Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 52 (2014) 35–38

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Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics

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Short communication

Why does height matter in hiring?

Jens Agerström ∗,1
Department of Psychology, Linnaeus University, Sweden

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Previous research shows the existence of a height premium in the workplace with tall individuals receiv-
Received 24 February 2014 ing more benefits across several domains (e.g., earnings) relative to short people. The current study probes
Received in revised form 10 June 2014 deeper into the height premium by focusing on the specific favorable traits, attributes, and abilities tall
Accepted 12 June 2014
individuals are presumed to have, ultimately giving these individuals an advantage in hiring. In an experi-
Available online 24 June 2014
ment, we made a male job applicant taller or shorter by digitally manipulating photographs, and attached
these to job applications that were evaluated by professional recruiters. We find that in the context of
Keywords:
hiring a project leader, the height premium consists of increased perceptions of the candidate’s general
Physical height
Hiring
competence, specific job competency (including employability), and physical health, whereas warmth
Warmth and physical attractiveness seem to matter less. Interestingly, physical height predicted recruiters’ hiring
Competence intentions even when statistically controlling for competence, warmth, health, and attractiveness.
Health © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Attractiveness

1. Introduction so with respect to numerous other dimensions as well. Recently,

Accumulated research evidence suggests that there is a height
premium in the workplace with tall people being more likely to
receive various types of benefits compared with short people (see
Judge and Cable, 2004, for a meta-analysis). Specifically, tall peo-
ple are earning higher salaries, are more likely to hold high-status
jobs, and to ascend into leadership positions. Although height
has been related to actual job performance, research shows that
height exerts a stronger effect on subjective evaluations of perfor-
mance (Judge and Cable, 2004). Indeed, in a now classical study,
when recruiters were asked to make a hypothetical hiring decision
between two equally qualified job candidates, they chose the taller
candidate (Kurtz, 1969).
Why do tall people receive such benefits? Specifically, what
favorable traits, attributes, and abilities are tall people presumed to
have that put them ahead in their careers? Are there any key dimen-
sions on which tall people are perceived more favorably relative to
short people, or are tall people perceived more favorably across
the board?A simple model based on the halo error (Thorndike,
1920) would suggest that if employers view tall applicants favor-
ably with respect to some personality dimension, they tend to do
∗ Correspondence to: Department of Psychology, Linnaeus University, 391 82
Kalmar, Sweden. Tel.: +46 0480497172.
E-mail address: Jens.Agerstrom@lnu.se
1
I am grateful to Rickard Carlsson for providing valuable comments on earlier
drafts of this paper and to Karoline Erixon for collecting the data.
however, research on the Stereotype Content Model (e.g., Fiske,
Cuddy, and Glick, 2007) suggests that stereotypes are not neces-
sarily uniformly positive or negative but rather consist of a mixture
of warmth- and competence-related traits. Warmth speaks to the
social group’s functioning in social situations whereas competence
speaks to its functioning at tasks. For example, Asians and Jews
tend to be positively stereotyped on competence, but negatively
on warmth (Fiske, Cuddy, and Glick, 2007), resulting in both nega-
tive and positive consequences. This distinction is important when
it comes to height and hiring as, for example, short individuals
should have much to win from crafting their résumés in a way that
counteracts the stereotype. If short people are stereotyped as low
with respect to competence but not to warmth, there is no need
for them to try to create an extremely friendly impression in the
personal letter. Rather, they should make sure to emphasize their
competence-related abilities (e.g., productivity) instead.
From the animal kingdom to human beings, physical size has
served as a proxy for power, status, and respect (Judge and Cable,
2004). Because power, status, and respect help individuals achieve
their goals, i.e., the hallmark of competence (Fiske, Cuddy, and
Glick, 2007), tallness should be linked to perceptions of compe-
tence. Indeed, research shows that tall people are perceived to be
more intelligent, dominant, and “leader-like” (e.g., Blaker et al.,
2013; Jackson and Ervin, 1992).
The link between height and warmth is less clear, however.
One the one hand, powerful people are typically perceived as
psychologically distant (Trope and Liberman, 2003), less likely
to understand other people’s perspectives (Galinsky et al., 2006),

