About 5 months ago, before we’d all been saturated
with television debates among Republican Party hopefuls for nomination as the
team to compete in next year's US presidential election, I’d wrote an article for Viewshound about how we judge people from the pitch of their voices (1). This
was based on freshly published research that had just hit the streets. Now
there is some more on that point, but it is now finely focused on voting
behavior (2).
This new study is published in the Journal of
Ecology and Human Behavior and is authored by Fienberg and his team. In this
study they used recordings of politicians and then manipulated the recordings
to change the pitch. I should mention that these weren’t just any politicians,
but recorded voices of past US President’s.
The participants in the lab voting all preferred
the lower pitch voices, which they associated with preferred personality
traits. In war situations, and America has been pretty busy in that direction,
the perception was that the lower pitch meant that the president had a stronger
physical prowess and integrity was less important. It’s almost as if the
participants were subconsciously viewing managing a war as though the president
was a contender in a boxing match.
In a second experiment which got away from the
gravitas of real presidents, even if their voices had been modified, the
participants listened to unfamiliar male voices. The spoken words were neutral
and not inspiring or rabble rousing, but again the lower pitch was preferred.
Perhaps over the Holidays, our politicians have
time to get voice training to get a lower pitch. Maybe in the future we won’t
be listening to the words and promises, but electing the guy with the lowest pitch.
Not a great prospect for either women candidates or for the future of the
country.
- http://www.viewshound.com/science/2011/6/pitch-perfect-what-your-voice-says-about-you
- http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(11)00102-4/abstract
