Savannah Kubis

COM 380 – Brief Reading

Vocalics
Vocal Attractiveness

For this brief reading the article looked at dealt with the nonverbal code of vocalics, or

vocal behavior. This article is one the attractiveness of the voice and deals with categorizing vocal

behavior by what is pleasant. The categories the article looks at to do this are pitch and impact.

After discussing these aspects it goes on to discuss vocal attractiveness stereotypes and how

people’s personalities are perceived based on their voices. It is amazing all the things that people

assume and perceive from they talk.

This article defines the attractive voice as having the two important qualities of pitch and

impact. Pitch is how high or low the sounds the voice emits. Voices that are not too high or too

low and whose pitch vary throughout the conversation are considered the most appealing and

attractive voices to hear. They are considered expressive and full of life.

Impact on the other hand includes a variety of characteristics of the voice. Resonance is

one of the aspects included in impact and is the fullness of the sound created in the vocal cavity.

Talking of resonance always reminds me of singing as it is easy to tell the singers who engage all

the way to the back of the mouth, and sing from the soft palate. These singers have a richer, fuller

sound to them versus singers who are very forward. Resonant voices like good singers are smooth

and strong. Articulation is the next aspect of impact. Articulation can be defined as making sounds

through the movement of the speech organs. It is also the formation of clear, crisp, and distinct

sounds in speech. The final aspect that is included in this article as part of impact is volume.

Volume is loudness or softness of the voice. When thinking of volume I picture a remote control’s

volume button for either a television or radio. The attractive voice will have moderate levels of all

of these aspects so as not to be too overbearing yet not too weak and frail of a voice.
 Following the description of vocal attractiveness the article described the vocal

attractiveness stereotype. This stereotype is based on the “what is beautiful is good” hypothesis.

The hypothesis states that attractive people are viewed more positively by others. The hypothesis

was continued as “what sounds beautiful is good” dealing with first impressions of voice.

Examples of this are when people with good voices are thought to be good people and have good

personalities. Research done by Diane Berry (1990, 1992, and Berry et al., 1994) found that

attractive voices were seen as powerful, strong, assertive, and dominant. One study looked at

different voice qualities and assessed how both genders with that quality were perceived. The voice

qualities are breathy, thin, flat, nasal, tense, throaty, and orotund. Overall men were seen more

favorably than women (Addington, 1968).

Research in this area was furtherer in a practical context when people were asked to call a

place of business expecting to talk to Chris Miller. They received the answering machine after

calling and heard either an internal excuse or external excuse. The study was therefore looking at

both vocal attractiveness and verbal content for perceptions of personality. The results were that

regardless of the type of excuse given, the vocally attractive message was seen as more

trustworthy, competent, likeable, and dominant (Smeic, Guerrero, Pulizzi, and Miller, 1995).

People also tend to develop a false sense of similarity with others who are vocally

attractive. This is important because if someone sees themselves as similar to someone else then

they are more likely to develop positive feelings about them. This also explains why people who

play the same sports, are on the same teams, or have other common interests seem to get along

well. A study on college students listening to others reading and determine how similar their own

behavior was to that of the reader. The participants found themselves more similar to vocally

attractive person. This demonstrates the fact that we want to be like people we like and do not want
to be like people we don’t like. We also tend to see vocally attractive people as more socially

skilled, knowing how to behave in social situations.

Most of the support for the vocal attractiveness stereotype was found when the vocal

channel was isolated and the person was not able to see the person with whom they were

“interacting”. When both physical and vocal attractiveness were viewed the support for this effect

were not as strong. Most of these studies do not look at the effect of vocal unattractiveness either.

The article does not further take into effect age and maturing view on vocal perceptions.

It is important to study this nonverbal code because people may judge based on your voice

and infer your personality, attitudes, and skills. Your vocals can also impact your perceived level

of competence in employment interviews. Learning of these effects help us to be aware of the way

we are being perceived as well as the way we are perceiving others. I want to be careful in knowing

this information so as not to let the way someone’s voice sounds to judge their levels of

competence or personality.