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36 J. Agerström / Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 52 (2014) 35–38
and less prone to express empathic concern (Woltin et al., 2011).
Because tall individual are more likely to be assigned traits that
signal power (e.g., dominance; Blaker et al., 2013), they may be
perceived as colder relative to their shorter counterparts. If this
is true, we would have a mixed stereotype where tall people are
perceived as competent (+) but cold (−). On the other hand, a
halo effect model predicts that tall people would be evaluated
more positively across the board, insofar as tallness is a desir-
able characteristic in society. Indeed, research shows that warmth
and competence ratings typically correlate positively, unless two
targets are explicitly or implicitly compared, in which case these
ratings tend to be negatively correlated (see Abele and Wojciszke,
in press, for an overview). As for the actual research evidence con-
cerning the specific link between height and warmth, it has been
inconsistent (see e.g., Jackson and Ervin, 1992), warranting further
scrutiny.Moving beyond warmth and competence, tall people are
generally considered to be more physically attractive (Martel and
Biller, 1987). Because attractive people are perceived as more com-
petent (Jackson, Hunter, and Hodge, 1995) and are more likely to
be hired than unattractive people (Marlowe et al., 1996), attrac-
tiveness may play a role in the height premium.
Finally, research suggests that tall individuals are perceived to
be more physically healthy than short individuals (Blaker et al.,
2013). Because poor physical health predicts absenteeism (Farrell
and Stamm, 1988) and lower productivity (Ford et al., 2011) short
people might face yet another disadvantage when seeking employ-
ment.
1.1. The current research
The overall aim of the current research is to probe further into
the height premium, examining how this premium applies to male
job applicants. The level of analysis concerns the favorable traits,
attributes, and abilities (henceforth dimensions) that comprise the
height premium in hiring. Based on previous research and theoriz-
ing, we have identified the following potential dimensions along
which tall and short job applicants are likely to be perceived and
evaluated differently: warmth, competence, specific job compe-
tency, leadership, physical health, and attractiveness.
The current research contributes to the extant literature in sev-
eral ways. It extends previous person perception research (e.g.,
Chu and Geary, 2005; Jackson and Ervin, 1992) on the relationship
between height and general character perception to the specific
domain of hiring. In doing so, it also tests for height bias in a
context where evaluators have more individuating information
(conveyed through CVs and personal letters) about the target indi-
viduals. Because people rely less on stereotypes when the amount
of individuating information increases (Fiske and Neuberg, 1990),
the current study constitutes a more conservative test of height
bias as compared to previous research where individuating infor-
mation has been scarce (cf. Blaker et al., 2013; Chu and Geary, 2005;
Jackson and Ervin, 1992).
Moreover, because most prior studies have used university
students as research participants, it is not clear whether profes-
sional recruiters also demonstrate height bias with respect to the
aforementioned dimensions. Although Judge and Cable’s (2004)
meta-analysis indeed suggests that employers exhibit height bias
(e.g., in salary allocations) too, the evidence is mainly based on reg-
ister data. Such correlational findings have limitations, of course,
as it is possible that the correlation between height and the stud-
ied outcome variable (e.g., earnings) is caused by an unobserved
third variable (e.g., actual social or negotiation skills) which the
register data do not permit statistical control for. To address these
limitations, we conducted a highly controlled experiment on pro-
fessional recruiters. Importantly, the current experiment examines
true height bias because the tall and short job candidates had iden-
tical personalities and credentials as conveyed in their personal
letters and CVs.
Regarding the dimensions to be examined in the current
research, perceived competence, specific job competency, and
leadership abilities, of course, have considerable overlap, and the
magnitude of this overlap will depend on the specific context. In
this study, we focus on a position as a project leader. Consequently,
leadership ability becomes an integral part of the job competencies.
However, we can still differentiate between competence and job
competency. The former deals with whether a candidate is gener-
ally competent, whereas the latter deals with if the candidate has
the specific competencies required for the job. To illustrate, Bill
Gates and Stephen Hawking could not simply switch jobs although
both are extremely competent in a general sense. Furthermore,
physical health and attractiveness are of course related to some
extent, but since it is easy to come up with instances when phys-
ically healthy people are not very attractive, these two variables
should be examined separately.
2. Method
2.1. Participants, materials and procedure
Sixty recruiters (M = 34 years; 63% females), employed at a
recruitment firm in a large Swedish city participated in the experi-
ment. They were asked by a colleague (who unbeknownst to them
was also the experimenter) if they could help her with the evalu-
ation of a job candidate for research purposes. The recruiters were
informed that a male applicant had applied for a project leader
position at a large company where he would be responsible for
a considerable budget and some staff. They were then given the
job application which consisted of a personal letter and a CV. The
personal letter also included a photograph of the applicant.
We manipulated the physical height of the applicant in the
photo by using imaging software. To facilitate perceptions of the
applicant’s height, he was standing in a doorpost. We constructed
one tall and one short version of the applicant. They were identical
in all respects except for the applicants’ height. The material was
pretested on 83 students, confirming that the tall applicant would
be perceived as significantly taller than the short applicant.
The recruiters were randomly assigned to either the tall or
short experimental condition by the experimenter (who was blind
to conditions). They evaluated the candidate on a 7-point scale
(1 = not at all, and 7 = to a very high extent) with respect to the fol-
lowing dimensions: competence (talent, skill, intelligence; ˛ = .89),
warmth (likeability, friendliness, honesty; ˛ = .86), health (physi-
cal fitness, health; ˛ = .78), attractiveness (physical attractiveness),
and job competency (task-related competence, role fitness, lead-
ership potential). As an assessment of the job candidate’s overall
job competency, they reported how willing (1 = definitely not, and
7 = definitely yes) they would be to hire the job candidate for the
specific position as a project leader, had they been handling the
recruitment alone (˛ = .86 for the job competency scale). As men-
tioned previously, we chose to measure these dimensions because
they have been theoretically and empirically linked to physical
stature in prior research.2
Finally, they were asked to estimate the height (in cm) of the
candidate (manipulation check). The reason why we measured
2
The results from a factor analysis supported the dimensionality of our measured
variables. However, because conducting a factor analysis on sample sizes of the cur-
rent magnitude might yield unreliable results, the results from this analysis should
be interpreted cautiously (see Tabachnick and Fidell, 2006).
 J. Agerström / Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 52 (2014) 35–38 37

