When we speak with somebody, the social status of the interlocutor affects our way of talking. Power position or respect towards people can influence the way we relate to them.

A study from the University of Stirling has investigated social relationships and interactions, from a psychology perspective. The study has been published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, and focused on the vocal characteristics of those who took part in the research.

Participants were involved in simulated job interview talks, and the way they interact was analysed, with the researchers finding out that their vocal characteristics, and more specifically pitch, were greatly influenced by the different social status of the interlocutor. Interesting to note, people tend to communicate with high social status listeners using higher pitch, regardless of the self-perceived social status.

The postdoctoral researcher Dr Viktoria Mileva, currently working at the University of Stirling, explains: “A deep, masculine voice sounds dominant, especially in men, while the opposite is true of a higher pitched voice. So, if someone perceives their interviewer to be more dominant than them, they raise their pitch. This may be a signal of submissiveness, to show the listener that you are not a threat, and to avoid possible confrontations. Dr Mileva added: “These changes in our speech may be conscious or unconscious but voice characteristics appear to be an important way to communicate social status. We found both men and women alter their pitch in response to people they think are dominant and prestigious.”

The researchers also focused on these participants who recognised themselves as dominant (eg. these using methods as intimidation, coercion or manipulation to increase their social status) discovering that this kind of individuals are less likely to change their pitch and getting influenced by the listener, using a lower tone even when talking to someone of a high status.

These individuals feeling influent and seeing themselves as guides or referral points to other people, who contribute to their social status by listening to their opinions and following their lead, seem to keep they tone and pitch of voice despite of the status of the listeners, possibly showing an increased control of the situation and relax and calmness.
The study involved personal, interpersonal and introductory general interview questions, with participant reacting particularly to specific complex and interpersonal questions, that resulted with them lowering their voice when outlining the details of conflict situations with employers.

Dr Mileva explained: “Signals and perceptions of human social status have an effect on virtually every human interaction, ranging from morphological characteristics – such as face shape – to body posture, specific language use, facial expressions and voices. “Understanding what these signals are, and what their effects are, will help us comprehend an essential part of human behaviour.”

The feedback on the research seem to suggest that the finding of this study on vocal changes could be also applicable to situations different from the job interview one, suggesting that the work environment with interactions between colleagues or the sports environment with interactions between rivals during a competitions may present similar vocal alterations according to the perceived status of the interlocutors.

Written by: Pietro Paolo Frigenti

Journal Reference: Juan David Leongómez et al. Perceived differences in social status between speaker and listener affect the speaker’s vocal characteristics, PLOS ONE (2017). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0179407