What’s In A Voice? How Your Chords Affect Your Employability
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 8:44 am
It’s no secret that female voices rule tech. From Siri and Cortana to Scarlett Johansson’s sentient computer in ‘Her’, it’s ladies who voice our most complex systems. Of course, these are disembodied robots whose sole function is to listen and serve; the preference for women, a traditionally subservient gender, should come as no surprise.
Unfortunately, this tendency extends to real life too. Research shows that, even for feminine leadership roles, deeper voices are considered ‘more leaderly’ than higher ones. That’s right, ladies; not only do men sound naturally more portugal phone number library than you, but even low-voiced women score above those of a higher timbre.
So if you’re looking to get into the C-suite, try lowering that voice first. Or, you know, get a sex change.
Alien language
Accents – treacherous ground at best. Ignoring the obvious issues of racism and inherent bias, did you know that those with foreign accents are routinely perceived as less honest than their native counterparts? A study in 2010 found that “non-native speech is harder to understand than native speech. We demonstrate that this “processing difficulty” causes non-native speakers to sound less credible.”
Back in 2016, a national outcry arose when teachers from the north of England were asked to ‘tone down’ their accents by their teacher-training mentors. Unfortunately, the tutors had a point; studies show that accents from the Birmingham and Manchester areas rank consistently lower than others in terms of ‘pleasantness’ and ‘prestige’.
Nobody’s saying you should change the way you speak. Everyone – bar none – should be proud of their heritage and origin. However, if you want to get ahead in business, ‘neutralising’ your accent may well do you more favours than not.
Unfortunately, this tendency extends to real life too. Research shows that, even for feminine leadership roles, deeper voices are considered ‘more leaderly’ than higher ones. That’s right, ladies; not only do men sound naturally more portugal phone number library than you, but even low-voiced women score above those of a higher timbre.
So if you’re looking to get into the C-suite, try lowering that voice first. Or, you know, get a sex change.
Alien language
Accents – treacherous ground at best. Ignoring the obvious issues of racism and inherent bias, did you know that those with foreign accents are routinely perceived as less honest than their native counterparts? A study in 2010 found that “non-native speech is harder to understand than native speech. We demonstrate that this “processing difficulty” causes non-native speakers to sound less credible.”
Back in 2016, a national outcry arose when teachers from the north of England were asked to ‘tone down’ their accents by their teacher-training mentors. Unfortunately, the tutors had a point; studies show that accents from the Birmingham and Manchester areas rank consistently lower than others in terms of ‘pleasantness’ and ‘prestige’.
Nobody’s saying you should change the way you speak. Everyone – bar none – should be proud of their heritage and origin. However, if you want to get ahead in business, ‘neutralising’ your accent may well do you more favours than not.