Table 1
Bivariate Pearson correlations among the measured variables.

Outcome 1 2 3 4 5 6
** ** ** *
1. Warmth – .390 .349 .428 .328 .227
2. Competence – .565** .593** .290* .366**
3. Job competency – .339** .130 .283*
4. Health – .373** .495**
5. Attractiveness – .390**
6. Perceived height –
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.

Table 2
T-tests for the effect of manipulated height on the dependent variables.

Short condition Tall condition t df p Cohen’s d

M SD M SD

Warmth 4.64 .81 4.92 .96 1.21 58 .230 0.32

Competence 4.12 .92 4.58 .81 2.04 58 .046 0.53
Job competency 2.85 1.03 3.53 1.09 2.48 58 .016 0.65
Health 4.70 .96 5.32 .57 3.03 58 .004 0.80
Attractiveness 4.47 .73 4.80 1.03 1.45 58 .154 0.38

perceived height last was that we did not want to explicitly direct Table 3
Regression analysis with the recruiters’ hiring intentions as the criterion variable
the recruiters’ attention to the applicant’s height until after they
and manipulated height, warmth, perceived competence, physical health and attrac-
had made their evaluations. Thus, if the recruiters based their tiveness as predictors.
evaluations on the applicant’s height, they would have done so
Predictor B SE B ˇ p
spontaneously.
During the debriefing, none of the recruiters reported any sus- Applicant’s height (manipulated) .628 .332 .245 .064
picion about the purpose of the study. Warmth .184 .200 .127 .362
Competence (general) .545 .222 .374 .017
Attractiveness −.292 .190 −.203 .131
Health −.157 .252 −.102. .534
3. Results
Note: Applicant’s height is coded as 0 = short, 1 = tall.

