Taller people more politically conservative.

• Position: Your Life - Brief article

If you want to predict which political party someone will support, take note of the person's height. The taller an individual is, the more likely he or she is to support conservative political positions, support a conservative party, and actually vote for conservative politicians, according to a study in the British Journal of Political Science.

"If you take two people with nearly identical characteristics--except one is taller than the other--on average the taller person will be more politically conservative," says study coauthor Sara Watson, an American political scientist who conducted her research with Raj Arunachalam, senior economist at Bates White, LLC, Washington, D.C.

The researchers found that a one-inch increase in height increased support for conservatives by 0.6% and the likelihood of voting for the party by 0.5%.

The results are not as strange as they might appear, Watson indicates. Many studies have found that taller people generally earn more income than do shorter people and researchers have thought...