Voice

The Sound of Power: Conveying and Detecting Hierarchical Rank Through Voice 

Sei Jin Ko, Melody Sadler & Adam Galinsky
Psychological Science, forthcoming

Abstract: The current research examined the relationship between hierarchy and vocal acoustic cues. Using Brunswik’s lens model as a framework, we explored how hierarchical rank influences the acoustic properties of a speaker’s voice and how these hierarchy-based acoustic cues affect perceivers’ inferences of a speaker’s rank. By using objective measurements of speakers’ acoustic cues and controlling for baseline cue levels, we were able to precisely capture the relationship between acoustic cues and hierarchical rank, as well as the covariation among the cues. In Experiment 1, analyses controlling for speakers’ baseline cue levels found that the voices of individuals in the high-rank condition were higher in pitch and loudness variability but lower in pitch variability, compared with the voices of individuals in the low-rank condition. In Experiment 2, perceivers used higher pitch, greater loudness, and greater loudness variability to make accurate inferences of speakers’ hierarchical rank. These experiments demonstrate that acoustic cues are systematically used to reflect and detect hierarchy.

(Nod to Kevin Lewis)

Tracked it down....

I have been told several times an anecdote about Marx despairing of ever seeing a revolution in Germany. He supposedly recalled an incident where German workers failed to attend a demonstration because they had trouble with their tickets.

The joke being, if you are going to start a revolution against capitalism, WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' TICKETS!

Well, I tracked down the reference. It was STALIN, not Marx, in an interview with an unctuous German writer in 1931. Here is the money quote:


Ludwig: Do you not think that among the Germans as a nation love of order is more highly developed than love of freedom?

Stalin: There was a time when people in Germany did indeed show great respect for the law. In 1907, when I happened to spend two or three months in Berlin, we Russian Bolsheviks often used to laugh at some of our German friends on account of their respect for the law. There was, for example, a story in circulation about an occasion when the Berlin Social-Democratic Executive fixed a definite day and hour for a demonstration that was to be attended by the members of all the suburban organizations. A group of about 200 from one of the suburbs arrived in the city punctually at the hour appointed, but failed to appear at the demonstration, the reason being that they had waited two hours on the station platform because the ticket collector at the exit had failed to make his appearance and there had been nobody to give their tickets to. It used to be said in jest that it took a Russian comrade to show the Germans a simple way out of their fix: to leave the platform without giving up their tickets.... But is there anything like that in Germany now? Is there respect for the law in Germany today? What about the National Socialists, who one would think ought to be the first to stand guard over bourgeois legality? Do they not break the law, wreck workers' clubs and assassinate workers with impunity? I make no mention of the workers, who, it seems to me, long ago lost all respect for bourgeois legality. Yes, the Germans have changed quite a bit lately.

Nic Tideman and I are working on our Public Choice paper, and are writing about meta-rules. And this passage is interesting, because it shows that the same group of people can be constrained, and not constrained. It's all about the meta-rules.

Old School Reference: J. V. Stalin, Talk With the German Author Emil Ludwig, December 13, 1931. First Published: Bolshevik, April 30, 1932, No. 8. Source: Works, J.V. Stalin, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1955, Volume 13, pp. 106-25.

Adventures in State-Sponsored Autism

This post has two parts, the whiny Americentric part, and the more rational part.

WHINY AMERICENTRISM: Holy cow, is it ever strange walking around at the Bergkirchweih, or for that matter in any crowd in Franconia. You are, in the eyes and minds of everyone around you, a rock to avoided or elbowed aside. A complicated rock, because you are moving, but nonetheless a landscape feature without feelings or goals of your own.
So, suppose for example some lady is trying to push a stroller through a narrow space, holding a toddler in one hand and a backpack in the other. You, at the other end of the narrow space, stop and smile, indicating that she should come ahead (it's too narrow to pass each other.) Immediately the people behind will brush past, not even trying to avoid pushing you, and will walk through the narrow space. This will continue basically indefinitely. As far as they are concerned, unless they know the lady, or you, personally, you can just go screw.

Same thing at the grocery (yes, I used the Euro this time). If you leave a space, the person behind you will cut around you to take the space, even if you clearly trying to let someone past. After a while, I switched, and starting giving people the forearm myself. A little old lady tried to push past me, and I rammed her cart right into the bean cans. She didn't get mad, didn't say a thing.

