It's actually more interesting than just 'a standard height'. It's usually a standard 17.5" when you combine the "rise" and the "run" (depth and height) of each stair. Some places who have a need to slow people down will manipulate this standard.

There is this awful classroom on campus where the stairs between the seats go short-short-long. So many people fall down.  Seriously, it was a TERRIBLE idea.

I would think standards are less meaningful here than consistency. The step in question is located near the top of a decently long flight which means people have accustomed themselves to the natural rhythm of THOSE stairs (whether or not they're standardized) before getting to, and tripping on, the unusual one.

I definitely panicked for a second and thought we were going to see someone drop a baby at 1:18. 

A similar thing was discovered in Tokyo when I was living there in the 1980s: one step that was a fraction of a centimeter higher than the rest, tripping up a lot of people, and causing potential for a serious accident. (Just think of the implications of tripping when there are Japanese rush-hour mobs walking in near lock-step through the stations and up the stairs.)

Anyone know if this step has been addressed?

I don't think that's what Bourdieu expected as of a use of these concepts, but why not! Somehow it doesn't fit either the notion of Habitus nor of Corporal Hexis! Less than a matter of sociology, its a matter of psychomotricity! Agreeing with PP!

Another way to adress the problem of the concepts:
Habituses (that were in Bourdieu's sense related to social classes) are partially consisting of habits, mostly of the social relation's type, but not all habits are habituses!

There's a bit of a variance allowed in the actual height for stairs, but the treads *must* all be the same height as each other, within very tight tolerances. They are easily the most tightly inspected part of a house, for exactly that reason.

The second stair from the top at my apartment complex is like this. Somehow I only manage to trip up and nearly fall down the stairs when descending.

I like how they almost always speed up as well after tripping

I'm more interested in the way so many trippers sped up after they stumbled...appears to be a performance of bodily competence to recover from the embarrassment of a less-controlled movement. 

This is not habitus.

i think it's more a biological phenomenon than sociological. but interesting

I remember reading somewhere (in a magazine about houses, I think) about an older house with two stories, and one step of a different height from the rest. The idea, according to this article, was that a burglar, being in a hurry and unfamiliar with the irregular stairs, would trip on his or her way upstairs.

I want to second those who point out that the sum rise+run is more standardized than the actual values of the rise and run; there is a range in the steepness of stairs that is allowed as far as I know. I do think that we habituate to an individual staircase as we climb it; I've seen people have no issue with two adjacent structures having different stair pitches, but trip on the top step of a five-step flight if it is different from the other four. Lessons learned from building two-story temporary structures as an undergrad...

I wonder how much our "habitus" guide our daily perception of the world. We tend to think that our minds guide us, but I doubt that.

As others have pointed out, stairs aren't standardized, but they are usually consistent. 

There was a fantastic comment on this video on MetaFilter (here: http://www.metafilter.com/117357/Lawsuit-waiting-to-happen#4421501)

"Next time people ask why sociology is important, I'm going to show them this video. On its own, when you see one person slip, you automatically assume that person slipped, was clumsy or not playing attention. But when you look at the aggregate, you realize that the failure isn't on the individual at all, rather the structures that cause certain people to fail with almost no fault of their own. And yet, without this data, they will very quickly ascribe the mistake to themselves.  It difficult to explain to someone that the reason they live their life the way they do because of the structures built to help them live that way. But imagine, instead of a stupid mislaid step, the faulty structure is a punitive late policy on a credit card, or a bank that has a minimum balance fee and very quickly the maintenance of the status-quo is laid bare."

The video's assertion that "everyone" trips on it kind of annoyed me. There are plenty of people in that video who do not trip on the step. Sure, those who are behind the person who tripped probably don't because they pay more attention having seen someone stumble, but there are a number of people walking in front of the person who tripped who did not trip.

This begs the question: What's different about them vs. the ones who trip? Is it that they use this staircase a lot and have gotten used to it, or are they just paying more attention to the stairs, or is there something else different about them that keeps them from tripping?

I agree, this is not habitus as Bourdieu discusses is but rather a matter of an anomaly in a habitual action. The suvwa however I the perfect place to observe habitus. You can se the varios ways in which people respond to things like delays, crowdedness, obnoxious riders, and even who is considered an obnoxious rider. The NYC subway is a socological paradise because so many different classs of people are put in a small space. Also night clubs and bars are a great place to observe habitus in action.

Lisa, I do think your post is helpful in a metaphorical sense. Those people who haven't learned how high or how to lift their feet will trip and fall on the uneven stairs that have been built into our societies.

That's a pretty TRIPPY video.
[sorry, I give myself one bad pun a year]

This is the most offensive post I have ever seen on this site! Not cool!