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Subscribe to RSSIn June 2010, the Swedish-born Chairman of BP Carl-Henric Svanberg touched off a firestorm of controversy with his remarks about his company's reaction to the Gulf oil spill.
"... we care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care. But that is not the case in BP. We care about the small people."
The twice used reference to "small people" hit a raw nerve with residents of the Gulf in the wake of the manmade disaster. Svanberg was quickly forced to apologize and admit "he spoke clumsily."
From that condescending comment grew the germ for a recently published paper about whether powerful people misperceive their height compared to others.
The study, published in Psychological Science, looked at whether the psychological perception of power may cause people to feel taller than they truly are.
In one experiment, researchers first measured the height of 68 people. One-third of the people were then asked to write about a time when they had power over someone else; another third recalled a time when someone else had power over them; and a control group recalled what happened to them the day before.
Then all the volunteers were asked to estimate their size in relation to a pole that was set at 20 inches taller than their true height.
Men and women who had recalled a high-power incident tended to judge the pole to be shorter than their own height compared to those recalling a low-power situation.
"People perceived themselves as taller when they occupied a more powerful position," write the researchers.
In two other experiments involving nearly 200 volunteers, power was also shown to affect a person's judgments of their own stature.
The study suggests that people not only feel powerful in their minds, they also physically experience it in their bodies by overestimating their own height.
"Having power not only influences how others view individuals but it also influences how individuals view themselves physically," says study author Michelle Duguid, Ph.D. She is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at Washington University in St. Louis.
The frequent metaphoric use of height to connote power in terms such as "big man on campus" and "people look up to them," may achieve a physical reality of its own, suggests Duguid.
Other studies have found that taller people are more likely to gain power: They typically earn higher salaries, have higher-status jobs, are often in leadership positions, and tend to win presidential elections.
But this is the first study to show that the powerful may actually feel taller than a measurement would indicate.
The researchers conclude that their results suggest why the beleaguered chairman of BP "may have inadvertently provided a window into the physical experience of power."
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Who was the hotel heiress that remarked "Only the little people pay taxes" who later spent time in a federal penitentiary?
It's simply because the arrogant, and powerful tend to "walk" over everyone else....and when you're being walked on, you can only look "up"!
Sometimes captain Morgan makes me feel 10ft tall a bullet proof. I do my best posting on here after a few and i see i am not alone.
Leona Helmsley is the late person you are referring to
Hey, are you the one she left all her millions to?
Stop it. You mean to tell me these people looked at a pole which was set 20 inches higher than their height and said they were taller than the pole? I would like to find out what city these participants live in so I can avoid driving there. If you look at a pole 20 inches above your head and you think you are taller than it there is seriously something wrong with your perception.
I can look down on you standing on this chair.
No, the confident people thought that they were closer to the pole in height (let's say 17") shorter than it, than the powerless people who might have thought they were 22" shorter.
I noticed that they don't indicate the distance between the pole and the person. The farther from the pole one is in relation to perceived height the greater the potential for distorted views. This would have to be noted in the study, but I question why they didn't include this information in the article. It sure would have put it in perspective for all of us.
Power corrups, absolute power corrups aqbsolutely
When I read this article, all I could think of was Napoleon Bonaparte hitting people with a horse whip and jumping up and down yelling "Me! I'm the tallest man in the world!" My imagination is a better story teller than this writer.
That's the not problem of Iran's little man leader Mahmound Ahmadinejad who is just a little puppet wishing he were a bigger man.
perhaps beating your head on the wailing wall would help.
'Small' people can feel tall too. I notice when I'm succeeding at things in my life--family, work, routine--that I feel taller. When I feel like I'm failing at things, I hope no one notices me.
Delusions of grandeur. Sometimes referred to as short man's disease -
I don't think the chairman was speaking about height when he said "small people." I think maybe a different variety of human being was on his mind.
It is true when you feel better you probably feel taller. Power is such a loose net word and one people need to use to improve this planet not try to abuse people or animals with. When are we going to grow up? (After it is too late, I guess).
I think I'll do my own bit of research tonight asking my stripper friends on the pole how tall they think they are.
But I have noticed when you see a humongous pick-up truck inevitably a little bitty dude jumps out of it. How they climb back in I'll never know
I think we've had enough psychological studies. The overwhelming scientific evidence points to one conclusion. We humans are guano-crazy.
The secret to being "tall" is the to assume that the person you are speaking to is going to do what you want them to do. You look them in the eyes with a clear gaze, not looking away, and speak succinctly about what you want and how you want it. You shake their hand firmly and behave as though you have the right to ask whatever it is that you have just asked for. Surprisingly, it works. Confidence gets far more results than being unsure of ones self.
I am only five foot tall according to the doctor. According to family and friends, I am much taller.
It is definitely true that a taller person seems more powerful. They get more respect, and therefore they develop into someone with more confidence & self esteem. If you are short AND have a soft voice... you have 3 strikes against you in any social situation. (Unless you have Double D's.)
From the movie Dean Spanley: "And I barked my most enormous bark and made myself VERY HUGE."
I guess standing on all that money can make one feel lots of things.Ask Mitten Romney!!!!
K.M. : How tall is Brian Williams? Not that much taller than G.W. Bush, but in an interview shown on NBC Nightly News some years back they were walking around and every so often Brian would stop abruptly and punch out his chest toward the President and ask another loaded question. The next day his behavior was questioned by several colleagues (not from NBC) but Brian I think feels that he is the most powerful journalist working today. I think he's a fake and a bully, and I do keep an eye on him.
I wonder which finger "Tom Thumb" felt taller than.
Scientific proof scientists have no concept of metaphor or abstraction. What a waste of time!
My observation on this is that tall people are more likely to be promoted...even if they are incapable of intelligent thought! At one company where I worked, short people were treated as in the song "Short People" The CIO was an idiot, lasted one year. Replace with another tall guy, lasted two years. The female execs were also similarly tall!
It's not all it's cracked up to be, but like everybody else, you do what you have to do. Say you're 6'8", with an IQ of 147, and you graduate from college. You'll have to postpone marriage, grad school, and a career for five years while you pay your dues, playing professional basketball in Europe or Australia, traveling to broaden your experience, maybe pick up three or four languages, and spend your leisure time satisfying the local ladies' curiosity about what's proportional.
Don't focus on the drudgery, look at the bright side: you can jump-start that IRA with the quarter- to half-million you save by living frugally on the road, and as you approach 30, then you can catch up with all the all the other stuff you've been missing out on. You won't be Brian Williams, you'll be the president of the news division, his boss. It won't matter that you can't wedge yourself into the seat-rows in coach, you won't be flying coach any more; executive jets don't have "rows," they just have "seats."
Oh, and the tall women will be coming out of their prime modeling years at about the same time, so you have a secure dating pool. Not all of them go to Hollywood, surely.
Quit complaining.