the first things you notice upon meeting and it’s certainly one of the things you notice when you hold hands, when you kiss and when you get into bed for the first time.
Some of you might be getting annoyed, thinking something along the lines of, “so what if I’m tall/short, it doesn’t change anything.” And you’d be right. It doesn’t technically change anything. But new research conducted by the University of Liverpool and Central Lancashire has opened the lid on how a woman’s height can massively influence how others, rightly or wrongly, perceive her. It also reveals why some men might go for tall over short.
Sorry short girls, but the tallies have it best. Both men AND women judge tall women to be more intelligent, assertive, independent and ambitious. They also get thought of as richer and more successful. And this is solely based on their height! Unfortunately for tall women, perceptions are not reality.
The experiment involved researchers showing pictures of women to male and female test subjects in which the women had been digitally enhanced to make them tall or short. The test subjects were then asked to judge the women based on a set of eight criteria, solely based on how they look, and not all were flattering.
For short women there were a totally different set of assumptions made. They certainly aren’t as flattering but they are not that bad either. Short women were judged to be more nurturing and considerate, especially by the male volunteers. Interestingly, most of the male volunteers but none of the female volunteers found shorter women to be more considerate, nurturing and homely. A short woman was judged to be 5ft 1in or less while tall women were 5ft 8in or more.
But when it came down to the ones we all want to know about – attractiveness, intelligence and flirtatiousness – it wasn’t really anything to do with height at all. The hour glass figure, where women’s hips are 70% the size of their waist, is more closely associated with medium and small than taller woman but was found to be associated with all sizes.
While these are all merely perceptions, they are still big advantages when translated into real life situations. The aptly named Liz Large, 6ft 1in and owner of a tall women’s clothes shop, said that her height, “means that you are noticed automatically. At work I was promoted very young – people assumed I was grown up and a safe pair of hands.”
For anyone left unhappy with all this news: fear not. Dr Ros Taylor, a clinical psychologist who studies image, believes that the advantage or disadvantage gained by these perceptions only last for about 30 seconds. At that point, any existing perceptions have to be backed up by substance to continue. That will be good news then for Kylie Minogue and opera singer Charlotte Church, 5ft 1n and 5ft 2in respectively!
What does this all mean then? Primarily, it shows that we all make significant judgements solely based on something as ultimately meaningless as height. That’s not great is it. But the good thing about perceptions is that they can be changed"
Source: http://www.viralthread.com
