Attention and recognition biases associated with stature dissatisfaction among young men in China

• Information-processing biases related to height dissatisfaction were examined.
• Attention and recognition were assessed among height dissatisfied men and controls.
• Height dissatisfied men showed more attentional avoidance of short stature words.
• Height dissatisfied men also had better recognition of short stature words.

This research evaluated information-processing biases related to height dissatisfaction among young Chinese men. In Study 1, 32 highly stature dissatisfied (HSD) men and 36 less stature dissatisfied (LSD) men performed a dot probe task featuring height-related words and neutral words. HSD men were significantly slower than LSD men were in responding to probes that followed short stature words, but the groups did not differ in response speeds to probes that followed tall stature or neutral words. In Study 2, 33 HSD men and 34 LSD men completed an implicit learning task followed by a word recognition task. HSD men recognized significantly more short stature words from the initial task, but recognition accuracy for other word types did not differ between groups. Together, these findings suggest that HSD men are more inclined than LSD men to selectively avoid cues that reflect shortness in stature and to selectively recognize such cues later.