Replication Data for: Persistence of Voice Pitch Bias Against Policy Differences

Voters evaluate politicians not just on their policy positions and partisanship, but also on how they look and sound. But to what extent might these latter characteristics be traded for a more preferable policy stance? In this paper, we use an online experiment to study the relative effect on voter behavior of candidate voice pitch and policy differences between candidates. We first demonstrate a strong voice pitch bias: in an election between candidates who are identical in every aspect but voice pitch, voters are significantly more likely to choose the one with the lower voice pitch. Voice pitch bias is higher in elections between men than women candidates. We then introduce a novel phenomenon. Persistence of voice pitch bias is the amount of policy difference needed to compensate for voice pitch bias. While persistence is also gender-dependent, the effect is now reversed: voice pitch bias is more persistent in elections between women than men candidates. Finally, as a possible mechanism we show that voters perceive candidates with a lower voice pitch as more competent and trustworthy. Our findings are robust against voters’ gender and other socio-economic characteristics.

选民对政客的评价不仅基于其政策立场与党派倾向，还会考量其外在形象与言谈发声特征。那么，这类非政策属性在多大程度上可通过更优的政策立场进行权衡？本文通过线上实验，探究候选人语调音高与候选人间政策差异对选民投票行为的相对影响。研究首先证实了显著的音高偏见：在除语调音高外各项属性完全一致的候选人竞选中，选民显著更倾向于选择语调更低沉的候选人，且该偏见在男性候选人之间的选举中程度更高。随后本文提出一项新颖的研究现象——音高偏见持续性，即抵消该音高偏见所需的政策差异幅度。尽管该持续性同样存在性别差异，但影响方向恰好相反：在女性候选人参与的选举中，音高偏见的持续性更强。最后，本文揭示了潜在作用机制：选民会将语调更低沉的候选人感知为更具能力且更值得信赖。本研究结论在选民性别与其他社会经济特征的不同分组下均保持稳健。