It is said they are prone to bouts of aggression, showing off and more frequently succumb to the Green Eyed Monster. Vertically challenged men and their advocates may argue that the notion of ‘short man syndrome’ is an unfair stereotype, but scientists have now proven a number of reasons shorter men have to look up (both figuratively and literally) to their taller, happier, more relaxed counterparts.

The findings help explain why diminutive males from Napoleon Bonaparte to Tom Cruise have known to be accused of overcompensating for a lack of physical stature. It’s no wonder procedures such as cosmetic limb lengthening are growing in popularity. As pioneering limb lengthening surgeon Dr Guichet explains, “Patients [who] have no pathological need for surgery, no disability or physical ailment… are really asking the surgeon for a solution to their psychological issue or insecurity.” The mental and emotional effects of short stature can be profound.

Here are 10 scientific studies that have proven ‘short man syndrome’ is an actual thing:

1. Taller men are happier

According to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, taller people are more content and are less likely to report a range of negative emotions, like sadness and physical pain, than their shorter counterparts.

When researchers controlled for such factors as ethnicity and marital status, it did not seem to affect the relationship between height and happiness. It follows that averaged-sized and taller people are sunnier than their vertically challenged compatriots.

2. Taller men are more attractive

Numerous studies have discovered taller men are considered to be more attractive, and taller men have also been shown to get more replies to lonely heart ads. It’s easy to accredit this to conditioning by the modern media, which promotes the ideal ‘tall, dark and handsome’ male, but a researcher at the University of Wroclaw in Poland discovered the same ideal exists within the Hadza, a remote group of indigenous nomads from Tanzania.

Dr. Piotr Sorokowski showed Hadza men and women a series of photographs of male/female couples and asked which height difference they would prefer in their own relationship. Both men and women overwhelmingly preferred the pair in which the male/female difference in stature was greatest.

3. Taller men earn more money

Men over six feet tall are statistically more likely to be chosen for more competitive jobs and earn a higher wage than their shorter counterparts on average. When author Malcolm Gladwell polled the management of half the top US companies, he found that 58% of chief executives were at least six feet tall, compared to just 14% of the population.

In South Korea, height favouritism is considered extreme, with companies routinely asking for height and weight on job applications. According to studies conducted at Huazhong University in China, Korean employees can earn up to 2% more for every centimetre of height.

4. Taller men are more likely to climb the socioeconomic scale

When choosing a spouse, women have been found to trade in education for height. That means taller men are more likely to marry well and climb the socioeconomic scale than shorter men who are more educated. As far back as 1915, it was observed that bishops were taller than preachers. Another study of 7,735 middle-class British men born between 1919 and 1939 found a 3cm height gap between manual and non-manual workers.

A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that taller men marry at higher rates and are more likely to date well-educated women. Short men, on the other hand, marry less often and to less-educated women.

5. Taller men are considered better leaders

This phenomenon has been recorded in US politics, where researchers have discovered a genuine correlation between a presidential candidate’s height and how many votes they receive.

Two studies interviewed college students about leadership abilities and asked them to draw an ideal leader next to an average citizen. 64% of the students drew the leader as taller than the citizen.

Sized-based hierarchies are also found in bonobo and chimpanzee colonies, two of our closest living relatives. Scientists believe this relationship between greater size and higher social rank is a primal instinct, which might explain why taller people are viewed as more capable leaders.

6. Taller men are more intelligent

Research from Princeton University found that taller children perform significantly better in cognitive tests as early as age 3. The correlation between height in childhood and height in adulthood has been calculated around 0.7, meaning taller, smarter children are likely to become taller, smarter adults.

A subsequent team at the University of Colorado found that the link between height and intelligence was due to selective breeding. They showed that clever people are more likely to choose taller people as partners and vice versa. Height and intelligence are both seen as attractive, which means the two tend to reinforce each other when partners choose each other.

7. Shorter men are more paranoid

Oxford University academics used virtual reality technology to reduce the height of volunteers travelling on a computer-simulated tube train by 10 inches. They found the simulation of being shorter made participants experience greater paranoia, such as feeling incompetent, dislikeable or inferior.

Height-reduced participants also reported being more mistrustful and more likely to think someone else in the virtual train carriage was deliberately staring, thinking badly about them or trying to cause distress.

8. Shorter men are more aggressive

A study conducted by scientists at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia found that shorter men, who therefore considered themselves more lacking in traditional masculine norms than the average man, were nearly three times more likely to have committed violent assaults with a weapon or assaults resulting in injury.

Meanwhile, research from Ohio University suggests that larger combatants delay actual combat as much as possible in the hope that the smaller party will recognize the odds are stacked against them and back down. The larger half is already likely in a stronger position.

9. Shorter men make more jealous husbands and lovers

In one study, researchers questioned 100 men and 100 women in relationships about their feelings of jealousy and how interested they believed their partners to be in other members of the opposite sex.

Researchers found men around 5ft 4in tall were scored on average 50% higher on a jealousy scale (3.75 out of 6) than those taller than 6ft 6in (2.25 out of 6).

10. Shorter men have shorter… little men

There’s less evidence for this one, but a study of 5,200 Americans found that very short men (less than 160 cm) were three times more likely to report a small penis than men taller than 193 cm.

A similar Italian survey of 3,300 men that measured the height of both the participants and their genitals found positive correlations with flaccid and stretched penis length. Meanwhile, tall men tend to have more reproductive success. It helps explain why height is considered emblematic of masculinity.

Short men, Ian Fleming once said, “caused all the trouble in the world.”