You are how you speak: The roles of vocal pitch and semantic cues in shaping social perceptions.

Social perceptions of speakers are influenced by their voice information, including vocal characteristics and semantic content. Our study investigated how individuals' warmth- and competence-related perceptions of speakers were affected by vocal pitch levels (i.e., high/low) and three kinds of semantic cues (i.e., prosocial, antisocial, and neutral) simultaneously. We have three key findings. First, antisocial cues negatively affected social perceptions, regardless of speakers' gender. However, prosocial cues did not have positive impacts on evaluations of speakers because ratings were similar between prosocial cues and neutral cues. Second, female vocal pitch mattered for warmth-related perceptions but not for competence-related perceptions. The role of semantic cues should be additionally considered when investigating the impact of male vocal pitch on these perceptions. For example, higher-pitched men in prosocial contexts were perceived as warmer, while low-pitched men in antisocial contexts were judged as more competent. Third, the connection between vocal pitch and two kinds of perceptions showed an opposite trend, in which high pitch was related to more warmth but less competence, while the low pitch was associated with less warmth but more competence. These findings extend the understanding of the role of vocal pitch in the formation of stereotypes of strangers in different semantic contexts.

Body weight contingent self-worth predicts depression in adolescent girls: The roles of self-esteem instability and interpersonal sexual objectification.

This 3-year longitudinal study examined the extent to which body weight contingent self-worth (CSW) predicted depressive symptoms in 439 adolescent girls and the roles of unstable self-esteem and interpersonal sexual objectification in this association. Half-longitudinal mediation showed that the indirect effect of body weight CSW on depression via instability of self-esteem was significant. Prior levels of body weight CSW predicted increases in unstable self-esteem, which predicted increments in depressive symptoms over time. However, earlier levels of depression did not significantly predict increases in self-esteem instability. Moderation analyses indicated that the indirect effect was conditional upon individuals' experience of interpersonal sexual objectification. The positive link between body weight CSW and unstable self-esteem was stronger in girls who experienced more interpersonal sexual objectification. The direct effect of body weight CSW on depression was also moderated by interpersonal sexual objectification. Taken together, basing self-worth on body weight appears to be a risk factor for depression through its association with unstable self-esteem in adolescent girls and sexually objectifying experiences serve to exacerbate the connection between body weight CSW and adverse outcomes.