http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060825/ts_nm/economy_height_dc

Quote :

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - While researchers have long shown that tall people earn more than their shorter counterparts, it's not only social discrimination that accounts for this inequality -- tall people are just smarter than their height-challenged peers, a new study finds. "As early as age three -- before schooling has had a chance to play a role -- and throughout childhood, taller children perform significantly better on cognitive tests," wrote Anne Case and Christina Paxson of Princeton University in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The findings were based primarily on two British studies that followed children born in 1958 and 1970, respectively, through adulthood and a U.S. study on height and occupational choice. Other studies have pointed to low self-esteem, better health that accompanies greater height, and social discrimination as culprits for lower pay for shorter people. But researchers Case and Paxson believe the height advantage in the job world is more than just a question of image. "As adults, taller individuals are more likely to select into higher paying occupations that require more advanced verbal and numerical skills and greater intelligence, for which they earn handsome returns," they wrote. For both men and women in the United States and the United Kingdom, a height advantage of four inches equated with a 10 percent increase in wages on average. But the researchers said the differences in performance crop up long before the tall people enter the job force. Prenatal care and the time between birth and the age of 3 are critical periods for determining future cognitive ability and height. "The speed of growth is more rapid during this period than at any other during the life course, and nutritional needs are greatest at this point," the researchers wrote. The research confirms previous studies that show that early nutrition is an important predictor of intelligence and height. "Prenatal care and prenatal nutrition are just incredibly important, even more so than we already knew," Case said in an interview. Since the study's data only included populations in the United Kingdom and the United States, the findings could not be applied to other regions, Case said. And how tall are the researchers? They are both about 5 feet 8 inches tall, well above the average height of 5 feet 4 inches for American women. A copy of the paper can be found at http://papers.nber.org/papers/w12466.pdf. "

8/26/2006 1:29:33 AM

Quote :

"The research confirms previous studies that show that early nutrition is an important predictor of intelligence and height."

NO SHIT

8/26/2006 1:33:38 AM

IQ of 700

[Edited on August 26, 2006 at 1:36 AM. Reason : also, I'm taller than both of those researchers, so I should have been put in charge of the study! :]

8/26/2006 1:35:45 AM

good ole statistics goin to town for ya..

tryin to find any variables that will have a direct variation

8/26/2006 1:48:11 AM

^ ^ AndyMac ....lol...excellent

I was reading that in Shaq's voice.

8/26/2006 1:50:16 AM

When women make less money than men, is it really sexism or just heightism?

8/26/2006 1:54:23 AM

how do you explain Azns?

8/26/2006 2:27:43 AM

^ Dude, this is simple. You can't compare genes cross-culturally.

You have to look within the race.

Asians who are taller than the average ASIAN height, I bet, are smarter than the average ASIAN.

8/26/2006 2:45:28 AM

6'5" and I gots big brains.

8/26/2006 3:38:05 AM

^^ if your being sarcastic then forget this... BUT WHAT THE HELL?!?! y cant you compare AZN's to everyone else, were all human. and the how far do you keep subdividing down. i mean its like saying AMERICAN... american is not wasp anymore.... so the terms isnt exactly uniform anywhere in the world...

8/26/2006 7:55:35 AM

I hate when news media gets a hold of an abstract and tries to write a tagline which incorrectly states/interprets results. Cognitive Funcitons != Smarter necessarily.

Here's the link to the original study: https://www.wws.princeton.edu/~rpds/downloads/Case_Paxson_Height_July2006.pdf

You look through the article, they've done a pretty good job with their research. However, the abstract notes a correlation between height and childhood "cognitive functions", stating young childhood is the time of greatest cognitive growth. You look where they measure that (page 41), it comes from data from two studies, one in 1958 and one in 1970. I'm kinda hesitant to accept data that old, but that's just me. I can accept their conclusion that taller people have occupations which typically require more mental work, but not the childhood conclusion.

[Edited on August 26, 2006 at 8:30 AM. Reason : .]

8/26/2006 8:25:24 AM

Quote :

"I'm kinda hesitant to accept data that old, but that's just me"

idiot. science is science. should we all be forced to repeat newton's experiments every decade?

8/26/2006 8:47:16 AM

people, environments, social behaviors change and studies have to be redone, thats the nature of research

8/26/2006 9:41:07 AM

^^ Uhh...think about what you said and try again. This data is based upon a population sample. Populations grow and their composition changes over time. The 2006 population of the US is not the same as the 1958 or the 1970 populations.

[Edited on August 26, 2006 at 9:43 AM. Reason : ^^]

8/26/2006 9:41:55 AM

Quote :

"The 2006 population of the US is not the same as the 1958 or the 1970 populations."

