Voice has been neglected in research on advertising and persuasion. The present study examined the influence of voice and sex on the credibility of the voice source in a banking telemarketing context as well as with regards to the attitude toward the advertisement, and subjects' behavioral intention. An experiment using voices of a man and a woman was conducted. A recorded mock-telemarketing message consisted of an advertisement for an ATM card offered by a Canadian bank. Subjects were undergraduate students (N = 399; 71.6% women, 28.4% men; Mage = 26.5 yr., SD = 7.4). They completed a questionnaire after hearing the message in telemarketing conditions. Analysis indicated a moderate intensity, an unmarked intonation, and a fast speech rate are associated with a more credible source than the other combinations. Sex was not a significant moderator in the relationship between voice characteristics and source credibility. Voice characteristics significantly affected attitudes toward the advertisement and behavioral intention.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AndreansenN. (1981) Acoustic analysis: An objective measure of affective flattening. Archives of Genetic Psychiatry, 38, 281–285.
2.
AppleW.StreeterL. A.KraussR. M. (1979) The effects of pitch and speech rate on personal attributions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 715–727.
3.
ArnoldM. B. (1960) Emotion and personality.New York: Columbia Univer. Press.
4.
ArnoldB. (1961) Emotion and personality. In Gélinas-ChebatC.ChebatJ. C. (1991), Effects of two voice characteristics on the attitudes toward advertising messages. The Journal of Social Psychology, 132, 447–459.
5.
BarathA.CannellC. F. (1976) Effects of interviewer's voice intonation. Public Opinion Quarterly, 40, 370–373.
6.
BergerC. R.KellermannK. (1989) Personal opacity and social information gathering: Explorations in strategic communication. Communication Research, 16, 314–351.
7.
BerryD. S. (1990) Vocal attractiveness and vocal babyishness: Effects on strangers, self, and friend impressions. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 14, 141–153.
8.
BersheidE.WalsterE. (1974) Physical attractiveness. In WilsonE. J.SherrellD. L. (1993) Source effects in communication and persuasion research: A meta-analysis. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 21, 101–112.
9.
BradacJ. J.MulacA.HouseA. (1988) Lexical diversity and magnitude of convergent versus divergent style shifting: Perceptual and evaluative consequences. Language and Communication, 8, 213–228.
10.
BrookeM. E.NgHung S. H. (1986) Language and social influence in small conversation groups. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 5, 201–210.
11.
BrownB. L.StrongW. J.RencherA. C. (1974) Fifty-four voices from two: The effects of simultaneous manipulation of rate, mean fundamental frequency, and variance of fundamental frequency on ratings of personality from speech. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 55, 313–318.
12.
CantrillH.AllportG. W. (1971) The psychology of radio. In Gélinas-ChebatC.ChebatJ. C.BoivinR. (1999) Impact of male and female voice cues on consumers' attitudes in telemarketing. Actes du congrés de l'AFM, Montréal 2000.
13.
ChaikenS. (1979) Communicator physical attractiveness and persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1387–1397.
14.
ChattopadhyayA.DahlD. W.RitchieR. J. B.SahinK. N. (2003) Hearing voices: The impact of announcer speech characteristics on consumer responses to broadcast advertising. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 13, 198–204.
15.
EkmanP. (1988) Lying and nonverbal behaviour: Theoretical issues and new findings. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 12, 163–175.
16.
EricksonB.LindE.JohnsonB. C.O'BarrW. M. (1978) Speech style and impression formation in a court setting. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 14, 266–279.
17.
Gélinas-ChebatC.ChebatJ. C. (1992) Effects of two voice characteristics on the attitudes toward advertising messages. The Journal of Social Psychology, 132, 447–459.
18.
Gelinas-ChebatC.ChebatJ. C. (1999) Impact of voice on source credibility in advertising: A self-monitoring approach. North American Journal of Psychology, 1, 323–342.
19.
Gelinas-ChebatC.ChebatJ. C.BoivinR. (1999) Impact of male and female voice cues on consumers' attitudes in telemarketing. Actes du congrés de l'AFM, Montreál 2000.
20.
Gélinas-ChebatC.ChebatJ. C.VaninskiA. (1996) Voice and advertising: Effects of intonation and intensity of voice on source credibility, attitudes toward the advertising service and the intent to buy. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 83, 243–262.
21.
HaberstadtA. G. (1983) Family expressiveness styles and nonverbal communication skills. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 8, 14–26.
22.
HallJ. A. (1980) Voice tone and persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 924–934.
23.
HelfrichH.WallbottH. G. (1986) Contributions of the German expression of psychology to nonverbal behavior research. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 19, 187–204.
24.
HentonC. G. (1989) Fact and fiction in the description of female and male pitch. Language and Communication, 9, 299–311.
25.
HigginsM. B.SaxmanJ. H. (1991) A comparison of selected phonatory behaviors of healthy aged and young adults. Journal of Speech Research, 34, 1000–1010.
26.
