The Effect of Voice Pitch on Impression Formation of Party Leaders:

An Experiment using Speeches of the Debate by Political Leaders

Abstract

This study sheds light on the effect of non-verbal information on impression for politician, and tested whether voice pitch influenced perceptions of politicians. In the experiment, we manipulated voice pitch of recordings of the debate by nine political party leaders and asked participants their impressions (favorableness and trustworthiness). We found that while lower-pitched voices increase favorableness and trustworthiness in politicians' image, higher-pitched voices negatively effect on these images, particularly on trustworthiness.