Tall People Are Happy
Alex Tabarrok links to some new research further establishing the conclusion that being tall makes people happy:
According to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index daily poll of the US population, taller people live better lives, at least on average. They evaluate their lives more favorably, and they are more likely to report a range of positive emotions such as enjoyment and happiness. They are also less likely to report a range of negative experiences, like sadness, and physical pain, though they are more likely to experience stress and anger, and if they are women, to worry. These findings cannot be attributed to different demographic or ethnic characteristics of taller people, but are almost entirely explained by the positive association between height and both income and education, both of which are positively linked to better lives.
Burkhard Bilger’s excellent 2004 New Yorker article persuasively argued that the growing stature gap between Americans and northern Europeans is largely explained by the United States’ high level of inequality and child poverty. Consider it another reason to belief that using a surtax on high earners to finance generous health care for the poor and lower-middle class would be welfare enhancing.
44 Responses to “Tall People Are Happy”
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July 24th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Couldn’t work in the “tax height” broh-ha-ha, I take it?
July 24th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
“Short people suck” is a timeless truism, right? Thought so, now you damned little squirt, fetch me a soda!
July 24th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
It’s not that tall people feel less physical pain, it’s that their nerve impulses have soooooo much further to travel…
July 24th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Tall, slender, attractive, healthy, rich people are generally happy.
Short, fat, ugly, sick, poor people not so much.
The sky is frequently blue.
Tune in at 11pm for more.
July 24th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
That’s it. I’m going to laugh until I’m tall.
July 24th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Maybe immigration in the US has something to do with it? I tend not to generalize but I can’t help noticing that at 6′2″ I tower over most Hispanics and Asians.
July 24th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
“I tend not to generalize” = funny.
July 24th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
And those damned Dutch can be as smug as they want. At least MY head is still above sea level, and with my carbon footprint, I’ve got their days numbered.
July 24th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Consider it another reason to belief that using a surtax on high earners to finance generous health care for the poor and lower-middle class would be welfare enhancing.
But above all, get Geithner to get the Chinese to consider that the US is serious about fiscal consolidation. The US has to raise taxes and cut costs considerably in order to be convincing to its creditors. Taxing the rich to start a less onerous health care system is a first easy step.
Think of it this way: people of any height are happier when not living in a country that has declared a moratorium.
July 24th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
To what degree is it a positional good, & how much difference does that make to your argument?
July 24th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
I will now rectify the terrible shortage of Randy Newman in this blog entry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NvgLkuEtkA
July 24th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Short people live longer, not just a little either. They live longer despite a higher frequency of being malnourished, and also a higher frequency of being obese.
Keeping other variables roughly equal, life expectancy declines on about a 1% of lifespan for each 1% of extra height. Interestingly, one variable that does not have to be held constant is sex. Men have shorter lives because they’re taller, not because they have balls.
Oddly, height at age 12 corresponds positively with longevity. My recommendation is, don’t grow much after you’re 12.
July 24th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
I’m 6′4″. We’re all high on life up here.
Sucks to be you.
July 24th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Oddly, height at age 12 corresponds positively with longevity. My recommendation is, don’t grow much after you’re 12.
On the other hand, one theory of why pygmies are short is that they mature fast (and then stop growing) to cope with early mortality.
July 24th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
World’s happiest man?
July 24th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
This is clearly true. I’ve lost about 2″ in the last 40 years, and I’m definitely not as happy as I used to be.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Correlation is not causation. Education (in this country) is caused by parental wealth; income is caused by education and connections. On the other hand, childhood nutrition is also caused by parental wealth, and height is caused by childhood nutrition (after correcting for ethnicity).
IOW, rich parents’ kids are both taller and richer, but they’re not rich *because* they’re tall.
(The IQ correlation mentioned in comments at MR, similarly, comes partly out of education, partly out of childhood nutrition.)
Immigration does have a lot to do with it too: many immigrants come from third world countries where they had very poor childhood nutrition and, consequently, are short, even compared to people of the same ethnicity raised in the U.S. (U.S.-born children of immigrants are frequently taller than their parents.) They’re also poor because, in general, they were educated in third world countries. Because they’re poorly educated and not native English speakers, they tend to have lousy jobs, and as a result of all those factors, are not especially happy (although possibly happier than they would have been had they *stayed* in third world countries). Basically all of the factors that affect people born poor in the U.S., but even more so.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I think K @10 brings up a good point. Being taller makes you more esteemed and more likely to be a better athlete when you’re young, which, for men in America certainly, makes you more confident and outgoing and one of the “cool kids”. But note that it’s being taller rather than being tall in any absolute sense.
