Perception of Multi-Cue Indexical Speech Leads to Amplified Stereotyping

Abstract

ABSTRACT Negative appraisals may stem from the identification of a social mismatch (i.e., expectation violation) of cues assumed by in-group characteristics, with out-group persons perceived more negatively. Few studies have focused on the compounding effects of multi-factor out-group socio-vocal cues that indexically mark social appraisals, potentially leading to reliance on stereotypes and thus heightened social stigmatization. A matched-guise technique was used to create two vocal socio-indexical cues to speaker identity (out-group accent; stuttering) that may independently garner negative social appraisal, increasing the likelihood of social stigmatization when they occur together. Digitally manipulated stuttered speech from two U.S. American accented male speakers (Northern; Southern) was presented to typically fluent U.S. Northern (USN) accented listeners in a computer mouse-tracking paradigm. Results indicated that while both accented speakers who had a pseudo-stutter were perceived negatively, the USN listeners tended to perceive the speaker with multiple out-group vocal cues (pSWS – U.S. Southern accented speaker who pseudo-stutters) more negatively relative to the speaker with one in-group and one out-group cue (pNWS – U.S. Northern accented speaker who pseudo-stutters). Findings suggest that individuals with multiple socio-indexical out-group cues may experience amplified negative appraisals through compounding effects of socio-indexical cue perception, which could lead to amplified stereotypes and discrimination in real-world contexts.