I agree with you here. The IQ of the population is drifting upward, so in some ways you can say that comparisons of today's intelligence with that of 50 years ago isn't entirely accurate. However, the relationship between the smart people and the less-smart people isn't too likely to change enough to make the study obsolete. If one group was smarter then, it is probably still smarter now.

That being said, I still think

Quote :

"The research confirms previous studies that show that early nutrition is an important predictor of intelligence and height."

makes more of a difference than anything, even as obvious as it is. Those crack babies probably skew the results quite a bit.

8/26/2006 10:20:34 AM

I don't buy into this nonsense. Look at the Asians...they are all smart and the tallest among them is 5'0" tall (With the exception of that basket baller Yow Ming (sp?))

[Edited on August 26, 2006 at 10:22 AM. Reason : typo]

8/26/2006 10:22:14 AM

im guessing youre short, cuz ur reading comprehension isn't very good.

8/26/2006 10:31:50 AM

I don't think that you can just say, "Oh, it's going to be close to the same." The population is different and social factors affecting intelligence and height have changed significantly in the past 40-50 years. At the very least, current research is necessary to identify and quantify changes that have occured and determine their effects (or lack thereof).

I believe that improvements in quality and access to nutrition, health care, and education over the past 50 years would reduce differences between various groups.

8/26/2006 11:05:02 AM

I'm 5'4 and I'm the tallest girl in my family...

8/26/2006 11:37:09 AM

jon stewart is short. isaac newton was short. napoleon was short.

short ftw.

8/26/2006 4:39:52 PM

That's horseshit.

8/26/2006 4:51:13 PM

^^^ proof or rebuttal?

8/26/2006 5:03:18 PM

btw its been empirically proven time and time again that a size of a person's head/brain does not define or correlate with that person's intelligence.

[Edited on August 26, 2006 at 5:28 PM. Reason : clarification]

8/26/2006 5:27:39 PM

*lol*

I pick on my husband all the time about how he's not as intelligent as I am because his brain is starved for oxygen because of the lower concentration of O2 at greater heights.

He's 6'5 and I'm 5'2.

He'll get a kick out of this when I show it to him.

8/26/2006 5:55:31 PM

im 6'2'' and semi retarded

i find this report to be false

8/26/2006 6:03:07 PM

^^good lord that's an unbalanced relationship

8/26/2006 6:38:04 PM

Not sure if anyone else said this but... I thought this thread was titled "TELLER people are smarter!"

Note: I'm 5' 2''... apparently I'm excused for thinking something like that

8/26/2006 6:42:56 PM

asians aren't born smart.. they usually just work harder than most people.

8/26/2006 7:11:13 PM

I thought this said "Trailer people are smarter!"

8/26/2006 7:27:45 PM

I don't know about being smart but guys over 6'4 are deff. much more attractive. Being a short statured female all that un-necessary height can make a girl feel very safe and sound in a tall mans embrace.

8/26/2006 7:37:02 PM

i'm 6'5

8/26/2006 8:16:25 PM

So how does Shaq work into all of this?

8/26/2006 8:23:43 PM

Kazaam was the Citizen Kane of our age.

8/26/2006 8:47:52 PM

If that's so, then Steel was the new Casablanca

8/26/2006 8:50:31 PM

^^^ Shaq is black.

8/26/2006 9:21:42 PM

Are you claiming that the top of the intellectual food chain for blacks is Shaq?

You're a racist.

8/27/2006 12:36:52 AM

Quote :

"I don't know about being smart but guys over 6'4 are deff. much more attractive. Being a short statured female all that un-necessary height can make a girl feel very safe and sound in a tall mans embrace."

not to bust out the haterade or anything, but you are the perfect example of a stupid, shallow female. but yeah i am kind of being a hater here and you were just being honest.

8/27/2006 3:01:02 AM

thats just cuz ur short jimmy, but yeah a Kris'esque 6'4 person wouldnt make me feel very safe.

8/27/2006 9:05:26 AM

^Isn't your ass like 5'5"?

8/27/2006 9:25:05 AM

ender ftw

8/27/2006 11:00:33 AM

i'm tall

8/27/2006 11:22:34 AM

Quote :

""Trailer people are smarter!""

8/27/2006 10:31:04 PM

I in-no way said that I only dated or went for were tall men, but I was just stating I find them attractive just like any normal guy would most likely prefer a larger breasted woman to a smaller chest. Am i wrong? If so I apologize for sterotyping "most men"

8/27/2006 11:15:33 PM

I think a guy would come across as stupid and shallow if he posted how he prefers girls with big tits in a thread that was discussing intelligence as a function of boob size.

8/28/2006 1:22:29 AM

this explains why im a fucking idiot and make the worst decisions ever

8/28/2006 3:00:07 AM