That said, I think MY may still be right that measures such as generous health care that could increase the height of the less-well-off would be welfare enhancing, because they would result in distributing the height advantage away from the already-advantaged well-off and toward the disadvantaged less-well-off, thereby decreasing the number of people with multiple disadvantages, and also decreasing the number of people with multiple advantages. A tall white rich kid who went to Harvard is likely to do just fine if instead he were an average-heighted rich kid who went to Harvard, but a short Hispanic poor kid might, if he weren’t short, perform a little better in school and get into the top 1/8 of California students and be able to go to a UC, or maybe get an athletic scholarship to a private college that he wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I think K @10 brings up a good point. Being taller makes you more esteemed and more likely to be a better athlete when you’re young, which, for men in America certainly, makes you more confident and outgoing and one of the “cool kids”. But note that it’s being taller rather than being tall in any absolute sense.
That said, I think MY may still be right that measures such as generous health care that could increase the height of the less-well-off would be welfare enhancing, because they would result in distributing the height advantage away from the already-advantaged well-off and toward the disadvantaged less-well-off, thereby decreasing the number of people with multiple disadvantages, and also decreasing the number of people with multiple advantages. A tall white rich kid who went to Harvard is likely to do just fine if instead he were an average-heighted rich kid who went to Harvard, but a short Hispanic poor kid might, if he weren’t short, perform a little better in school and get into the top 1/8 of California students and be able to go to a UC, or maybe get an athletic scholarship to a private college that he wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Bullcrap. Maybe taller men have bigger penises and that is what makes them so happy. Maybe that is why they also die early.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Do people really go about thinking about their height this much?
I mean, this is really fucking pathetic. I knew human beings were idiotic, shallow scum; but come on.
Then again, I’ve alway been really turned on by short girls, so whatever.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
When I was a little kid, I wanted to be an otter. Nobody I know wanted to be a giraffe.
I bet “a bit above average” would rate happier etc than “a whole lot above average”.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Rum, there is remarkably little variance when it comes to human penis size. You have a few freaks who are huge or other who have micro-penis, but the overwhelming number of men have between a 5.5 and 6.5 inch penis. Height has very little impact, if any. You would think otherwise, but hey, Elucid
Due to the female anatomy, any real excitement from a longer penis is mostly psychological (Note: This is not meant to diminish females who do experience increased excitement. Your fetish is your business and your right). Obviously, girth may have a very noticeable effect on a females ability to climax. It generally provides more clitoral stimulation, and is more likely to fully stretch and stimulate the vaginal walls.
In short: Your hypothesis is very unlikely. It was, however, a good guess given the degree to which we males do aggrandize our penis. It is simply awesome, and if you have one you know what I mean.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
raisin-
Actually, the best correlation is with shoe size.
That’s why women look at men’s shoes when first they meet(well, also to judge their income).
That also explains the recent phenomenon in which short men have been observed wearing very expensive shoes that appear to be at least 4 sizes too big.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
It was, however, a good guess given the degree to which we males do aggrandize our penis.
A sentence from the penthouse of Regrettable English.
It is simply awesome, and if you have one you know what I mean.
Yossarian knew what he meant.
-That’s not what I mean!
July 24th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Aggrandize: To increase the scope of; extend. To make greater in power, influence, stature or reputation.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Do the results of these studies continue to track for people who start getting abnormally tall? I’ll admit that despite being visibly taller than average, I sometimes wish I were a few inches taller (and I thought I would be; I stopped growing soon around my 16th birthday, which was surprising). But I wouldn’t want to be 6′8″; unless you’re a professional athlete in a lucrative sport, being 6′8″ seems like a huge pain in the ass, and non-athlete adults who are freakishly tall often have stories about being freakishly tall kids, and they’re usually not stories full of proud self-confidence.
(I do sometimes joke that I wish I were 7′ tall, and everything else about me was the same, because at 18 I had the leaping ability, explosiveness, and footspeed of an average NBA center, but I had them in the body of a point guard.)
July 24th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Isn’t this showing something of the poverty of mind of social scientists?
If you were to ask me, I’d say the reason taller people are happier is because they are perceived to be better looking, with all the spill-over effects that entails. It starts with them, as teenagers, being able to screw whom they want, rather than being sexually frustrated; and continues into adult life with the ability to have, if not their pick of marriage partners, at least a rather wider pool.
Obviously there are more practical difficulties in measuring “hotness” and “extent of choice of sexual partners” than in measuring income and years of education, not least the PC whining that will attend attempts to do so. But, honestly, WTF is the value in YET ANOTHER STUDY of human interaction that posits that the measure of a man lies in his bank account and nothing else — not his marriage, not the remembrance of his youth, not his sexual conquests.
I mean, jesus, I am a scientist and I sympathize with attempts to put more science into social science, but this is just retarded beyond belief. Social science without the social is neither science nor art; it is just garbage.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Re: Do people really go about thinking about their height this much?
All the time, Soullite. All the time.
Re: It starts with them, as teenagers, being able to screw whom they want, rather than being sexually frustrated; and continues into adult life with the ability to have, if not their pick of marriage partners, at least a rather wider pool.
