People Judge Your Intelligence Based on the Tone of Your Voice and How Fast You Speak

Psychology Productivity Health More Psychology People Judge Your Intelligence Based on the Tone of Your Voice and How Fast You Speak Ian Lee Ian Lee is a freelance writer for hire specializing in the areas of business, finance, and economics. Full Bio Do you want people to think you are intelligent? Has someone ever told you “You’re much smarter than you look.”? No doubt it can sting to be perceived as less intelligent, particularly when you never had a chance to showcase your intellect in the first place! And while this might be a social inconvenience, it can be a huge setback when it comes to your career. If you walk into a job interview and the first impression the interviewer has of you is ‘not very intelligent’, what are the chances of you getting that job? Enough said. It’s Your Voice That Matters Most But what determines whether or not someone perceives you as intelligent at first glance? If you ask a person off the street, they would likely highlight looks and conversational skills as the main factors. But science shows otherwise. In a study 1 published in the Journal of Psychological Science, MBA students from the University of Chicago were videotaped giving pitches on why they should be hired. Prospective employers and professional recruiters were then given three options: viewing the video, listening to the audio, or reading a transcript. Here’s what the study concluded: “These evaluators rated a candidate as more competent, thoughtful, and intelligent when they heard a pitch rather than read it and, as a result, had a more favorable impression of the candidate and were more interested in hiring the candidate. Adding voice to written pitches, by having trained actors or untrained adults read them, produced the same results. Adding visual cues to audio pitches did not alter evaluations of the candidates. For conveying one’s intellect, it is important that one’s voice, quite literally, be heard.” To summarize, when it comes to first impressions on intelligence, looks don’t matter; your voice does. The reason behind this finding is attributed 2 to human evolution; our voices are tools that have been carefully honed for communication. In text, paralinguistic cues that provide critical information about a speaker’s intelligence and thoughtfulness are lost. 3 Keys To Making a Good First Impression Now that you know how important your voice is in making a good first impression, let’s take a look at the keys in making a good first impression. Use a lower pitch and vocal inflection. People associate a high pitched tone with nervousness or childishness. You want to do the opposite; deliberately lower your vocal pitch. This projects both confidence and maturity. You also want to avoid the use of ‘uptalk’, which is a rising vocal inflection at the end of your sentences. Uptalk, combined with a high pitched tone will only amplify people’s perception of you as nervous or childish. Further, people who use uptalk are perceived as being less knowledgeable; regardless of actual content. Be careful of using too much downward vocal inflection or ‘downtalk’, however. Overuse of this can make you come across as rude or confrontational. Avoid Filler Words Filler words, sometimes called vocal crutches, are words such as “ah”, “um”, “like”, “so”, “you know” and other similar phrases. And while everybody uses filler words, overusing them makes you appear to lack confidence and competence. To avoid using filler words, you must first be aware of your use of them. Communications expert Lisa B. Marshall suggests 3 people record themselves in conversations and listen to the recordings five minutes a day for two weeks. It is better to substitute silence for these fillers; verbal pauses, even when overused, only serve to increase a speaker’s credibility. Another option is to join your local Toastmasters club; every meeting has a designated ‘Ah Counter’ 4 whose job it is to record each speaker’s vocal crutches. Speak Faster Not too fast, of course, or they won’t understand a word you’re saying. Nevertheless, faster speakers are perceived to be more confident, according to a study conducted at Brigham Young University. Lisa also notes that the ideal speaking rate 5 is about 150 words per minute, which is also the recommended speed for audio books. Avoiding the use of filler words will naturally quicken your speech but you can also practice faster speech through a few reading drills. Practice reading a text out loud at varying speeds: Start by reading it a normal speed, then try to slowly increase the speed on each subsequent repetition. Read it backwards for extra challenge so you won’t be pausing o take extra time to think about what you are saying out loud. Use tongue twisters: Not just for children, and great for warming up before a presentation as well. If you have trouble enunciating words beginning with a certain alphabet, find tongue twisters starting with said alphabet. For instance, if you have trouble pronouncing words beginning with the letter ‘P’ then go with the classic “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers/ A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked/ If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers/ Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?” Insert words in a passage when reading out loud: Add in arbitrary prepositions such as ‘and’ or ‘the’ when reading a passage out loud. This will force you to read without thinking what it means. Further, it will also give your speech a certain rhyme and diction that translates well to other fast speaking situations. Here’s an example: the phrase “the fox jumped over the fence” can become “the and fox and jumped the over and the and fence” Recommended for You Most People Fail to Leave a Good Impression Because They Focus on the Wrong Things Revealed: Body Language That Makes You Attractive at Work and in Dating How to Learn Smart and Become a Quick Learner References [1] Sage Journals: The Sound of Intellect [2] Harvard Business Review: The Science of Sounding Smart [3] The New York Times: So, Um, How Do You, Like, Stop Using Filler Words? [4] Toastmasters International: Ah-counter [5] Lisamarshall.com: How Fast Do I Speak? About Lifehack Lifehack is about helping you improve your life through efficient and comprehensive learning. By leveraging the vast amount of knowledge available to us, we explore and present a wide variety of content catered to encouraging individual growth and solving problems. Learn more about our mission What’s Popular now? Poor Sleep Quality Comes