Wednesday, January 23, 2013  Speaking Science: To lead, aim
low...with your voice  If your voice is low, the votes are
yours. That's essentially what Casey Klofstad found out last
year, when the University of Miami political scientist teamed up
with a few biologists to analyze how differently-pitched voices
might affect an candidate's electability. In their experiment,
they found that both men and women preferred to cast their
fictional ballots for low-pitched voices saying, "I urge you to
vote for me in November."  We've known for a while that
listeners tend to think deeper, low-pitch voices sound more
competent and trustworthy, and the political experiment seemed
to bear that out. But men, of course, are both more likely to
have low-pitch voices and hold political office. So Klofstad
wondered whether this preference would hold when the office in
question was one typically associated with women.  In the United
States, the president of a school's parent-teacher organization
and school board member are two suc