First, it was confirmed that the manipulation of height worked

as intended. The tall candidate was perceived as taller (180.17 cm)
than the short candidate (171.50 cm), t(58) = 8.39, p < .001, d = 2.18.
Next, because our dependent variables were generally moder-
ately correlated (Table 1), they were submitted to a one-way
MANOVA with manipulated height as the independent variable.
There was a statistically significant effect of manipulated height
on the combined dependent variables, F(5, 54) = 2.44, p = .046,
2p = .18. Since the overall multivariate test was significant, we
could safely proceed by conducting follow-up t-tests (Table 2)
to specifically examine how the applicant’s height influenced the
recruiters’ ratings for each dependent variable (dimension). These
tests showed that the tall applicant was rated significantly higher
with respect to (general) competence, job competency, and phys-
ical health. He was also rated as slightly higher in warmth and
physical attractiveness, but these differences were non-significant.
These results suggest that the recruiters’ evaluations demonstrate
a height premium that consists of increased general competence,
specific job competency, and physical health. Further corroborating
the role of applicant height in the recruiters’ perceptions of compe-
tence, job competency, and physical health there were statistically
significant positive correlations between our manipulation check
(perceived height) and these outcome variables (see Table 1).
Finally, we ran a regression analysis to examine the unique con-
tribution of physical height, warmth (general) competence, health,
and attractiveness in predicting the recruiters’ reported willing-
ness to actually hire the job candidate for the specific leadership
position. Prior to performing this regression analysis, we exam-
ined whether there was a main effect of manipulated height on
these hiring intentions. Indeed, a t-test showed that the recruiters
reported a greater willingness to hire the tall candidate (M = 3.13,
SD = 1.36) compared with the short candidate (M = 2.40, SD = 1.13),
t(58) = 2.27, p = .027. Turning to the regression analysis, it was sta-
tistically significant F(5, 54) = 3.10, p = .016, with competence being
a significant predictor and manipulated height a marginally signifi-
cant predictor of the recruiters’ hiring intentions (Table 3). Warmth,
physical attractiveness, and health were not significant predic-
tors. Thus, it appears that the male applicant’s physical height still
has some effect on the recruiters’ reported intentions to hire him
even when the effects of perceived competence, warmth, physical
attractiveness, and health are statistically accounted for.3
4. Discussion
The purpose of the present research was to probe deeper into
the height premium in hiring by highlighting specific dimensions
along which tall job applicants are perceived and evaluated more
favorably compared with short applicants. A controlled experi-
ment was conducted on a sample of professional recruiters who
evaluated a tall or short job candidate with respect to perceived
warmth, general competence, specific job competency, physical
health, and attractiveness. The results show that the recruiters
rated the tall job applicant higher with respect to all measured
dimensions. However, whereas the effect of height on perceptions
of general competence, job competency, and physical health ranged
from medium to strong, and was statistically significant, its effect
on perceived warmth and physical attractiveness was weak and
3
Since our job applicant was male but the recruiters were both male and female,
we examined the possibility that the effect of height would be significantly mod-
erated by the recruiter’s gender. This was not the case with respect to any of our
dependent variables.
38 J. Agerström / Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 52 (2014) 35–38
non-significant.4 Still, these results are more consistent with a halo
effect than a mixed stereotype where tall candidates would, for
example, be rated higher than short candidates with respect to
competence but lower with respect to warmth. In other words,
there does not appear to be any downside of being tall.
An interesting finding was that the job applicant’s physical
height predicted (yet only marginally so) the recruiters’ hiring
intentions even when the recruiters’ judgments of general compe-
tence, warmth, physical attractiveness, and health were controlled
for. This suggests that there may be more to the specific height pre-
mium in employability than mere competence, warmth, physical
health, and attractiveness. Probing further for the specific nature
