Re: [*FSFFU*] Average heights of women and men (was: GI Jane and

From: Carrie A Preston (presto10@PILOT.MSU.EDU)
Date: Tue Sep 09 1997 - 04:50:18 PDT


>
> I have another idea on why average women could be shorter than men. Even
> though I suspect that most of it exagerrated by perception. Since we are so
> used to women-midgets book illustrations and movie images, we could as
> well see it when it's not even there, because "it's supposed to be that
> way".

This is certainly true. In psychology experiments, subjects (American
college students) have been shown
pictures of a woman or a man standing next to a doorway or other reference
object and asked to guess the person's height. People estimate women to be
shorter than men who are actually the same height. This holds true even when
the people are *told* that a set of photographs is "matched" for height, i.e.
for each picture of a woman in the set there is a picture of a man of exactly
the same height. Women also tend to do this as much as men.

--Carrie

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Carrie A. Preston Carrie A. Preston
348 Mason Hall 3626 Cambrey Drive
Michigan State University Lansing, MI 48906
East Lansing, MI 48825 (517) 321-0317
(517) 355 2136
presto10@pilot.msu.edu
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There is water at the bottom of the ocean.
                                --David Byrne
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