No doubt, thousands of literatures exist which describe the behaviour of short people. While some of those descriptions are objective, others are biased and largely driven by prejudice and sentiments. When the work is written by a short people, it is likely to say positive things and vice versa.
Surprisingly, the stereotypes have escaped the pages of books - we find them resurfacing in the proverbs we use in everyday conversation, regardless of the language we speak. People have always had their opinions on that issue.
At any rate, psychologists have, over the years, explained that human behaviour and personality are shaped by a number of factors - including body size, the state of being tall or short, of being fat or slim. People tend to react to situations, even form opinions about others, based on their perception of the object of interaction and their own self.
In this regard, short people are said to be very likely to be paranoid because of their height. According to a 2014 study published in the Journal of Psychiatry Research, some Oxford psychologists found that short people were more prone to being paranoid; mistrustful of others, feel persecuted and threatened.
Time Magazine reported that, in conducting the popular study, the Oxford researchers sent 60 women on two simulated rides in London subways that were populated by both men and women. The virtual vintage point of the women were lowered by 25 centimeters in one of the rides. Interestingly, the participants, though often unaware that they were just being shrunken slightly, reported increased feelings of paranoia while seeing through the eyes of a shorter avatar.
The researchers concluded that being short “led to more negative evaluations of the self compared with others and greater levels of paranoia.” This clearly explains that short people are more likely to be paranoid than tall people. To a large extent, short people tend to be paranoid and distrustful of others because they either feel intimated or see themselves as very likely to be taken advantaged of. So, they become paranoid as a defensive mechanism against any external aggression or hostility.
So, the next time you meet a short person who is paranoid, remember two things: that short people do so to naturally protect themselves from exploitation and that body size greatly shape our personality and perception of the world.