A new study suggests that a single "Hello" is enough to inform the other person about your personality. This provides evidence how quick people are in making judgments of a person just by hearing his voice.
Speakers are already aware that their tone of voice tells the audience their passion and sincerity of the topic. A monotone voice implies boredom and will make the audience think that the presentation was uninteresting. A lively voice, on the other hand, indicates passion and enthusiasm. Voice is very important because it also reveals our emotions and emphasizes the importance of our message.
Researchers from the Voice Neurocognition Laboratory, University of Glasgow, led by Phil McAleer, recruited 320 participants and have them do a recording for 64 seconds. They were also given an assessment to categorize their personalities. The researchers identified 10 personality traits: aggressiveness, attractiveness, competence, confidence, femininity, likeability, masculinity, trustworthiness, and warmth.
After categorizing the participants according to the personality test responses, they made them listen to the recordings and have those rank each based on the impression they get upon hearing "Hello."
Their analysis revealed that a higher pitch and tone of voice creates an impression of trustworthiness. A low pitch and tone, on the other hand, is perceived to be an aggressive person.
"It is amazing that from such short bursts of speech you can get such a definite impression of a person. And more so that, irrespective of whether it is accurate, your impression is the same as what the other listeners get," McAleer said to MedicalXpress.
"It is perhaps also consistent that we are most attuned to recognizing signs of trustworthiness and dominance, two traits that would have been central to our survival as we evolved,"he added.
This study was published in the March 12 issue of PLOS One.
