Several years ago, around the time the Food and Drug Administration was considering the use of human growth hormone to treat extremely short but otherwise normal children, researchers were working up the results of a large-scale psychology experiment involving hundreds of middle-school and high-school students in the Buffalo area – including some who were extremely short but otherwise normal. The students didn’t know the study was about height. All they knew was that each of them had been asked to be the director of a class play. They were given thumbnail sketches of various characters in the drama – “a good leader,” “teases others too much,” “gets picked on” and so forth – and were then asked to cast the play by selecting classmates who best fit each role.

Read more: The Short of It — The New York Times Magazine

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