--- title: Short People are Paranoid and Suspicious, Says Science description: No really. See for yourself. canonical: https://time.com/3075/short-people-are-paranoid-and-suspicious-says-science/ author: Denver Nicks article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-01-29T22:59:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:06:58.490Z og:title: Short People are Paranoid and Suspicious, Says Science og:description: No really. See for yourself. og:url: https://time.com/3075/short-people-are-paranoid-and-suspicious-says-science/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Short People are Paranoid and Suspicious, Says Science twitter:description: No really. See for yourself. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Short People are Paranoid and Suspicious, Says Science  by [Denver Nicks](https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/)  ## Denver Nicks Jan 29, 2014 10:59 PM UTC  by [Denver Nicks](https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/)  ## Denver Nicks Jan 29, 2014 10:59 PM UTC The Napoleon complex has been [explained](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165178113007774). Short people are mistrustful of others and prone to paranoia, according to [a study](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165178113007774) published Wednesday by the journal _Psychiatry Research_. Oxford researchers sent 60 women on two simulated rides in London subways populated by both men and women, lowering their virtual vantage point by 25 centimeters in one of the rides. Participants, though often unaware that they’d just been shrunken slightly, reported markedly increased feelings of paranoia while seeing through the eyes of a shorter avatar. “The results were very clear,” the study says. Making people shorter “led to more negative evaluations of the self compared with others and greater levels of paranoia.” Researchers say the study “provides strong demonstration of the importance of social status to the occurrence of paranoid fears.” Though only women were included in the Oxford study about how paranoid short people are, researchers predict the results in a study on males would be even more striking, since men tend to place greater social importance on height. You can see the shrunken virtual world study participants saw for yourself. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3075/short-people-are-paranoid-and-suspicious-says-science/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3075/short-people-are-paranoid-and-suspicious-says-science/"},"headline":"Short People are Paranoid and Suspicious, Says Science","datePublished":"2014-01-29T22:59:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:06:58.490Z","description":"No really. See for yourself.","url":"https://time.com/3075/short-people-are-paranoid-and-suspicious-says-science/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Psychology","Research"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Denver Nicks","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3075/short-people-are-paranoid-and-suspicious-says-science/","name":"Short People are Paranoid and Suspicious, Says Science"}}]}] ```