In 1945, two statues representing the average man and woman in the United States went on display at the American Museum of Natural History.
Based on measurements taken from tens of thousands of young men and women, they were called Norma and Norman. That same year, a contest began to find a living statue of Norma.
Normal is often used as a synonym for "normal", "expected" or even "correct". By this logic, most people should fit the definition of normal.
And yet, not one of the nearly 4,000 women who entered the pageant matched Norma, the supposedly "normal" woman.
This Conundrum Is Not Unique To Norma And Normman Either
as again and again, the so-called common descriptions of our bodies, minds, and imaginations match almost none.
And yet, so much of the world is built around the premise of normality.
So what does that mean in general – and should we trust it so much?
In statistics, a normal distribution describes a set of values that fall along a bell curve. The average, or mean, of all values is exactly in the center, and most other values fall within the bell curve.
These curves can be long, with most values within a narrow range, or long and flat, with only a slight bias toward the mean. What makes the distribution normal is that it follows this curved shape.
Normal Does Not Describe a Single Data Point
but rather a pattern of variation. Many human traits, such as height, follow a normal distribution.
Some people are very tall or very short, but most people fall close to the overall average. Outside of statistics, normal often refers to the mean—such as a single number drawn from the thickest part of a bell curve—which removes all significance from the normal distribution.
The ratio of Norma and Norman came from such an average. Applied to individuals, whether someone is considered normal depends on how closely they fit that average.
At best, such definitions of normal fail to capture variability. But often, our normal calculations are even more flawed. Take the BMI- or Body Mass Index.
BMI is a measure of weight relative to height, with different ratios falling into the ranges of "underweight," "normal weight," "overweight," and "obese." In general, only BMIs that correspond to a normal weight are considered healthy.
But BMI Isn't always An Accurate Predictor Of Health
or even what a healthy weight is. BMI does not take into account body fat percentage, body fat distribution, physical activity level, or blood pressure.
And yet, people who fall outside the so-called normal range are usually advised that losing or gaining weight will improve their health.
When we apply a standard of normality to the entire population that is based on data from an unrepresentative slice, we are not just selecting a point on the distribution, we are selecting it from the wrong distribution.
A lot of behavioral science research draws from paradigms that are very peculiar—that is, Western, educated, industrialized, affluent, and democratic.
These features can also break rules in research that have no obvious connection to them. Take the famous Muller-Lyer optical illusion: it is normal to think that one of two lines is longer, when they are actually the same length.
At Least, If You're An American Undergraduate
A team of anthropologists and psychologists found that other demographic groups were much less susceptible—members of the San people of the Kalahari were not delusional at all.
When these narrow or inaccurate definitions of normal are used to make decisions that affect people's lives, they can cause real harm. Historically, such notions of normalcy have been very influential.
The eugenics movement of the early 20th century weaponized the concept of normal, using it to justify the exclusion, torture, and even massacre of those people.
To this day, people are often targeted and discriminated against based on disabilities, mental health issues, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other characteristics considered "not normal."
But the reality is that differences—in short, diversity—in our bodies, minds, perceptions, and ideas about the world around us are the real norm.
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