The Effect of Physical Height on Workplace Success and Income:
Preliminary Test of a Theoretical Model
Timothy A. Judge
University of Florida
Daniel M. Cable
University of North Carolina
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 (

.41),
leader emergence (

.24), and performance (

.18). Height was somewhat more strongly related to
success for men (

.29) than for women (

.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 (


.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 organiza-
tional lives.
Short people got no reason, to live.
Randy Newman, Short People
1
I feel as tall as you. Ellis Meredith, U.S. suffragist
There seems to be a societal impression that taller people are
more successful in life. Although it is tempting to dismiss this
belief as a folk tale, research suggests that some elements of life
are easier for taller people because height is a socially desirable
asset (Roberts & Herman, 1986). For example, taller individuals
are judged as being more persuasive (Young & French, 1996),
more attractive as mates (Freedman, 1979; Harrison & Saeed,
1977; Lerner & Moore, 1974), and more likely to emerge as a
leader of other people (Higham & Carment, 1992; Stogdill, 1948).
Indeed, on the latter point, not since 1896 have U.S. citizens
elected a President whose height was below average; William
McKinley at 5 ft 7 in. (1.7 m) was ridiculed in the press as a little
boy .
Theoretically, the importance of height has evolutionary origins,
because animals use height as an index for power and strength
when making fight-or-flight decisions. As noted by Freedman
(1979), Throughout nature the rule is the bigger, the more dan-
gerous (p. 92). Thus, from a sociobiological perspective, height
equals power and therefore demands respect. Perhaps due to the
close linkage between height and social power, there also appears
to be a psychology of stature whereby people s height has far-
reaching consequences on their dispositions, personalities, and
behaviors. In fact, Alfred Adler coined the phrase Napoleon com-
plex to describe cases when peoples short stature makes them feel
inadequate, leading to an inferiority complex and the adoption of
overaggressive behavior to compensate for lack of height and
power (Adler, 1956; Martel & Biller, 1987).
Height should be particularly relevant in the workplace where
issues of persuasion and power take on special significance. Some
evidence exists for this position, because many employers seem to
believe that height and workplace success are linked. For example,
Kurtz (1969) found that the majority of recruiters (78%) believed
that salespersons of above average height were more impressive to
customers than shorter salespersons. Lester and Sheehan (1980)
found that supervisors expected short police officers to receive
more complaints, cause more disciplinary problems, and engender
poorer morale than taller police officers. In the context of aca-
demia, Hensley (1993) noted, The perception seems to exist that
taller individuals are somehow more capable, able, or competent
(p. 40). Moreover, as suggested previously, some qualitative re-
views have suggested positive relationships of height with perfor-
mance, leader effectiveness, and leader emergence (see Hensley &
Cooper, 1987; Roberts & Herman, 1986).
To develop the literature on height and workplace success, the
present study has three goals. First, although some past research
has suggested interesting linkages between physical height and
measures of career success, no conceptual model has been pro-
posed to articulate why or how this linkage exists. Accordingly, we
first address the atheoretical nature of the existing literature by
1
The song brought Newman accusations of the very injustice he was
satirizing, and in Maryland it remains illegal for radio stations to air the
song.
Timothy A. Judge, Department of Management, Warrington College of
Business, University of Florida; Daniel M. Cable, Kenan-Flagler Business
School, University of North Carolina.
We thank John D. Kammeyer-Mueller for his comments and insights on
the article and the theoretical model.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Timothy
A. Judge, Department of Management, Warrington College of Business,
University of Florida, 211D Stuzin Hall, P.O. Box 117165, Gainesville, FL
32611. E-mail: tjudge@ufl.edu
Journal of Applied Psychology Copyright 2004 by the American Psychological Association
2004, Vol. 89, No. 3, 428 441 0021-9010/04/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0021-9010.89.3.428
428

