Evidence for the reproduction of social class in brief speech

Abstract

Economic inequality is at its highest point on record and is linked to poorer health and well-being across countries. The forces that perpetuate inequality continue to be studied, and here we examine how a person’s position within the economic hierarchy, their social class, is accurately perceived and reproduced by mundane patterns embedded in brief speech. Studies 1 through 4 examined the extent that people accurately perceive social class based on brief speech patterns. We find that brief speech spoken out of context is sufficient to allow respondents to discern the social class of speakers at levels above chance accuracy, that adherence to both digital and subjective standards for English is associated with higher perceived and actual social class of speakers, and that pronunciation cues in speech communicate social class over and above speech content. In study 5, we find that people with prior hiring experience use speech patterns in preinterview conversations to judge the fit, competence, starting salary, and signing bonus of prospective job candidates in ways that bias the process in favor of applicants of higher social class. Overall, this research provides evidence for the stratification of common speech and its role in both shaping perceiver judgments and perpetuating inequality during the briefest interactions.

Inequality in People's Minds

“…From this view, individuals are seen as calculating Homo economicus, assessing inequality accurately and numerically, and then ostensibly acting on it. 2 As a result, research on perceptions of inequality revolves around quantifying people's numeric estimates of the scope of inequality in society-that is, "extracting the numbers from people's head"and comparing these estimates to actual indices of economic inequality (e.g., Chambers et al, 2014;Hoy & Mager, 2018;Kiatpongsan & Norton, 2014;Kraus et al, 2019;Norton & Ariely, 2011). The accuracy of these estimates has been heatedly debated, with researchers reaching somewhat different conclusions depending on the way these numbers were elicited (e.g., Eriksson & Simpson, 2012;Norton & Ariely, 2013).…”

“…Moreover, even cues that are attended to outside of conscious awareness can influence perceptions of inequality. For example, people can rapidly and accurately assess status hierarchies and form impressions about social class (Kraus & Keltner, 2009;Kraus, Park, & Tan, 2017;Kraus, Torrez, et al, 2019; In sum, both cognitive biases and individual differences influence the cues people attend to and retrieve when forming perceptions of inequality, both within and outside of conscious awareness. However, in order for these cues to influence how much inequality people perceive in society, people need to understand or comprehend these cues.…”

“…1 We note that researchers disagree about the direction of misestimation, with some work showing people tend to underestimate inequality (Kiatpongsan & Norton, 2014;Kraus et al, 2019;Norton & Ariely, 2011) while other work shows that people tend to overestimate inequality (Chambers et al, 2014;Eriksson & Simpson, 2012). However, some of these mixed findings may also stem from different conceptualizations and operationalizations of how perceptions of inequality are measured; see also our companion paper (Jachimowicz, Davidai et al, 2020).…”

A registered report on how implicit pro-rich bias is shaped by the perceiver's gender and socioeconomic status

“…In sum, findings from the literature on masculinity suggest that one reason why men may evaluate high SES more positively is because SES is communicated easily and publicly through various cues (e.g. posture, voice, clothing: [3,[72][73][74]) that convey control over social and financial capital. Publicly conveying such an image would be important for claiming, restoring and/or maintaining one's identity as a man [53].…”

“…Although education is associated with income, it can also be considered a reliable index of SES on its own [78] that is readily ascertained in social interactions (e.g. through speech: [72]). Education affords greater occupational opportunities [79][80][81] and upward economic mobility [82,83].…”