Is there anything to all this Napoleon complex talk? This article explains whether there’s any scientific basis to all the noise, and why it might not be a bad thing.

It is the victor who writes history and counts the dead.

As far as victories go, Napoleon chalked up his share.

Widely recognized as one of the greatest and most influential military commanders in history, he’s the kind of leader often imitated, never duplicated.

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Fast, fearless, adaptable, aggressive, strong, ambitious. Leaders like him shape history’s narrative.

Of all the events he had a hand in writing, though, he couldn’t shake a rumor that persisted in his day and remains in ours, namely that Napoleon Bonaparte was short.

Seen as more than merely a physical characteristic, many attribute his aggressive style and military conquests to a desire to make up for his diminutive dimensions.

Is there anything to this theory? Do you have a Napoleon complex? And if you do, is that necessarily a bad thing?

What Is a Napoleon Complex?

If you haven’t heard of the Napoleon complex before, here’s a sciency definition for your consideration: Short men compensate behaviorally in dyadic intrasexual competitions with taller rivals by behaving more indirectly aggressive in resource contests. Rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

In real talk, the widely held notion holds that relatively shorter men are more aggressive than their taller peers due to a height-related inferiority complex.

It’s a subconscious balancing of the scales. Men respond to feelings of inferiority in certain physical traits by overcompensating in social interactions.

Known euphemistically as short man syndrome or little man syndrome (the “little” seems just a bit more pejorative, doesn’t it?), the theory has its roots in the evolutionary model.