Understanding how people detect social class from speech requires taking a cultural psychological perspective

Abstract

In “Evidence for the reproduction of social class in brief speech,” Kraus et al. (1) present a series of 5 compelling studies showing that perceivers can detect the social class of speakers at above-chance rates. They further demonstrate that perceivers infer the social class of speakers by comparing their speech to “ideal speech standards.” Although perceivers were able to detect targets’ social class in either spoken or written text, this detection was most likely to occur for spoken text. This suggests that, over and above content, some cues specific to verbal transmission (e.g., pronunciation or accent) signal social class. In addition, perceivers not only infer social class from little information, but they also use this categorization to make judgments about a potential job candidate’s fit and competence. Going beyond prior work suggesting that perceivers can detect social class (2, 3), the current studies make 3 important theoretical contributions. First, the authors provide evidence that one informational mechanism for detecting social class from speech is comparing that speech to ideal speech standards conveyed by educational and societal norms (1). Second, the current studies document that social class detection does not require an actual social interaction, or even a conversation between 2 people, and can be detected in as few as 7 words. Third, this research links social class detection to its consequences for social class stereotypes about fit and competence, and to downstream outcomes such as hiring (4). Kraus et al.’s (1) work is practically important because it suggests that directly communicating specific social class cues in social interactions or interviews (e.g., sailing or a first-generation student group; ref. 3) is not necessary to detect social class. Their findings further suggest that organizational attempts to blind resumes (e.g., by removing informational cues of social class) are unlikely to conceal … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: n-stephens{at}kellogg.northwestern.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1