Lowering the Pitch of Your Voice Makes You Feel More Powerful and Think More Abstractly

Stel, Mariëlle; Dijk, Eric van; Smith, Paul Julian; Dijk, Wilco W. van; Djalal, Farah Mutiasari

doi:10.1177/1948550611427610

Cited by 40 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The results of this study extend the results from Stel et al [63]. In [63], the authors found that people can feel more powerful by consciously lowering the pitch of their voice.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…We can use our voice to emphasize words, express confidence, or communicate our feelings about something [63]. This nonverbal signal is so important that researchers found that it is possible to predict outcomes of job interviews, speed dating encounters [52], and even voting behavior [65], by analyzing only the prosody of individuals' voices during social interactions.…”

Section: Nonverbal Signals and Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hence, the perception of a bigger size leads to the perception of related characteristics such as strength, power and dominance [50] [54]. Interestingly, studies also show that individuals feel more powerful when speaking with a lowered voice pitch [63]. Since previous studies have not examined possibilities to affect power-perceptions through voice feedback, we wanted to examine the following research question:…”

Section: Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Regulating Feelings During Interpersonal Conflicts by Changing Voice Self-perception

Costa

Jung

Czerwinski

et al. 2018

Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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Emotions play a major role in how interpersonal conflicts unfold. Although several strategies and technological approaches have been proposed for emotion regulation, they often require conscious attention and effort. This often limits their efficacy in practice. In this paper, we propose a different approach inspired by self-perception theory: noticing that people are often reacting to the perception of their own behavior, we artificially change their perceptions to influence their emotions. We conducted two studies to evaluate the potential of this approach by automatically and subtly altering how people perceive their own voice. In one study, participants that received voice feedback with a calmer tone during relationship conflicts felt less anxious. In the other study, participants who listened to their own voices with a lower pitch during contentious debates felt more powerful. We discuss the implications of our findings and the opportunities for designing automatic and less perceptible emotion regulation systems.

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“…The results of this study extend the results from Stel et al [63]. In [63], the authors found that people can feel more powerful by consciously lowering the pitch of their voice.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Nonverbal Signals and Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Regulating Feelings During Interpersonal Conflicts by Changing Voice Self-perception

Costa

Jung

Czerwinski

et al. 2018

Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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“…For example, Galinsky et al(2003) found that having power is associated with taking action (e.g., being more likely to act on an external stimulus, such as an annoying fan blowing in one's direction); people's sensitivity to this association is highlighted by their corresponding perception of those who take more action as being more powerful (Magee, 2009). Likewise, individuals placed in a powerful Abstract Language Signals Power 4 role tend to lower their voice pitch (Puts, Gaulin, & Verdolini, 2006), and individuals asked to speak with a lower-pitched voice (versus their normal voice) not only feel more powerful (Stel, van Dijk, Smith, van Dijk, & Djalal, 2012), but are also judged by observers as having more power (Puts et al, 2006;Puts, Hodges, Cardenas, & Gaulin, 2007).The central premise of the current paper is that a speaker's use of more abstract language may serve as a cue that the speaker is powerful. A behavioral signal approach suggests one reason that power may be inferred from linguistic abstraction.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A behavioral signal approach suggests one reason that power may be inferred from linguistic abstraction. Power triggers a broad psychological shift toward abstract processing (Smith & Trope, 2006), whereby people in higher power roles (or who momentarily feel more powerful) increasingly construe information in an abstract fashion that captures the gist or essence of the presented information (Huang, Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Guillory, 2011;Magee, Milliken, & Lurie, 2010;Smith & Trope, 2006;Stel et al, 2012; see Magee & Smith, 2013, for a recent review). In other words, power is associated with the cognitive signal of abstract thinking.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Abstract Language Signals Power

Wakslak¹,

Smith²,

Han³

2013

AMPROC

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Language Signals Power 2 AbstractPower can be gained through appearances: People who exhibit behavioral signals of power are often treated in a way that allows them to actually achieve such power (Ridgeway, Berger, & Smith, 1985;Smith & Galinsky, 2010). In the current paper we examine power signals within interpersonal communication, exploring whether use of concrete versus abstract language is seen as a signal of power. Since power activates abstraction (e.g., Smith & Trope, 2006), perceivers may expect higher-power individuals to speak more abstractly and therefore will infer that speakers who use more abstract language have a higher degree of power. Across a variety of contexts and conversational subjects in six experiments, participants perceived respondents as more powerful when they used more abstract language (versus more concrete language). Abstract language use appears to affect perceived power because it seems to reflect both a willingness to judge and a general style of abstract thinking.Keywords: power, perception, distance, abstraction, social judgment Abstract Language Signals Power 3 Managing other's impressions of one's power is a critical skill. Being seen as powerful can elicit treatment from others that allows one to actually achieve such power (Ridgeway, Berger, & Smith, 1985;Smith & Galinsky, 2010). Having power means having more control over one's own life and therefore is associated with numerous positive outcomes for the individual, including an increased ability to achieve one's goals (e.g., Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Magee, 2003;Guinote, 2007;Karremans & Smith, 2010) and the goals of one's organization (Overbeck & Park, 2006), increased freedom to express oneself (e.g., Anderson & Berdahl, 2002) and behave in line with one's core values (e.g., Chen, Lee-Chai. & Bargh, 2001;DeCelles, DeRue, Margolis, & Ceranic, 2012), and even an array of positive health outcomes (e.g., Marmot et al., 1991;Sherman et al, 2012). Thus, the possession of power is often a goal in itself. Moreover, individuals who occupy high-power positions but are not perceived as powerful risk their position being viewed as illegitimate . While some behaviors signaling power may be difficult to enact with limited resources (e.g., loaning money, exerting influence, taking action; Goldhamer & Shils, 1939), others may be relatively easy to adopt (e.g., a lower-pitched voice; Carney, ).In the current paper we examine whether a person's use of relatively concrete or abstract language can serve as a subtle but meaningful signal of power, exploring this idea across six studies that manipulate linguistic abstraction in various ways and measure power and leadership inferences. Linguistic Abstraction as a Power CueRecent research on power inferences has increasingly emphasized the subtle ways that people signal their degree of power. Converging evidence suggests that when power is associated with a behavioral signal people become sensitive to the signal itself, leading them to infer the presence of power when witnessing the ass...

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The Psychology of Social Status

Cheng¹,

Tracy

Anderson

2014

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Lowering the Pitch of Your Voice Makes You Feel More Powerful and Think More Abstractly

Cited by 40 publications

References 17 publications

Regulating Feelings During Interpersonal Conflicts by Changing Voice Self-perception

Regulating Feelings During Interpersonal Conflicts by Changing Voice Self-perception

Using Abstract Language Signals Power

The Psychology of Social Status

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