Cheating in the Voice
If you are a man with a voice like Barry White or a woman with a voice that can reach the high notes of Mariah Carey, prepare to be viewed with some suspicion by your romantic partner!
This doctor has studied voice-related issues between a man's voice and his reproductive fitness, women's fluctuations in their voice pitch as a function of whether they are attracted to a man, and finally the relationship between a man's voice and his physical strength. Clearly, much can be divulged by listening to individuals' voices.
A research paper explored the relationship between voice pitch and ascriptions of likely sexual infidelity. The theoretical justifications stem from the fact that men's and women's voice pitches are correlated to testosterone and estrogen, respectively. Furthermore, men and women with known higher levels have been linked with a greater likelihood of sexual infidelity, a greater number of sexual partners.
In an experiment nine men and as many women read a short script. Their voices were manipulated to make them more feminized or masculinized.
A larger group of men and women were then asked to listen to pairs of voices and choose which of the two corresponded to the individual most likely to engage in sexual infidelity.
Unbeknownst to the participants, the target pairs stemmed from the same individual. In other words, a participant would hear the masculinized and feminized voices orginating from the same individual and make a forced choice. They also had to choose which of the two voices was more attractive to them.
In the findings men and women both claim to be able to spot the fox in the others’ voices. Yet, men and women, both, could not the see the snake in the grass among their own genders.
In the end, voice attractiveness ratings were not correlated with attributions of the likelihood to cheat, among both. In other words, ascriptions of likelihood to cheat, based on voice pitch, are not driven by individual differences in preferences for particular voice types.
Psychology Today
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