Pitch Perfect?

Turn on the TV. What do you see when you watch the news? Besides the latest events being covered, you see the news anchormen reporting those events.

Now close your eyes. What do you hear? Do you hear an unsteady, high-pitched voice that sounds insecure and unstable? Or, instead, do you hear a strong, lower-pitched voice that sounds more confident and trustworthy? Most of the time, you are going to hear the strong, lower-pitched voice rather than the unsteady, high-pitched voice. Why? Because, lower-pitched voices have been found to seem “’more competent, stronger, and more trustworthy’ than their higher-voiced counterparts – apparently, sounding masculine makes you seem like you’ll be better at your job.”

Don’t believe me? Think of the people in the world around you. Sports announcers sound more confident when they commentate with a steady, low-pitched voice. Professors and advisors sound more official when teaching material or giving advice with a strong, low-pitched voice. Doctors even seem more trustworthy if they diagnose you in a more self-assured, low-pitched voice than a nervous, high-pitched voice. So what is it about low-pitched voices that make the speaker seem to possess all of these qualities?

In a recent study for the Public Library of Science ONE (PLoS ONE), biologist Rindy Anderson and political scientist Casey Klofstad tested to see if people preferred candidates with lower-voices for leadership positions, and whether or not this preference was dependent on context. They wanted to see if people would choose the lower-voiced candidates for leadership positions as opposed to the higher- voiced candidates.

They recorded ten men and ten women saying the presidential-sounding phrase, “I urge you to vote for me this November.” These recordings were then altered, and each one had a higher and lower pitched copy. All of the recordings were played for a new group of men and women, who were told that these candidates were running for a PTA president position or a school board seat, not the United States presidency. The study found that the men preferred lower-pitched voices in both males and females, and females preferred lower-pitched voices in other females but had no preference in males. The results showed that, in general, lower-pitched voices are more preferable than higher-pitched voices when it comes to electing leaders of a community.

McMaster University did a similar study, in which they played altered recordings to 125 people and told them to rate their perceptions of the speakers’ attractiveness, leadership potential, honesty, intelligence, and dominance. They also asked the 125 people which version of the voice they would prefer to lead them, both in peacetime and in wartime.

The results of this study showed that all of the subjects preferred the candidates with lower-pitched voices. Even though it seems so arbitrary, humans have subconsciously come to associate lower-pitched voices with the qualities that seem to define a leader. We trust the people with lower-pitched voices because we believe that they are more dominant, and that somehow their vocal pitch can determine their skills and success.

However, do people with lower-pitched voices really possess all of those traits? McMaster psychology professor David Feinberg said, “People think we want to vote for men with lower-pitched voices because they’re more attractive, but it’s because people perceive them as better leaders and more dominant, not just because they’re attractive.” It is our perceptions and our impressions that make us believe that lower voices are a trait of more dominant people. United Kingdom psychologist Sue Lovegrove even added, “Lower voices do tend to have an aura of authority. When people go too high-pitched, it sounds emotional and less trustworthy.” Thus, our perceptions guide us to believe that lower voiced people are more assertive, and higher voices are unsure and unstable.

So what does this mean for males and females in the workforce? In general, because men are more associated with lower-pitched voices than are women, does this mean that men seem to be more capable and accomplished than women? Because women are more commonly linked to higher-pitched voices, do these studies show that women are indirectly associated with subordinate roles and men are indirectly associated with leadership roles? Does this mean that women should get voice-training lessons if they want to sound equally as competent as men seem?

While this certainly is a problem for women who are trying to pave their way in male-dominated work places, I think the more interesting situation is the reverse: when men try to get into female-dominated careers. The PLoS ONE study showed an interesting outcome in that females did not show preference in pitch for males. The study’s authors hypothesize that for traditionally female jobs, women might actually value men with more feminine qualities, such as a higher-pitched voice. It will be interesting to see what happens as more men move into pink-collar roles and are faced with many similar challenges and conflicts as women have been facing in traditionally male careers. Imagine: you turn on the TV in a couple of years and what do you see and hear? One day, it might just be a lower-pitched woman covering a sports broadcast and a higher-pitched man running his own fashion TV series.

Sources:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0051216

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15718969

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2323673/The-key-climbing-career-ladder-A-deep-voice-high-pitched-colleagues.html

http://www.buzzfeed.com/annanorth/people-prefer-leaders-with-deep-manly-voices