I suspect Mr. Maynard Handley is on to something right here.
July 24th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Consider it another reason to belief that using a surtax on high earners to finance generous health care for the poor and lower-middle class would be welfare enhancing.
I expect the happiness-premium experienced by the tall is a zero-sum game. The tall are happier not because of their comparative height, not their intrinsic height. If everyone was two-inches taller, we’d be no happier collectively.
And everyone flying coach would be worse off.
July 24th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Tall People Are Happy
=======================================
Yes we are! old saying – “Every inch over 6 ft is worth a million bucks”. Still looking for the rest of my $2 million
July 24th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Re: Do people really go about thinking about their height this much?
Having a super-attractive girl tell you, in passing, in a completely friendly manner, that you’re almost the ideal height for her, just an inch or two on the short side, is the kind of weird moment that stays with you long after high school. I’m 6′1″ ferchrissakes! 6′2″+ in shoes! I’m not really tall, but no-one’s ever told me I wasn’t tall enough for something (other than success at high level basketball) in … ever in my life. Except, on two separate occasions, attractive girls. (Who were very nice girls, whom I wasn’t flirting with or particularly interested in romantically, but also not women whose advances I would’ve spurned either.) I took it relatively in stride at 25, but it freaked me out at 17. (Not like they were Amazons who needed to worry about appearing taller than me if they wore heels, either.)
July 24th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
But I wouldn’t want to be 6′8″; unless you’re a professional athlete in a lucrative sport, being 6′8″ seems like a huge pain in the ass, and non-athlete adults who are freakishly tall often have stories about being freakishly tall kids, and they’re usually not stories full of proud self-confidence.
At 6′5”, I can attest to that. I’d wager the point of diminishing marginal returns for men kicks in at around 6′2”, and quickly turns negative above 6′4”.
July 24th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
At 5′3″ tall I must be very depressed. Damn you all.
July 24th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
I’m 6′1″ in shoes but I don’t know if that’s short, medium or tall. Help me, please. My happiness depends on it…
July 24th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
There have been studies done, I can’t find any links so maybe I am just making it all up, that tall people earn more because they are smarter.
I am not even 72 inches tall so I am barely taller than average. Unfortunately, I my IQ is only slightly higher.
Not sure what any of this proves.
July 24th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
My happiness quotient is 6′5″. But I’m sitting at this damned, depressing desk all the time.
July 24th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
It would make me happy.
July 24th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
People are more revered when they are tall, unless they are freakish. Then they can play basketball or be in the WNBA.
July 25th, 2009 at 12:02 am
But it’s worth it all “because I’m 6′5″ and I eat punks like you for breakfast!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi1kMSHmD8g&feature=related
…sorry…
July 25th, 2009 at 12:28 am
I wonder if the Netherlands will start producing world class basketball players. Or have they already? I know nothing about Dutch basketball, but they are a nation known for producing tremendous athletes. In world football they’re known as the Brazil of Europe for the amount of pure talent they consistently put on the pitch.
That’s the other thing. There is a strange dichotomy at work in a soccer obsessed nation also being obsessed with growing ever taller. The two generally don’t mix. I can only think of one all-time great tall footballer, Socrates, a mid-fielder with Brazil in the 1980s, and he was not exactly a giant at 6′ 4″.
Note: Socrates was one fascinating dude.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B3crates
July 26th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Well, I am certain all you tall guys really enjoy plane travel these days. Scrunch much?
July 26th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
There’s the old cliche about tall and short actors – a tall actor can be a calm, strong, silent type, but short actors have to be volatile and aggressive to be perceived as strong. Compare Gary Cooper with Humphrey Bogart.
I’m on the short side for a US man, and I don’t think I worry too much about it. But some years ago I was on an extended stay in a central American country, where I was tall. It made a real difference in ordinary interactions. I was never lost in a crowd. I could always see the stage or the screen. And late one night I was walking home alone, and there was a belligerent drunk shouting and gesturing in the street. In the US I would have been afraid. But I was a head taller and 25 pounds heavier than this guy, and he was pathetic, not frightening.
In general, I think being bigger than the people around you may make you less susceptible to physical intimidation, which in turn makes you feel better about yourself.
July 27th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
I am barely 5′1″ and honestly I LOOOVE my life. I think it depends on more than height. If you are tall and skinny of course you will be happier than someone short and stout, but what if the short person is skinny and very attractive and the tall person only so-so? Won’t they be happier? I am short,for the most part like my looks, make good money, drive my dream car, live in a coveted neighborhood on the beach and get hit on non-stop. I’m happily married to the most wonderful man who is 6′0″ who was unhappy and alone until he met me (I swear to God). He wasn’t happy before and he is very tall. Besides short girls are cuter than tall girls, guys don’t want to date girls they can mistake for transvestites lol. All the altitude makes the tall people delusional and they only think they are happy ROTFL.