“looks up to” is a common expression for admiration and respect. “You’re his older brother. He looks up to you”.
I thought of this when I found myself looking up to my son, with admiration. Is this ever true for someone who isn’t a family member?
This must be a boy thing. I’m not sure, as a woman, I rank people’s worth by their height. Age I can understand.
Unless you stand on a platform, it will be difficult to avoid looking up to people that are taller than you. Although one solution is to gaze at your shoes during the conversation.
I am 6’ 4" and I don’t have the impression people usually look up to me.
I’m not quite 5’2". Almost everybody older than 12 is taller than I am.
It’s got nothing to do with whether I admire them.
I look up at tall people; not up “to”.
Not consciously, but there’s a reasonable amount of research showing that tall people earn more, and are disproportionately likely to be in leadership positions.
CEO height: the long and short of it
Possible explanations:
- We’re all basically monkeys, there is such a thing as commanding physical presence, height lends authority at a subconscious level
- Height is linked to good early nutrition and favourable material upbringing, which things are also associated with social success, mental stability, cognitive capability etc. so it’s a useful signal
- Tall people are just better, and seeing as how you’re halfway there you might as well bow.*
*I am a man standing 5’7" so this option is included for completeness/out of innate deference.
No. Maybe it’s because a number of truly great men in history were average or even short in height.
No, not at all. Above average height is just an accident of genetics. It might give you an advantage as a basketball player or stock clerk, but it otherwise carries with it no intrinsic admirable qualities.
@Stanislaus beat me to the cites about the practical advantages for tall-ish men. Good work!
Respect because they’re tall? No. Seems a strange idea.
Envy them slightly because I’m barely average male height and much less than average male bulk for my cohort? Yes.
OTOH, one of my immediate neighbors is about 6’7". He is truly the tallest dude I’ve ever spent any time around. I might have seen taller men in passing somewhere, but maybe not. Being him looks like a continuous annoying accommodation to a world built for a whole different size and shape of critter. Not as limiting as needing to use a wheelchair, but equally misshapen versus the built world. I would not want to have to live in his body; not at all.
Same here. I’ve known too many tall people to automatically give them respect for their height.
I doubt it, and in the opposite sense I don’t look down on people whom are shorter.
For the OP the only people I’d possibly look up too, as in inspire to be like, that aren’t family members would be fictional character such as; cinematic Aragorn, Batman,… Goku (?), Aang (?)… Idk made me think of what inspired me to be a better person thru my youth. Interesting question.
No, and I find the idea baffling. Does anyone? Would you admire your son less if he were shorter?
Why would that be a thing? Why would I show admiration to a stranger just because they’re tall? I literally don’t understand that idea at all. It is no different than “looking up to someone” because they have brown hair.
Is English not your first language and you are confusing people “looking up at” someone with “looking up to” someone?
So if the older brother was shorter, he wouldn’t look up to him? If your son was shorter than you, you wouldn’t look up to him with admiration?
The inimitable “Class Sketch” with John Cleese and the Two Ronnies.
(Actually, not all that inimitable.)
I don’t look up to taller people.
I stare at their larynx until they become uncomfortable.
And yet…
Tall claims? Sense and nonsense about the importance of height of US presidents - ScienceDirect
The importance of height to US presidential election success is in line with other research showing that height is related to leadership qualities. Taller people, particularly men, are more likely to emerge as leaders in a group and more often occupy a leadership or managerial position (Gawley et al., 2009, Stogdill, 1948). Height is also positively related to measures of professional and educational achievement (Cavelaars et al., 2000, Judge and Cable, 2004, Silventoinen et al., 2004, Stulp, Buunk, Verhulst and Pollet, 2012, Stulp, Pollet, Verhulst and Buunk, 2012, Stulp, Verhulst, Pollet and Buunk, 2012). More specifically, with respect to professional success, taller men have higher starting salaries (Loh, 1993), are more likely to be promoted (Melamed & Bozionelos, 1992) and have higher overall income (Judge & Cable, 2004).
A possible pathway through which taller men have an advantage in obtaining a leadership position, is that height is positively associated with interpersonal dominance: ‘an individual’s potential for asserting power and authority over more submissive members of his or her group’ (Maner & Baker, 2007). Taller men are physically stronger (Carrier, 2011, Sell et al., 2009), are less sensitive to cues of dominance of other men (Watkins et al., 2010) and respond with less jealousy towards socially and physically dominant rivals than shorter men do (Buunk, Park, Zurriaga, Klavina, & Massar, 2008). It is possible, therefore, that taller men are more likely to emerge as leaders and attain high social status within groups and more broadly within society due to their increased dominance status.
Nobody consciously thinks “This person is tall, therefore they must be admirable”. Of course not. But at a rate greater than chance, tall men in particular are to be found in leadership positions, commanding higher salaries, deferred to by others. (Further evidence of sub-conscious identification of height with leadership in that article, but I don’t want to quote huge screeds).
How does this happen? Consider two other claims, neither of which I think is particularly controversial
- Good looking people tend to have greater social success and are more likely to find others being agreeable towards them etc. even in ostensibly non-romantic areas of human interaction.
- No one is immune from unconscious bias.
The point of the first claim isn’t simply that height is, particularly in men, regarded as attractive, it’s to suggest that “our reaction to people in part depends on their physical appearance” isn’t that outlandish a claim. The second, of course, just indicates that a lot can be going on that we’re not consciously aware of.
Thank you for your responses.
That said, I’m surprised at “Seems a strange idea” and “I find the idea baffling” and “Is English not your first language?”.
From Google, the first three responses I get are:
LOOK UP TO SOMEONE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
Look Up To – Meaning and Examples - Hello English (hello-english.net)
– so I haven’t invented the phrase.
The confusion is about why looking up at someone would in any way mean anything about looking up to someone. It seems to us that the reason you are looking up to your son is out of pride in his actions, and has nothing to do with his height. And the reason a younger brother would look up to the older one would be due to age and experience, not height.
I think most people are saying that height never has anything to do with whether they look up to someone, even when it comes to family. The rest are mostly talking about how tall people seem to have some social advantages.
Yes, I was a bit surprised at (what read to me like) the rather bemused dismissal of the OP’s notion by several posters.
Certainly I think we can all agree that it’s not ethically justified to default to regarding fellow humans as admirable people just because they happen to be physically taller. But aren’t there some baked-in societal prejudices in favor of taller people that make it easier to do this involuntarily?