KelmanH. C. (1961) Process of opinion change. Public Opinion Quarterly, 25, 57–78.
27.
KnappP. H. (1963) Expression of the emotions in man. In Gélinas-ChebatC.ChebatJ. C. (1992) Effects of two voice characteristics on the attitudes toward advertising messages. The Journal of Social Psychology, 132, 447–459.
28.
KramerC. (1977) Perceptions of female and male speech. Language and Speech, 20, 151–161.
29.
LaverJ. (1968) Voice quality and indexical information. British Journal for Disorders of Communication, 3, 43–54.
30.
LeeH. O.BosterF. J. (1992) Collectivism-individualism in perceptions of speech rate: A cross-cultural comparison. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 23, 377–388.
31.
LindE. A.O'BarrW. M. (1979) The social significance of speech in the courtroom. In Gélinas-ChebatC.ChebatJ. C. (1999) Impact of voice on source credibility in advertising: A self-monitoring approach. North American Journal of Psychology, 1, 323–342.
32.
LinkeC. E. (1973) A study of pitch characteristics of female voices and their relationship to vocal effectiveness. Folia Phoniatrica, 25, 173–185.
33.
LongG. T. (1988) The relationship of voice stress, anxiety, and depression to life events and personal styles variables. Social Behavior and Personality, 16, 133–145.
34.
McCroskeyJ. C. (1969) A summary of experimental research on the effects of evidence in persuasive communication. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 55, 169–176.
35.
MillerN.MaruyamaG.BeaberR. J.ValoneK. (1976) Speed of speech and persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 615–624.
36.
PageR. A.BallounJ. L. (1978) The effect of voice volume on the perception of personality. Journal of Social Psychology, 105, 65–72.
37.
PettyR. E.CacioppoJ. T. (1979) Issue involvement can increase or decrease persuasion by enhancing message-relevant cognitive responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1915–1926.
38.
PettyR. E.CacioppoJ. T.GoldmanR. (1981) Personal involvement as a determinant of argument-based persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 847–855.
39.
PittamJ. (1987a) Discrimination of five voice qualities and prediction to perceptual ratings. Phonetica, 44, 38–49.
40.
PittamJ. (1987b) The long-term spectral measurement of voice quality as a social and personality marker: A review. Language and Speech, 30, 1–12.
41.
PittamJ.GalloisC. (1987) Predicting impressions of speakers from voice quality: Acoustic and perceptual measures. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 5, 233–245.
42.
RedfieldJ.FriedrichP. (1978) Speech as a personality symbol. Language, 54263–288.
43.
RuggieriV.FrondaroliC. (1989) Styles of interpersonal contact and some prosodic features. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 68, 947–953.
44.
RuscelloD. M.LassN. L.PodbesekJ. (1988) Listeners' perceptions of normal and voice-disordered children. Folia Phoniatrica, 40, 290–296.
45.
SchererK. R. (1979) Personality markers in speech. In SchererK. R.GilesH. (Eds.), Social markers in speech.Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Univer. Press. Pp. 147–209.
46.
SchererK. R. (1988) Facets of emotions: Recent research.Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
47.
SchererK. R.HarveyL.JaredJ. W. (1973) The voice of confidence: Paralinguistics cues and audience evaluation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 7, 31–44.
48.
SimonsH. W.BerkowitzN. N.MoyerJ. (1970) Similarity, credibility, and attitude change: A review and theory. Psychological Bulletin, 73, 1–16.
49.
SmithB. I.BruceL. B.WilliamJ. S.AlvinC. R. (1973) Effects of speech rate on personality perceptions. Language and Speech, 18, 145–152.
50.
SmithS. M.ShafferD. R. (1991) Celebrity and cajolery: Rapid speech may promote or inhibit persuasion through its impact on message elaboration. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 663–669.
51.
SternthalB.PhillipsL. W.DholakiaR. (1978) The persuasive effect of source credibility: A situational analysis. Public Opinion Quarterly, 42, 285–314.
52.
TraunmüllerH. (1984) Articulatory and perceptual factors controlling the age and sex conditioned variability in format frequencies of vowels. Speech Communication, 3, 49–61.
53.
Van DommelenW. A. (1987) The contribution of speech rhythm and pitch to speaker recognition. Language and Speech, 30, 325–338.
54.
WeitzS. (1972) Attitude, choice, and behaviour: A repressed affect model of interracial interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 12–21.
55.
WilliamsC. E.StevensK. (1972) Emotions and speech: Some acoustical correlates. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 52, 1238–1250.
56.
WilsonE. J.SherrellD. L. (1993) Source effects in communication and persuasion research: A meta-analysis. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 21, 101–112.
57.
WoodallW. G.BurgoonJ. K. (1983) Talking fast and changing attitudes: A critique and clarification. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 8, 126–142.
58.
ZuckermanM.LarranceD.SpiegelN.KlormanR. (1981) Controlling nonverbal displays: Facial expressions and tone of voice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 17, 506–524.
