The humanizing voice: speech reveals, and text conceals, a more thoughtful mind in the midst of disagreement
Open accessAbstract
A person's speech communicates his or her thoughts and feelings. We predicted that beyond conveying the contents of a person's mind, a person's speech also conveys mental capacity, such that hearing a person explain his or her beliefs makes the person seem more mentally capable-and therefore seem to possess more uniquely human mental traits-than reading the same content. We expected this effect to emerge when people are perceived as relatively mindless, such as when they disagree with the evaluator's own beliefs. Three experiments involving polarizing attitudinal issues and political opinions supported these hypotheses. A fourth experiment identified paralinguistic cues in the human voice that convey basic mental capacities. These results suggest that the medium through which people communicate may systematically influence the impressions they form of each other. The tendency to denigrate the minds of the opposition may be tempered by giving them, quite literally, a voice.
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Reading, versus hearing, a person's opinions makes the communicator appear less mentally capable-less thoughtful and emotional.
“Second, reading, versus hearing, ones' opinions also makes the communicator appear less mentally capable-less thoughtful and emotional [9,10 ].”
From Two social lives: how differences between online and offline interaction influence social outcomes (2020) · cites this paper as [10]
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References 39 · Cited by 129
Research works printed but not linked: 3
- Haslam, N. (2006). Dehumanization: An integrated review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 252-264.
- Haslam, N., & Loughnan, S. (2014). Dehumanization and infra- humanization. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 399-423.
- Leyens, J.-P., Paladino, P. M., Rodriguez-Torres, R., Vaes, J., Demoulin, S., Rodriguez-Perez, A., & Gaunt, R. (2000). The emotional side of prejudice: The role of secondary emo- tions. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4, 186-197.
- Authors
- Schroeder, J., Kardas, M., & Epley, N.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- University of Chicago (US)
- Booth School of Business, The University of Chicago
- Corresponding author
- Schroeder, Juliana
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2017-10-25
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1745-1762
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- OpenAlex
- W2765808856
- Cited by
- 129
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 21.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- escholarship.org
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Psychology of Social Influence
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Representations and Identity
- Keywords
- paralinguistic cues, interpersonal impressions, disagreement, political attitudes, verbal communication, impression formation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Attitude, Conflict, Psychological, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Social Perception, Verbal Behavior, Voice, Young Adult
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