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. 2018 Mar 13;115(11):2711-2715.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1714454115. Epub 2018 Feb 26.

For Black men, being tall increases threat stereotyping and police stops

Neil Hester  1 , Kurt Gray  2
Affiliations

For Black men, being tall increases threat stereotyping and police stops

Neil Hester et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Height seems beneficial for men in terms of salaries and success; however, past research on height examines only White men. For Black men, height may be more costly than beneficial, primarily signaling threat rather than competence. Three studies reveal the downsides of height in Black men. Study 1 analyzes over 1 million New York Police Department stop-and-frisk encounters and finds that tall Black men are especially likely to receive unjustified attention from police. Then, studies 2 and 3 experimentally demonstrate a causal link between perceptions of height and perceptions of threat for Black men, particularly for perceivers who endorse stereotypes that Black people are more threatening than White people. Together, these data reveal that height is sometimes a liability for Black men, particularly in contexts in which threat is salient.

Keywords: height; intersectionality; person perception; racial stereotyping; threat.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Study 2 ratings of threat by race, height, and BaBT. Positive values indicate beliefs that Black people are more threatening than White people; negative values indicate beliefs that White people are more threatening than Black people.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Study 3 ratings of threat by race, height, and BaBT. Positive values indicate beliefs that Black people are more threatening than White people; negative values indicate beliefs that White people are more threatening than Black people.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Two of the 16 male students whose photographs were used in study 2. The men in the photographs on the left (looking down) were perceived as taller than the same men in the photographs on the right (looking up).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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