Speech style and perceived power, competence, credibility and uncertainty in a simulated employment interview

This study investigated links between powerful/powerless speech style and listeners' perceptions of a speaker's power, competence, credibility, and uncertainty. Linear scales of powerful/powerless speech style were developed, and the psychological distance between levels of powerful/powerless speech style was determined. Using previous research as a guide, five levels of speech style were defined in terms of hedges, hesitations, and questioning intonations. Tape recordings were made of a standard script of a job interview that used five combinations of hedges, hesitations, and question intonation forms to be used by the job applicant. One male portrayed the interviewer on all tapes. Two sets of five tapes were made, each with a different male as the job applicant. Participants listened to six pairs of tapes and judged which of each pair sounded more powerful, more competent, more credible, and more uncertain. Each tape was paired with every other tape and each pair was rated forty-eight times. Participants' ratings were analyzed using the paired comparisons method. Four scales of powerful/powerless speech style were generated using the participants' judgments of power, competence, credibility, and uncertainty. As the number of hedges, hesitations, and question intonation forms increased, scale values of powerful/powerless speech style decreased.

The interval distances between the scale values were not equal even though the number of hedges, hesitations, and question intonation forms increased equally from script to script. Implications are discussed.