proposing a process model of the height career success
relationship.
Next, we conduct a meta-analysis of the height workplace suc-
cess literature to test some of the general implications of the
process model. There has not been a comprehensive attempt to
assess the general trend of findings across the height career suc-
cess studies that have accumulated over the past 75 years. Thus,
research on height and workplace success has been conducted in
many different methodological contexts across many different
outcomes, and no attempt has been made to assess the robustness
of the effects across investigations. In addition to showing the
general strength and variability of relationships, a statistical ex-
amination of past research is valuable because trends in research
are difficult to interpret qualitatively. For example, after reviewing
both positive and null relationships in their review of the literature,
Roberts and Herman (1986) noted, The evidence to support or
contradict the existence of systematic prejudices against tall or
short individuals remains inconsistent (p. 134).
Finally, we conduct four new investigations of the relationship
between individuals height and their personal incomes. Although
income is the most common index of career success (e.g., Judge,
Cable, Boudreau, & Bretz, 1995; Whitely, Dougherty, & Dreher,
1991), almost no research has examined how height affects income
levels. If tall people are in greater demand and less supply than
average-sized people, then firms should be willing to pay more to
get them. However, only three published articles have empirically
examined this hypothesis (Deck, 1968; Frieze, Olson, & Good,
1990; Melamed, 1994); because participants in these existing
studies reported both their salaries and height at the same time, it
is possible that people exaggerated both their income and their
height (Roberts & Herman, 1986). Moreover, existing research on
the height income relationship has been confined to the hiring
context, and researchers have suggested that this relationship
should disappear once managers have the opportunity to observe
true performance (Hensley & Cooper, 1987). In this article, we
conduct four investigations of the height income linkage across
the course of individuals careers, using measures of height and
income that are either longitudinal or independently reported.
THEORETICAL MODEL OF PHYSICAL HEIGHT
AND CAREER SUCCESS
Figure 1 displays the hypothesized model that links height and
career success. Consistent with past research, we conceptualize
career success as the outcomes or achievements one has accumu-
lated as a result of one s work, measured by earnings (i.e., com-
pensation) and ascendancy into leadership positions (e.g., Gattiker
& Larwood, 1988; Judge et al., 1995; Whitely et al., 1991). In
general, the model suggests that height affects career success
through several mediating processes. First, height affects how
individuals regard themselves (self-esteem) and how individuals
are regarded by others (social esteem). Next, social esteem and
self-esteem affect individuals job performance as well as how
supervisors evaluate their job performance, which in turn affects
success in their careers. In the following discussion, we review the
conceptual and empirical evidence for each linkage in the model.
Then, we propose several general hypotheses that emerge from the
model that we test with a meta-analysis and four investigations of
the height income relationship. Because our purpose here is
theory-building, we should note that the empirical portion of our
study is not intended as a complete test of our proposed model.
Rather, we test various relationships that are either directly sug-
gested by the model or implied by the model.
Height3Social Esteem
By social esteem, we refer to how positively one is evaluated or
regarded by others in society, which has been operationalized in
past height research as perceived stature, perceived esteem,
and ascribed status (e.g., Hensley, 1993; Kurtz, 1969; Lechelt,
1975; Wilson, 1968). As noted in the introduction, sociobiologists
suggest that it was evolutionarily advantageous for creatures to
interpret height as power (Freedman, 1979). Perhaps for this
reason, both visual perception and social norms have developed
around the meaning of size and height.
In terms of visual perception, research reveals a basic human
perceptual bias whereby people expect a positive relationship
between an entity s size and its value or status (Dannenmaier &
Thumin, 1964; Higham & Carment, 1992; Lechelt, 1975). Thus,
studies have shown that people perceive more valuable things as
larger than less valuable things; for example, coins are perceived
as larger than cardboard disks of identical diameter (Bruner &
Goodman, 1947), and jars filled with candy are judged to be
heavier than jars of equal weight filled with sand (Dukes & Bevan,
1952). This perceptual bias also extends to judgments about peo-
ple s height and the extent to which they are esteemed by others.
A number of studies have shown that the prestige of a person s
occupation affects judgments about his or her height and that
presidential candidates who win are seen as being taller than their
opponents who lose (Dannenmaier & Thumin, 1964; Hensley &
Angoli, 1980; Lechelt, 1975; Wilson, 1968). For example, a study
of Canadian voters revealed that, after the 1988 Canadian federal
Figure 1. Theoretical model of the height career success relationship.
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EFFECT OF PHYSICAL HEIGHT