Gender-Ambiguous Voices and Social Disfluency.
Psychol Sci
; 35(5): 543-557, 2024 May.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38620057
ABSTRACT
Recently, gender-ambiguous (nonbinary) voices have been added to voice assistants to combat gender stereotypes and foster inclusion. However, if people react negatively to such voices, these laudable efforts may be counterproductive. In five preregistered studies (N = 3,684 adult participants) we found that people do react negatively, rating products described by narrators with gender-ambiguous voices less favorably than when they are described by clearly male or female narrators. The voices create a feeling of unease, or social disfluency, that affects evaluations of the products being described. These effects are best explained by low familiarity with voices that sound ambiguous. Thus, initial negative reactions can be overcome with more exposure.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Voice
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Language:
En
Journal:
Psychol Sci
Journal subject:
PSICOLOGIA
Year:
2024
Type:
Article