Did you know that researchers have proven that our voices give away a lot of what physical characteristics we have? What characteristics? Here is a list of three:
- Your Height – The Acoustical Society of America in 2013 released information on a study they conducted to ask listeners whether or not someone was over six feet tall. In most cases, taller people had deeper voicec
- Age- In a study conducted published by Journal of Social, Evolutionary and Cultural Psychology the subjects were able to give a fairly accurate range of someone’s age from the sound of their voice – in addition to the choice of words they were using as well.
- Attractiveness- It seems that the sound of your voice may have the power to draw the opposite sex. It’s probably no surprise that men are drawn to women with higher softer pitched voices and women tend to be drawn to men with deeper voices but in a study conducted were not able to prove if these were long-lasting matches
We also tend to draw judgment on other personality characteristics as well such as income, social status, and level of intelligence. For example, if you heard someone speaking like Marilyn Monroe, you would probably jump to some quick conclusions about their looks and personality. We have built-in biases that work at the speed of light that formulate judgments of people we are speaking with.
This makes me question, are companies training staff to remove biases on how they treat customers from the sound of their voice? Are you quick to assume a caller may not be very technical savvy if they have a high pitched voice when calling in for technical support? Do you treat people differently because of an accent that is not close to your own?
