As voters vacillate among the contenders for the Republican nomination, it may matter less what the candidates say than how they sound when they say it. Because a new study shows that voters are more likely to prefer the candidate with the deeper voice.
正当选民们在共和党总统提名的竞争者之间摇摆不定时,如今这些候选人说的是什么已不重要了,重要的是他们说话的声音。因为一项新研究表明,选民更青睐于声音低沉的候选人。
Previous studies have suggested that voters might go for the baritone over the tenor. But those experiments used recordings of former U.S. presidents, which meant that volunteer listeners might have recognized the speakers and voted along party lines.
以往的研究表明,选民更容易投票给具有男中音而非男高音的候选人。但是,这项研究试验使用的是美国往届总统的录音,这意味着志愿者听众们可能已经识别出了是谁的声音,并且他们的选择会因此而受到党派路线的影响。
In this study, researchers played subjects a pair of anonymous voices and asked which they would elect: “I urge you to vote for me this November” or “I urge you to vote for me this November.”
在这项研究中,研究人员播放了两个匿名者的声音:“我恳请你们在今年十一月投我一票。”看看志愿者听众们到底会选谁。
Okay, the recordings they used were no doubt less comical. But voters went with the overnight DJ hands down, results that appear in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
好吧,试验所使用的录音毫无疑问不是那些滑稽的声音。但选民们轻而易举地就选择了DJ似的声音。这项结果刊登在《皇家学会学报》上。
So why do we tend to elect Orson Welles over Pee Wee Herman? Deep voices may strike some primal chord, giving the impression of strength and competence. So candidates take heed: it’s great to wave the stars and stripes, but what’s really key is your set of pipes.
那么,为什么我们倾向于选择奥森-威尔斯而不是皮-威-赫尔曼?低沉的声音可能会触动一些原始和弦,给人的印象是实力和能力。因此,各位候选人要注意了:挥舞星条旗固然正确,但个中关键是注意你们的嗓音。