Power Produces Dominance In Voice, Study
Christopher Philip
Across two studies it was found by researchers that voice qualities such as voice loudness and voice pitch predict social rank.
Researchers Sei Jin Ko and Melody Sadler San Diego State University and Adam Galinsky, Columbia University found that not only do people modify their voices to be louder and higher in pitch but lower in pitch variability (more monotone) when they are attributed higher social positions, but they are also perceived by others as ranking higher, when they use such vocal patterns.
While so much of our perceptions of others focus on the content of the message, it turns out that how it is delivered probably matters just as much.
The inspiration for the study stemmed from the transformation of Margaret Thatcher whom was known to have had extensive vocal training to create a more powerful persona.
“We wanted to explore how something so fundamental as power might elicit changes in the way a voice sounds, and how these situational vocal changes impact the way listeners perceive and behave toward the speakers” says Ko, one of the study’s authors.
In the study, the participants where assigned to one of two conditions. In the high-rank group, the subjects were told to imagine that they had a strong alternative offer, valuable inside information or simply, higher-status in the workplace. They were also told to imagine a time when they had power and to use it as inspiration.
Conversely, those in the low-rank group were told to imagine having a weak offer, no inside information and a low workplace status as well as to recall a time when they lacked power.
The experiment then tracked their acoustic patterns before and after being primed.
In a second experiment, the voices were played back to another group of listeners whom were asked to judge the relative power based on the voices.
Results showed that the listeners easily tracked the differences in the voices ascribing them correctly to the proper high or low rank group.
Additionally, higher pitched voices that varied in loudness were associated with high-power behaviours.
“These findings suggest that listeners are quite perceptive to these subtle variations in vocal cues and they use these cues to decide who is in charge,” says Adam Galinsky, co-author of the study.
“Amazingly,” he says of the first experiment, “power affected our participants’ voices in almost the exact same way that Thatcher’s voice changed after her vocal training.”
“Our findings suggest that whether it’s parents attempting to assert authority over unruly children, haggling between a car salesman and customer, or negotiations between heads of states, the sound of the voices involved may profoundly determine the outcome of those interactions,” say the authors.
Voice qualities, much like the nonverbal body qualities including posture and relative expansiveness, predict ratings of dominance or submissiveness. Whether a person wishes to be perceived by others as more powerful, or wishes to read the relative power of others, like the body, people should look to voice qualities to make intelligent and accurate predictions about others.
Image Credit: Alexis Nyal
Resources
Sei Jin Ko; Melody S. Sadler and Adam D. Galinsky. The Sound of Power Conveying and Detecting Hierarchical Rank Through Voice. Psychological Science. 2019. DOI: 956797614553009