A potential for misunderstanding has arisen regarding an article in the current Harvard Business Review Magazine (Nov, 2011) entitled : ‘How Earlobes Can Signify Leadership Potential’
From the title, and in particular the sentence “In both studies we measured participants’ earlobes, wrist widths, and finger lengths and assigned them a score reflecting their degree of asymmetry.“ readers might assume that the participants’ earlobes were measured. With the possible implication that asymmetric earlobe size may have an impact on leadership potential. In fact, the participant’s entire ear-length was measured – including the earlobe – see accompanying drawing (4)
As the paper’s full text explains :
“A manual caliper was used to measure the right and left sides of seven body features to the nearest 0.05mm (i.e., little finger length, ring finger length, middle finger length, index finger length, thumb length, wrist width and ear length).”
Developmental stability and leadership effectiveness is currently in press at The Leadership Quarterly.
Aston University press-release here (Though uncaptioned, the photo in the press release depicts corresponding author Carl Senior BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD, PGCert, C.Psychol, AFBPsS
Other finger-length-ratio research :
& etc
BONUS: The predictive power of a leader’s head shape