Oxford University study confirms ‘short-man syndrome’ is real
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Conventional wisdom says that Napoleon Bonaparte sought power, fame, and fortune as a result of insecurity resulting from his small stature. His feelings of inadequacy were so legendary that we now have the "Napoleon complex" meme to contend with. But, as it turns out, there might be something to that theory.
Researchers at Oxford University think so, anyway, after completing a recent study that found shorter people—or rather, tall people made short via a virtual reality simulation of the London Underground—tend to feel "overly mistrustful" in social situations.
Participants were hooked up to a virtual-reality version of the London Underground, once at their normal height, and a second time standing 10 inches shorter. Researchers found that in the "shorter" scenario, participants (who, in fact, were all women) tended to feel "inferior" to their peers, believing that they're being judged and evaluated negatively. In the "normal" simulation, those feelings vanished.
"This all happened in a virtual reality simulation, but we know that people behave in VR as they do in real life," researcher Danial Freeman told the Guardian. So, in that sense, it appears the "short-man syndrome" touted for years a derogatory stereotype might be true.
So what's a short guy to do? Well, Freeman has some advice, which mostly revolves around switching gears to "learn to feel taller" in the emotional sense. Otherwise, you can try and take over the world, and eventually die of stomach cancer after being exiled from your homeland.
The choice is yours, little man.