A Leader Doesn’t Sound Lesbian!: The Impact of Sexual Orientation Vocal Cues on Heterosexual Persons’ First Impression and Hiring Decision

Abstract

In three studies ( N = 340), we tested whether vocal cues to a person’s sexual orientation prompted sexual orientation discrimination in heterosexual individuals when hiring leaders. Our results inform how gender and sexual orientation intersect to produce discriminatory effects in the hiring context. Heterosexual participants listened to short clips of voices that sounded like job candidate was a lesbian or heterosexual woman, or a gay or heterosexual man, and rated all for job suitability and employability. Candidates applied for jobs as leaders (Study 1), as leaders or assistants (Study 2), and for leadership roles that varied in both gender role and status (Study 3). Sexual orientation discrimination occurred in all three studies and was greater among women job candidates. Refuting role congruity theory, several findings disconfirmed the prediction that lesbian-sounding women would be advantaged when stereotyped as masculine and when applying for leadership roles. Rather, in line with status-beliefs theory, lesbian-sounding women and gay-sounding men were rated and ranked poorly to the extent that they were perceived as less competent than heterosexual candidates. Findings suggest that hiring discrimination occurs in subtle ways, such as when individuals sound gay/lesbian. This has implications for recruitment as well as sexual-orientation discrimination court cases. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0361684319891168

Stigmatization of ‘gay‐sounding’ voices: The role of heterosexual, lesbian, and gay individuals’ essentialist beliefs

“…Building on studies showing that heterosexuals discriminate against LG-sounding speakers (Fasoli et al, 2017;Fasoli & Hegarty, 2020), and that higher prejudice predicts lower gaydar accuracy (Brewer & Lyons, 2016;Rule et al, 2015), we demonstrated that heterosexuals who are most likely to stigmatize LG-sounding others believe that LG people's vocal differences are deep-rooted and that LG people sometimes modify their voices to conceal or to emphasize their SO. Voice essentialist beliefs may both engender heterosexuals' avoidance of LG-sounding people and justify their prejudice against people that sound LG.…”

“…Stigma is a complex phenomenon that shapes the experiences of all members of society, both members of the general majority and the stigmatized minority. Regarding voice, a recent body of research has shown that auditory gaydar cues lead heterosexuals to stereotype and discriminate against LG-sounding individuals in contexts such as employability (Fasoli & Hegarty, 2020;Fasoli, Maass, Paladino, & Sulpizio, 2017), adoption , and teaching (Taylor & Raadt, 2020).…”

Toward a Century of Language Attitudes Research: Looking Back and Moving Forward

“…Whereas documentation studies treat language attitudes as the key output of interest, studies focused on consequences treat language attitudes as socially meaningful input that influences subsequent responses. Stated differently, language attitudes are assumed to mediate the effects of linguistic LANGUAGE ATTITUDES 15 variation on these more distal outcomes, though admittedly this assumption is only rarely tested explicitly (e.g., Fasoli & Hegarty, 2020;Roessel et al, 2019).…”

“…The predominant and longest-standing line of research has focused on documenting people’s attitudes toward different language varieties and the speakers who use them; this research is primarily descriptive. Past studies have documented people’s attitudes toward a wide range of linguistic variation, including different languages (e.g., Lambert et al, 1960); regional (e.g., Kinzler & DeJesus, 2013), ethnic (e.g., Rodriguez et al, 2004), and social-class accents and dialects (e.g., Giles, 1970); foreign accents (e.g., Lindemann, 2003); code-switching (e.g., Genesee & Bourhis, 1982); gay and lesbian speech (e.g., Fasoli & Hegarty, 2020); powerful/powerless language (e.g., Gibbons et al, 1991); lexical formality (e.g., Levin et al, 1994) and diversity (e.g., Bradac & Wisegarver, 1984); as well as individual linguistic variables (e.g., Labov, 1966).…”

“…This effect tends to be more pronounced the stronger a speaker’s nonstandard accent is (Carlson & McHenry, 2006) and can emerge regardless of speakers’ actual qualifications (Roessel et al, 2019). Similarly, gay- and lesbian-sounding speakers are judged as less suitable for leadership positions than straight-sounding speakers because they are attributed less status (Fasoli & Hegarty, 2020). In educational settings, students often rate nonnative-accented instructors less favorably than native-accented instructors on teaching quality and effectiveness (Gill, 1994; Subtirelu, 2015)—even when they themselves are nonnative speakers (Hendriks et al, 2018)—and may actively avoid courses taught by nonnative-accented instructors (Rubin & Smith, 1990).…”