Speaking style and candidate evaluations

Abstract

ABSTRACT I examine how a politician’s speaking style influences how voters evaluate the candidate. I argue that, above and beyond the content of the message, how a candidate conveys the message has important effects for voter evaluations of the candidate. I focus on two speaking styles: a powerful, straightforward and direct speaking style, and a powerless style, marked by hesitations, hedging and questions. Using original experimental data, I find that candidates who adopt a powerful speaking style in a debate are evaluated more favorably than those with a powerless speaking style. I also find that this effect is somewhat dependent upon the speaker’s gender – women are penalized more than men for adopting a powerless speaking style. Among female participants, the gender gap in evaluations is eliminated for women who adopt a powerful, but not a powerless, speaking style. Among male participants, however, the gender gap exists regardless of speaking style. I additionally find that powerless speaking style makes candidates more likely to be interrupted in the 2016 Presidential primary debates.