Hypothesis and Methodology
The proposed research paper will focus on the social psychology, specifically on the topic of how deep voices can influence an individual’s perception of another person (i.e. the speaker). This can be assessed in both public and private and formal and informal settings. The rationale behind the decision of choosing this topic is the fact that society puts a lot of weight into figures of authority.
It is commonly perceived that the deeper a person’s voice is, the more authoritarian that person is. In some cases, the depth of voice is associated with personality types (i.e. how serious a person tends to be) and attractiveness (based on the notion that the more authoritarian a person is, the more attractive he becomes). It is important to note that these facts and notions from previously published studies focuses mainly on the point of view of males.
That is a more authoritarian male tends to become more attractive to the opposite sex—whereas the quality or depth of voice is considered an independent variable that affects how authoritarian one’s voice is. Voices are like handshakes; they are both unique and memorable. A deep voice, like a firm handshake, can leave the person in the receiving end in awe.
In the article Human Vocal Attractiveness as Signaled by Body Size Projection, the authors argued that voice is a secondary sexual characteristic that may also be used to determine how attractive a person may be. The participants were selected using randomized controlled sampling. They were representative of a larger population of each of the two genders. The participants were assigned based into two groups that are based on gender (i.e. female vs. male voice). They both started out the same but the stimuli they were exposed to were different. There were so far no biases in the study because the participants were blinded and were allowed to undergo the same set of procedures. The researchers have done enough blinding procedures to make sure every procedure is equal. The researchers also followed the APA guidelines properly in doing the research, the independent variable was the tone of voice and the dependent variable was the perception generated by the participants after hearing the tone of voice. One key finding in that article suggests that males that have lower voices tend to attract more women, while women with breathy voices are preferred by men. The authors of that article recognized that it is not clear why voices may carry weight in the process of determining how attractive a person can be and this is how this can be used in this paper.
In another study entitled towards a more Nuanced View of Vocal Attractiveness, the authors examined how voice can be used as a tool to determine a male and a female’s level of attractiveness. The results of the study showed that acoustic-phonetic features indeed has a correlation with sexual dimorphism, apparent health and youthfulness, although this relationship was found out to be more complex than expected.
In that study, what the author tries to validate is not the complexity of this relationship or clearly define the ground rules on how voice can be related to one’s level of attractiveness. The participants were selected using randomized controlled sampling. They were also assigned into two groups, each representative of their respective gender. They were also made to start from the same conditions but the stimuli used to determine the effects of the tone of voice on attractiveness and perceptions were different. This was just the right thing to do in this experimental setting and nothing could have been done to improve the outcome aside from increasing the size of the sample population. The researchers also followed the APA guidelines correctly. The independent variable was also the tone of voice of the respondents and the dependent variable was the perception on attractiveness generated as a result of being exposed to the respondents’ voices. The authors found that there was indeed a correlation between voice characteristics and perceptions on attractiveness. This makes it relevant to the current study in that it also discusses the same conceptual framework involving the two variables.
This paper will make use of a quantitative descriptive research design. A group of respondents would be recruited. The target size of the sample population would be 20. They will be grouped into two based on gender. Ideally, there should be 10 males and 10 females aged between 18 and 30 years old. The target population would be students from the Southern New Hampshire University. The participants will be randomly selected in order to eliminate any form of social or cultural bias when it comes to speaking.
For the male group, 5 of them should have a deep tone of voice. The remaining 5 should have an average to a shallow tone of voice (similar to that of a female). For the female group, on the other hand, 5 of them should have a deep tone of voice (similar to that of male) while the remaining 5 should have a breathy low tone of voice (based on what was found to be attractive for men according to the literatures reviewed). The two groups will be made to interact with each other by having each group listen to the voices of the other group and then vice versa. They would then be asked to rate the level of attractiveness of the person they are listening to using the voice of that person as the only basis.
After the listening phase, the identities of the speaker will be revealed to each other so that the listeners (i.e. the raters from the other group) would be able to validate their claims. The hypothesis of this paper suggests that a person can determine the attractiveness of a person based on the quality, depth, or tone of his or her voice. So, in order to verify this, all participants from both groups would be asked one question only.
This question would only be revealed after the verification process wherein they will meet the person whose voice they listened to and rated. By that time, it is assumed that all members of the two groups would have verified their claims already—that the person whom they rated 10 in the attractiveness scale after having listened to that person’s voice indeed merits a score of 10 upon meeting that person. Given the nature of how the research would be carried out, it would be a survey type of research more than a case study.
Each of the 20 participants will be asked whether they think that the voice of the person they listed to indeed correlate to how attractive they were in person or not, based on their personal findings. For this study, only the research participants would be blinded because the researchers would have to be able to interview each potential participant prior to the start of the implementation phase.
It is important to note that a large part of this study’s outcomes would depend on the individual participant’s (from the two groups, male and female) perceptions. Therefore, it will be highly subjective. As the author of this paper, objective means to determine whether a person is attracted to another person or not such as determination of heart rate and blood pressure, among other means, would not be included.
The only determinant that will be used would be the participant’s reports on whether they were attracted to the voice (and later on the physical appearance) of the members of the other group or otherwise. This way, the variables could be reduced into two namely the voice of the person and his or her level of attractiveness based on other people’s perceptions. This, as a result, directly answers the research question on whether there is indeed a correlation between a person’s voice and attractiveness.
In line with the American Psychological Association’s principles of ethics, the identity of the participants in this study will be protected. Any information that they will disclose to the researchers will not be revealed to any third party entity. They will also be fully informed about the steps and procedures that they will undergo prior to the start of the implementation phase.
References
Babel, M., McGuire, G., & King, J. (2014). Towards a More Nuanced View of Vocal Attractiveness. Plos One.
Lee, A., Wu, W., Liu, X., & Birkholz, P. (2013). Human Vocal Attractiveness as Signaled by Body Size Projection. Plos One, http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0062397.
