Height and Perceived Competence of U.S. Presidents

Young, Thomas J.; French, Laurence Armand

doi:10.1177/003151259608200301

Cited by 65 publications

(38 citation statements)

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“…Recent studies (Yee & Bailenson, 2007;Yee, Bailenson, & Ducheneaut, 2009) showed that participants who saw themselves represented with taller avatars were more aggressive in negotiation tasks than those with short avatars, both inside of the virtual environment as well as in subsequent negotiations face-to-face. This suggests that the participants felt the same confidence that is attributed to tall people in real life (Stogdill, 1948;Young & French, 1996). In separate studies, participants with attractive avatar representations approached a virtual confederate more closely and were more disclosing than participants with avatars of average appearance (Yee & Bailenson; Yee, Bailenson, & Ducheneaut).…”

Section: Variability In Virtual Human Featuresmentioning

confidence: 85%

The Evolution of Social Behavior over Time in Second Life

Harris¹,

Bailenson²,

Nielsen³

et al. 2009

Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments

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The current study tracked 80 participants who spent an average of six hours per week in Second Life over six consecutive weeks. Objective measures of movement and chat were automatically collected in real time when participants logged in to Second Life. Data regarding the number of groups and friends was self-reported through online questionnaires on a weekly basis. Results demonstrated that although the social networks of users continued to broaden over the course of the study, users became less inclined to explore regions, decreased their use of high-energy actions such as flying or running, and chatted less. We discuss implications for theories of virtual social interaction as well as the use of Second Life as a social science research platform. IntroductionThis paper describes a six week long study that tracked behavior in the virtual environment, Second Life. Blascovich (2002) proposed a model of how virtual human representations may influence users and result in realistic behaviors, that is, behaviors that would be seen in the real world. Many studies based on this model have illustrated the ways in which the characteristics of virtual environments and interactions result in realistic user behavior. Although most research has focused on individual behavior within interpersonal or small group contexts, only a handful of studies have applied the social influence model to study individual or group behaviors within larger social contexts. The study presented here contributes to the current literature by providing additional evidence for the social influence model in a large-scale context. Furthermore, it is unique in its use of the Second Life platform as a methodological tool for an extended, controlled study within a naturalistic virtual setting. The following sections review Blascovich's model and research of realistic individual behavior within small and large scale social contexts. 2A

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Section: Variability In Virtual Human Featuresmentioning

confidence: 85%

The Evolution of Social Behavior over Time in Second Life

Harris¹,

Bailenson²,

Nielsen³

et al. 2009

Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Thus, biological traits, such as height, deserve a more prominent role in leadership theories (Bass, 2008;Bass & Riggio, 2006;Murray & Schmitz, 2011). The perception of increased leadership qualities in taller individuals is in line with the higher perceived competence associated with increased stature (Young & French, 1996). The 'halo' effects of increased stature are therefore likely to lead to discrimination in favor of taller men and to the detriment of shorter men .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tall claims? Sense and nonsense about the importance of height of US presidents

Stulp

Buunk

Verhulst³

et al. 2013

The Leadership Quarterly

115

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“…In light of self-perception theory, just as participants in black uniforms infer an aggressive disposition and in turn behave more aggressively, participants in attractive avatars may infer a friendly and extraverted disposition and behave in a friendlier manner. And in the case of avatar height, given that taller people are perceived to be more confident and more likely to be in positions of power (Stogdill, 1948;Young & French, 1996), participants in taller avatars may conform to those expectations. Thus in general, we may expect users to make inferences about their expected dispositions from their avatar's appearance and then conform to the expected attitudes and behavior, a phenomenon that has been referred to as the Proteus effect .…”

Section: The Proteus Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The participant and the confederate were asked to split a hypothetical pool of $100 in alternating rounds. given that taller people are perceived to be more confident (Young & French, 1996), it was hypothesized that users in taller avatars would conform to this expectation, and be more aggressive in making splits in their own favor and less likely to yield to unfair splits made against them than users in shorter avatars. The experimenters found that participants in taller avatars offered significantly more unfair splits (in their own favor) than participants in shorter avatars.…”

Section: The Proteus Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Proteus Effect

Yee

Bailenson

Ducheneaut

2009

Communication Research

548

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Virtual environments allow individuals to dramatically alter their self-representation. More important, studies have shown that people infer their expected behaviors and attitudes from observing their avatar's appearance, a phenomenon known as the Proteus effect. For example, users given taller avatars negotiated more aggressively than users given shorter avatars. Two studies are reported here that extend our understanding of this effect. The first study extends the work beyond laboratory settings to an actual online community. It was found that both the height and attractiveness of an avatar in an online game were significant predictors of the player's performance. In the second study, it was found that the behavioral changes stemming from the virtual environment transferred to subsequent face-to-face interactions. Participants were placed in an immersive virtual environment and were given either shorter or taller avatars. They then interacted with a confederate for about 15 minutes. In addition to causing a behavioral difference within the virtual environment, the authors found that participants given taller avatars negotiated more aggressively in subsequent face-to-face interactions than participants given shorter avatars. Together, these two studies show that our virtual bodies can change how we interact with others in actual avatar-based online communities as well as in subsequent face-to-face interactions.

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Height and Perceived Competence of U.S. Presidents

Abstract: The 4 “great” U.S. Presidents, as listed in the 1982 Murray-Blessing Poll, were significantly taller ( M = 74.63 in.) than the 5 considered “failures” ( M = 70.80 in.), consistent with previous research on height and status.

Cited by 65 publications

References 1 publication

The Evolution of Social Behavior over Time in Second Life

The Evolution of Social Behavior over Time in Second Life

Tall claims? Sense and nonsense about the importance of height of US presidents

The Proteus Effect

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