of the height premium is an important task for future research.
It is noteworthy that an 8-cm difference in the applicant’s height
is sufficient to have an (moderate) effect on professional recruiters’
evaluations. Compared with other experimental studies on height,
our manipulation was rather modest. For example, in Blaker et al.’s
(2013) leadership experiment, the height difference was 30 cm.
Future research should examine how large a difference that is
required for height to matter in hiring. It is also important to estab-
lish wherein the height distribution differences matter the most,
but also if tallness becomes a liability for extremely tall people.
The unique contributions of the present research are that all
dimensions were captured simultaneously and that height was
manipulated experimentally in an applied context, using profes-
sional recruiters as participants. Of course, our findings are limited
to this specific hiring context (project leader). This raises the ques-
tion of whether an applicant’s height matters more when job
applicants are evaluated for positions where some level of dom-
inance is deemed necessary, such as leadership positions. The
finding that the effect of height was weak and not statistically
significant with respect to warmth suggests that an applicant’s
height might be less important for stereotypically female positions
and occupations that increasingly require warmth-related personal
attributes (e.g., interpersonal sensitivity). Future research should
examine this possibility.
Another limitation of the present study is the relatively small
sample. However, there are 30 observations per cell, and the sample
is highly representative of the population (recruiters). Still, a larger
sample may have helped us interpret the weak effects on warmth
and physical attractiveness more precisely. It should also be noted
that the results are limited to male applicants. Yet, the previous
meta-analysis on height and workplace success (Judge and Cable,
2004) suggests that the height premium applies to women as well.
The present study adds to the growing body of research focus-
ing on the role of height in career success. Yet, unlike ethnic and
gender discrimination, for example, discrimination on the basis
of height is not illegal. In relation to this, one could argue that a
labor market that continues to rely on markers (e.g., height) that
are often irrelevant for the job in question, consolidates both gen-
der (women are shorter than men on average) and ethnic (ethnic
groups differ in height) disparities in employment. Further, because
height is related to nutrition and physical health during childhood
(Lundborg, Nystedt, and Rooth, 2014), people who come from poor
family environments face yet another obstacle in their careers. In
other words, the height premium is not fair in that everyone has an
equal chance to increase their career success by growing up to be
tall. Rather, it is a bias that further enhances other inequalities on
4
Although the experimental effect of height on perceived physical attractive-
ness was not significant, meaning that the tall candidate was not perceived as more
physically attractive than his short counterpart, there was a significant positive cor-
relation between perceived height (manipulation check) and physical attractiveness
more generally.
the labor market. However, height bias also presents researchers
with a unique opportunity. Rather than focusing on infected and
sensitive issues such as racial discrimination, an in-depth under-
standing of how height bias can be reduced in the recruitment
process may in the long run help to reduce other types of bias as
well.
In conclusion, recruiters find tall applicants to possess more
general competence-related abilities such intelligence, to be better
suited for a job that requires leadership ability, and to be physically
healthier, compared with their shorter counterparts. Although tall
applicants are not judged to be significantly higher in warmth or
physical attractiveness, nothing suggests that there is a penalty for
being a tall when applying for a leadership position. It is, indeed, a
height premium. To some, this may seem like a trivial finding. Why
should we care if tall people are given better opportunities than
short people? After all, hiring staff on the basis physical stature is
not illegal. As an answer to this, we would like to pose a counter-
question: If we cannot get rid of discrimination that stems from
something as trivial as height, how could we ever hope to combat
race or gender discrimination?
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