Back in 2000, I was watching a courtroom scene in Tallahassee
on the news during a short recess. This was all about the disputed vote count.
I couldn’t help noticing while everyone was milling about that the suits had significantly larger heads than the uniformed court employees.
There’s quite a number of men I know who wear ball caps where the back retaining strap is quite extended beyond the fastener resulting in a somewhat misshapen cap. Rarely if ever are these people in positions of leadership from foremen up to ceo.
Furthermore, you never see the smaller head size in the movies, and rarely do you see a beutiful woman on their arm.
Its been pretty well accepted that taller men will go farther than shorter men on the path to success because of society’s prejudice. Does the same hold true for head size or are my observations skewed.
Uh, so you’re saying that there’s a prejudice against people with big heads, and also a prejudice against people with small heads? Not only are your observations “skewed,” they’re also contradictory.
I’ve got a large head. I’ve never found a baseball cap that will fit me. I just don’t wear them. How can you tell how big someones head is on TV? They could just have large bodies. Didn’t JFK have a really big head?
Perhaps there may be some confusion regarding my description of a ball cap on a small head. I’m just saying that society is prejudiced against smaller heads.
If I remember Gould’s Panda’s Thumb correctly, humans have evolved a preference for disproportionately large heads. Gould points to Mickey Mouse as evidence of this.
Back in the early days of Mickey Mouse, he looked very different than he does now. His head and his feet were both noticeably smaller. He also behaved differently. Early Mickey Mouse–the one who first hit the movie houses–was a rascally thing, always getting into all kinds of trouble. Over time, due to pressure from the American audience, Mickey Mouse was “converted” to a straight-guy. Along with this behavior modification, his head and feet grew, and his legs turned pudgier.
In effect, he became more juvenile in appearance. Hence, why Mickey Mouse of today is cuter than the Mickey Mouse of back in the day.
In contrast, the antagonists in the Mickey Mouse cartoons retained their adult features, i.e., their smaller heads. Their smaller heads make the antagonists easier to hate. Mickey’s bigger head makes him more loveable.
Maybe what you’re seeing is this kind of head preference in action. I have noticed the super models seem to have big heads. I mean, Tyra Banks makes Alien look like a peanut head. But according to someone, she’s hot. So I guess I’m just hatin’.
Could it simply be the preference we have hardwired into us for infantile features? Babies have extremely large heads in proportion to their bodies, and we find their features - large eyes, small nose, etcetera - extremely appealing. Just sayin’
My parents told me that when I was born, my head was the size of a typical four year old’s.
“You mean a four month old’s,” I said.
“No,” said my mother, who majored in child development, and my father, who was a physician. “Your head was the size of a four year old’s. With a full head of hair.” :eek:
I have a larger-than-average sized head, so I can of course confirm that it’s objectively true that head size and intelligence/charisma are proportional, but apart from this obvious fact, isn’t it possible that baseball caps are not all the same size when adjusted the same way? - i.e. that the caps you saw that appeared to be adjusted for larger heads were in fact just smaller caps to begin with, requiring them to be opened out more?
Google “XXL hats” and you find some sites for hats for big heads. My boyfriend has a HUGE head and his parents and I have bought and returned no fewer than 5 hats for him since January.
As to the OP:
“Pin head” is a perjorative term, being slang for microcephaly (literally “small head”). Cartoons always depict nerds with abnormally large heads. So yes, in this case as well, size does matter. You don’t want to be stuck with a melon head or little tiny one; you don’t get many dates that way (my boyfriend notwithstanding) cause no one wants to date an idiot or a smart ass.
Surely the large heads you speak of could be partly explained by the bouffant hairstyles that seem to be favoured by successful American suit-wearing men.
I’ll be happy to confirm that as well. Size 7 3/4 US, 62 metric here.
All the cheap plastic baseball hats seem to be made by the same manufacturer, or at least the same molds, and none fit me. The last knob on one tab doesn’t quite reach the last hole on the other.
Athletes who make excessive use of steroids and human growth hormone can often be told by the size and contours of their skulls. But it does not follow that drug use improves one’s intelligence.
Hmmmm - the only “factual” comment I can make is from a vague memory of a book read many years ago, that debunked some studies trying to prove that caucasians are more intelligent because they have larger heads. The upshot of that discussion was that the only thing larger heads correlated to was taller - i.e. taller people have larger heads than shorter people. Which sort of almost supports your conjecture above.
Anyway - I’ve got a very large head for a woman - can’t buy hats, in fact, unless they’re made for men. I’m also tall (nearly 6 feet).
One definite negative correlation to head size is that kids with autism tend to have larger-than-average heads. Certainly this is true with my son Dweezil, and with my severely-autistic nephew. I tend to think that my family tendency to large-ish heads correlates to the family tendency toward varying degrees of autism.
If your hat size isn’t larger than 8, you can get a fitted baseball cap just like the players wear from MLB.com and some other places. For other styles, for men and women, HatsInTheBelfry.com has a wide range of sizes.