from All the Things You Do Since Morning Warren Buffett Says Most People End up Being Average Because They Don't Keep This List Keep A "Friend Bank" So You Can Maintain The Right Kind Of Friendship! How I Become Creative by Spending 10 Minutes a Day to Exercise My Brain Muscle See How You Don't Have To Start Your Weight Loss Journey Sweaty! Recommended for You A Powerful Learning Approach That Smart Students Use to Learn Fast and Get Great Results 50 Soft Skills for Lifelong Happiness and Success Don't Focus on Happiness. Focus on Self Actualization 10 Personality Disorders Many of Us Aren't Aware Of Learn More About Psychology Why We Lose Motivation Once in a While and How to Fix It Forever What Is Love and What Is Not 50% of Marriages Ends up in Divorce, Is It That Hard to Save a Marriage? Get the most interesting ideas of Lifehack in your inbox for free! Scroll down for the next article Why Pursuing Happiness Will Make You End up Being Unhappy Psychology Why Pursuing Happiness Will Make You End up Being Unhappy Leon Ho Leon Ho is the Founder and CEO of Lifehack, which he started in 2005 as a way to share his personal productivity hacks to make life easier. Full Bio When we talk about happiness, we think about staying happy all the time – every single day, every single minute with zero negativity. We try to pursue this constant state of “happiness” as our goal, and avoid anything that may take it away from us. But what is the meaning of this type of “happiness”? It’s like your favorite food. The more you have of it doesn’t always mean the better. On the contrary, when you only have a chance to eat it sparingly, that’s when you really savor every bite of it. So is it the food itself that makes you happy, or is it how valuable it is to you when you are eating it? We should always remember that only by experiencing sadness do we understand what it is to be happy. Assuming others are always happy is the biggest misunderstanding of happiness. Most people see those who have seemingly perfect lives and assume they are happy all the time. Since childhood, we are conditioned to chase the idea of “happily-ever-after” that we see in fairytales. On social media, everyone tends to share only the best looking aspects of their lives (including ourselves). So it’s very easy to have a distorted view of what “happiness” is around us. In reality, there is always something missing, something lacking, or something unpleasant. No one has a perfect life. Even the most glamorous celebrities or the richest billionaires, everyone has their own set of challenges and problems. When we feel negative, we’re only focusing on a small fluctuating curve. As CEO of Lifehack, I’ve had to deal with countless problems, and some of them felt like real setbacks at the time. During those moments, it really seemed like these problems would be the life or death of my company and my life goals. But I got through them, and weeks, months and eventually years passed with many more ups and downs. You need to keep your sights on the extended curve. Looking back now, a lot of those “really big” problems at the time seem like only small blips in a long line of experiences. Recalling them in my mind now makes me smile! Stop trying to be happy. Just be. It’s natural to want to be happy as often as possible. So what can we do? First, throw away the belief that a perfect life means happiness. Personally, I would be miserable if everything was perfect. It’s from experiencing the pains of lifelong challenges that drives us to care for others when they are experiencing the same trials. If life was perfect, you wouldn’t be able to empathize. If life was perfect, you wouldn’t grow. To be truly happy, stop chasing permanent happiness. It sounds like a paradox. What I mean is, accept that there will be ups and downs throughout life. Gracefully understand that happiness is a fluctuation of positive and negative events. Understand the importance of gratitude. Instead of focusing on the unpleasant moment right now, flash back your memory to when you had or didn’t have something. I like to think about my career, for example. When I didn’t have a career I was passionate about, I felt lost and demotivated. I felt like everyone was figuring out their lives but me. But when I found my purpose and started Lifehack, I was deeply happy, even before I realized I would be successful! This memory keeps me going when there are tough spots. It takes the darkness to make us grateful for the light. Happiness and sadness exist together What it all comes down to is this: your life will be filled with beautiful, happy and incredible moments. Happy tears and joyous shouts and funny stories. But your life will also be filled with rain and storms that don’t ever seem to pass when you’re going through them. But whether your face is warmed by the sunshine, or your heart is dampened by the rain, know that it’s all part of the ebb and flow of life. Treasure the happy moments and power through the sad ones. Don’t try to avoid “sad” or “negative” experiences, and blindly chase being “happy”. In the end you will achieve a true level of contentment in your life, based on meaningful experiences and achievements. Being able to create growth and meaning out of both positive and negative events — that is the true meaning of “happiness”. References Featured photo credit: InsideOut via facebook.com About Lifehack Lifehack is about helping you improve your life through efficient and comprehensive learning. By leveraging the vast amount of knowledge available to us, we explore and present a wide variety of content catered to encouraging individual growth and solving problems. Learn more about our mission What’s Popular now? Poor Sleep Quality Comes from All the Things You Do Since Morning Warren Buffett Says Most People End up Being Average Because They Don't Keep This List Keep A "Friend Bank" So You Can Maintain The Right Kind Of Friendship! How I Become Creative by Spending 10 Minutes a Day to Exercise My Brain Muscle See How You Don't Have To Start Your Weight Loss Journey Sweaty! Recommended for You 50 Soft Skills for Lifelong Happiness and Success 100 Inspirational Quotes That Will Make You Love Life Again Shortcut to Happiness Happiness: The Thing We All Look For But Never Really Understand Learn More About Psychology There's No Perfect Family, but a Happy Family Doesn't Need to Be Perfect Is an Extrovert Really Happier Than an Introvert? Let's Look at the Research Findings People Judge Your Intelligence Based on the Tone of Your Voice and How Fast You Speak Get the most interesting ideas of Lifehack in your inbox for free! Feedback