The Influence of Nasality of Voice on Sex-Stereotyped Perceptions

Men's and women's voices differ acoustically, and sex-stereotyped attributions are formed based on gender of voice. Recently it has been reported that men's voices are less nasal than women's voices, and that nasality of voice is inversely related to perceptions of persuasiveness. The present study was designed to determine whether nasality of voice affected sex-stereotyped perceptions. Audio tapes were created which contained the voices of 3 men and 3 women each speaking the same sentence at counterbalanced and comparable low, medium, and high levels of nasality as measured by nasalance scores. The voices were rated on 16 randomly presented adjectives by 30 male and 30 female listeners. The adjectives represented positive and negative female and male stereotypes. Ratings did not differ based on gender of listener. Nasality of voice contributed solely and interactively to sex-stereotyped perceptions.