Research On Height Stereotype

Stereotypes have significant impact upon our daily life. The sub-research areas of the stereotypes are expanding from racial stereotype to gender stereotype, from facial stereotype to body build stereotype, from professional stereotype to age stereotype. The content of stereotypes have become more and more abundant in these years. In this research the author picked height stereotype as the topic, and try to explorer how a mount of Chinese people perceive the man with different height.IAT and traits rating scale were chosen as the methods of this research. In experiment 1 the researchers employed the IAT to probe the implicit height stereotype which is holding by these Chinese freshmen and sophomores. What the specific implicit height stereotype like on the three dimensions such as good impressions, reliability and success. In study 2, the researchers used a questionnaire to work out whether the explicit height stereotype is existing, and what dose it look like if it is exist.Findings indicate that the explicit height stereotype is existing and people always connect the positive traits with the one who is taller encompass four dimensions (such as adjustment, reliability, outer attractiveness and kindness) than the shorter ones accord to the traits rating scale method. Stronger implicit stereotype were obtained with the Implicit Association Test, which taller include the three aspects and suggested that shortness is more of a liability than tallness is an asset (such as good impressions, success and reliability). Men have stronger height stereotype than women only in the outer attractiveness dimension and so do taller people vs. shorter ones, besides the people with average height are not clear. Both of the two methods are suitable for the height stereotypes and the IAT more precise while the Traits rating scale more flexibility.