Talk:Napoleon Complex

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Your reference made an attempt to compare all short and all tall people. Nowhere was there any implication made that the Napoleon complex applies to any more than a small number of people. Also, you will find that the Napoleon complex very seldom manifests itself in 'mano a mano' fighting for sheer physical strength. Learn together 00:13, 27 May 2007 (EDT)

I'll look up the paper that the research was published in. I'm pretty sure they referred explicitly to the Napoleon Complex and discussed how it was relevant. JoshuaZ 01:01, 27 May 2007 (EDT)

I know they referred to it, but they're wrong. They set up a scenario to get the results they wished, and then claimed it refutes the Napoleon complex. By doing so they recreate the Napoleon complex to fit their image instead of studying the complex itself (which does not involve taking mass numbers of big and small groups of people -- what they tested for, and what was intuitively obvious, is that smaller people have learned to refrain more from trying to smash bigger people, for obvious reasons, as in real life situations the results are often not very pleasant.) Learn together 01:53, 27 May 2007 (EDT)

Three things. First - I must be missing something. They found that on average, smaller people remain calmer and less agressive than large people. They didn't just stay less agressive but actually had slower heart rates. So on average people who are small show fewer of the traits classically considered to be part of a Napoleon complex. Now, if Napoleon complexes existed we should see that average brought up, yes? Second, how would you test the existence of Napoleon complexs? Third, peer review seemed to agree that this was a decent test of the existence of the complex. Why is your personal opinion somehow enough to overide that, especially when the addition made clear that the research only "suggested" that this might be the case? JoshuaZ 10:46, 27 May 2007 (EDT)

I am concerned by the inference of the people running the test, and your own comments, that the Napoleon complex is somehow endemic of all people with short stature and can therefore be easily measured by taking a sample size of 10 people. Nowhere does the article imply that is the case and I take a certain amount of personal offense in trying to make it claim such. Learn together 13:03, 27 May 2007 (EDT)

I didn't assert that it would be endemic of all short people merely that it should bring up the average. SO if 10 isn't a large enough sample size, what would be a large enough sample in your view? 100? 1000? Note also that if you argue that only a small fraction of short people have a Napoleon complex and most overcompensate in the other direction, then what study would you want to have done? Maybe see if for a large sample there are more short people on the very agressive end than one would expect from a bellcurve distribution? JoshuaZ 16:21, 27 May 2007 (EDT)

10 people will not bring up the average unless you happened to get very 'lucky' and catch someone with the complex. I am not sure why that is not extremely self evident on its own, and especially after the conversation that has been taking place. I wouldn't test direct physical confrontation at all, but would focus on analyzing some form of aggressive or domineering behavior in the safety of anonymity where there is no threat of future retribution. How many people would it take? As many as are necessary in a rare condition. It is also possible to work from the other side and question people who are believed to have the behavior about what drives them and compile data accordingly. Similar methods were used for determining the traits of 'self actualization' under Maslow.

If you have a further need to discuss testing methodology we can do so under your user discussion section as the correspondance that is taking place here seems to have little to do with the article as written and more to do with hypothetical curiosities of testing validity that you wish to explore. Learn together 02:57, 28 May 2007 (EDT)