Women Use Voice Pitch To Flirt And Compete For Men
Christopher Philip
People require a huge investment when it comes to raising offspring. Therefore, there is much consideration to be done when selecting mates. Men and women both seek qualities in their partners which will give them an edge in raising children successfully.
While women find men with particular attributes attractive such as a muscular build, tall stature, and masculine facial features, men also seek qualities in women that will give their potential children an edge. For women, it seems that physical attributes such as an hour-glass shape (high hip-to-waist ratio), large bust, feminine face and youthful appearance trump all others. One particular quality which can be modified consciously, the voice and its pitch, hasn’t received near as much credit in dating.
Men and women’s voice pitch naturally differ by more than five standard deviations which might not sound impressive, but when compared to height differences, this quality is 3.5 times larger.
Vocal sex differences are determined by vocal folds and supra-laryngeal vocal tract. Longer, thicker vocal folds produce lower rates of vocal fold vibration affecting the pitch. Because women have shorter supra-laryngeal vocal tracts, they have higher pitch and weaker timbre than men.
In a paper published in the Journal Personality and Individual Differences by researcher David Puts and his colleagues Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University and Department of Psychology, they found that women with higher pitch were rated as more attractive by men and that women used vocal pitch to track potential sexual threat – in mate poaching – in other women.
The Current Study
In the study, the researchers modified female voices to be more or less femininity and played them back to both male and female subjects.
They predicted that more feminine voices would be attractive to men and that women would be sensitive to vocal female femininity when assessing possible competitors.
This is exactly what they found. Feminine voices were perceived as more flirtatious and more attractive to men. Women also agreed that feminine voices were more attractive and flirtatious indicating that women also track vocal parameters in other women.
The researchers also learned that under no circumstances was masculinized pitch favoured more than feminized voices. Differences where less pronounced however, when men were asked within a long-term relationship context. Here, a feminized voice wasn’t as significant.
The researchers point out in their paper that perhaps feminized voices in women indicate youth which is important in being able to conceive and raise children successfully.
Feminine voices, may also indicate sexual interest, as I would content – is a nonverbal cue signaling sexual interest.
In other research, a woman’s vocal attractiveness predicts the age at which they first participated in sexual intercourse, as well as the number of sexual partners overall. Research has also found that women with attractive, feminine bodies also have more sexual partners but are also more prone to cheat.
Say the researchers, “Given that a feminine voice is attractive to men, and attractive, feminine voices may signal sexual interest and availability in women, it has
likely been important over human evolution for women to monitor the vocal femininity of rivals.”
Indeed, while men might find a feminine voice sexy, a women may also rate a feminine voice in other women as sexy, but only if she’s being honest. In other cases she may find a sexy female voice to be particularly annoying especially when done in the presence of their dating partner, or best, when done to their dating partner, for fear that he may stray.
The Take Away Message
The two-fold message from the research is clear. Women can produce sexual interest by raising the pitch of their voice. Also women in committed relationships should be attuned to rival women who raise their voice pitch in the presence of partners as she may be consciously or subconsciously attempting to mate-poach.
Nevertheless, a soft feminine voice pitch is a cue that evolution has favoured either due to its perceived link to youthfulness, or its submissive qualities. Men should be highly attuned to feminine voices as a signal of a women’s sexual availability, and possibly, her sexually promiscuity.
Image Credit: Glenn Loos-Austin
Resources
Puts, David A.; Julia L. Barnd; Lisa L.M.; Welling, Khytam Dawood; and Robert P. Burriss. Intrasexual Competition Among Women: Vocal Femininity Affects Perceptions of Attractiveness And Flirtatiousness. Personality and Individual Differences. 2019; 50: 111-115.