It's like a pick-up basketball game, same rules. A really egregious foul would get you into a fight. But you don't call incidental contact, and "incidental" means no ambulance. And, in a pick-up basketball game, you would never tell your opponent, "you go ahead, I'll wait;" and then smile at them. But it is annoying to someone of Southern (southern US, not southern German) sensibilities. We tend to negotiate space, smile at each other, and even talk and laugh. It is considered actively rude here in Franconia to talk to someone unless you have been introduced. Asking for help is okay; that's the exception. But looking someone in the eye, smiling, talking: all way out of bounds.

RATIONAL PART: Fact is, I am the one being rude. These are the rules here; I can accept that, or leave. Trying to insist on my parochial conception of "manners" is actually pretty bizarre.

Look, the fact is that as long as everyone has the SAME expectations, and same conceptions of manners, it's all good. The problem is when you get a mix. Several times, I have caused minor bike-bump accidents when I slowed down to let someone in. No one, including the person being let in, expects that. And the fact is that they don't NEED to be let in. They are very skillful bike riders, and if the person merging just pushes in, the others accommodate skillfully and rapidly, though minimally. It goes much faster than the American system, where letting someone in is a courtesy, one that can be actively withheld. It would be rude here to EITHER (1) swerve to deny another bike a space, obviously and on purpose, OR (2) to slow down to let them in, making everyone else have to swerve unexpectedly. Think of the times in the US you have seen one car wave another car in, or obviously swerve to KEEP them from getting in. Neither of those things would happen here. And, when I think about it, I'm not sure but that this is a better system. (Though, they really should let the lady with the stroller, the kid, and the backpack through. I'm going to throw somebody through a fence if that happens again.)

So, *I* am the one being the jerk. When I think it over, I can see that that is clearly true. But it does take some getting used to, as others have noted.

Another example, from the US: Consider the "Pittsburgh Left Turn." Read this, for just a second, and then come back. Okay, got it?

Now, if a lot of people NOT from Pittsburgh are driving in Pittsburgh, there will be accidents. Who is being the jerk? Well, no one. The problem is a mix of cultures, and the consequent divergence of expectations and norms.

(I should acknowledge that NeanderBill told me about the Pittsburgh Left. And he knows from Left, I tell you).

Inspecting the mechanism

In a recent municipal election in Lexington OK, Marion McWhirter and Max Punneo saw their battle for the city council end in a tie (53-53). Neither man (and yes I have that right) chose to contest the vote:

"Though Punneo -- and McWhirter -- were offered the opportunity to contest the election and ask for a recount, Punneo said the $300 cost would have factored to about $3 per person. "There was no need for that, really," he said."

So how was the tie resolved?

"With a handful of election officials and media representatives watching, Lexington's incumbent city councilman Marion McWhirter held on to his seat Monday when his name was successfully drawn from a decorated hat box by Cleveland County Election Board Secretary Paula Roberts."

WTF, you ask??

""We're following the election law," Roberts said".

I wonder what the law says exactly. Does it specify using a hat box? A decorated hat box? Does it speak to the style of the decorations?

Oh and one more thing: Norm Coleman, you have a phone call!

Friday poetry corner

Here are two short poems I composed.

The first came out accidentally in an email to Mrs. Angus this morning:

"Me dejaste plantado sin un pinche centavo"


The second while ruminating on teaching econometrics IV:

"Thomas Bayes was no fool. He made up his very own rule. When you want the answer, don't tempt fate, derive the posterior and integrate"

Okay, Now I've Switched

I have to admit....I've switched sides. All of my sympathies are with ex-gov Blago now.

On the plus side, consider this: After the impeachment vote (59 Y -- 00 N)....

He vowed to, "keep fighting to clear my name," and added: "Give me a chance to show you that I haven't let you down."

"I love the people of Illinois today more than I ever have before," he said. And in a joking reference to Chicago's history of crooked politics, he reached down to a boy in the crowd of well-wishers and said: "I love you, man. You know, this is Chicago. You can vote for me. You're old enough."

That's juevos. Juevos Chicageros. The media claimed that he was showing his sense of humor. I submit: NO. He was totally serious.

On the sympathy side, consider this:

"He...is beneath the dignity of the state of Illinois. He is no longer worthy to be our governor," said Sen. Matt Murphy, a Republican from suburban Chicago.

You want to impeach the guy, okay. But...."beneath the dignity of the state of Illinois"? Holy cow. That's really an ugly thing to say. Kerner.....Rostenkowski ....Ryan? Dude! Blago is a housecat compared to thos tiges. And that's just in the last 40 years.

You Can't Even Trust Entertainment Shows Anymore

This is rather upsetting.

The charge never actually got below 20%. Why would they lie like that?

Where have you gone Connie Mack?

I don't really follow baseball that much. Way back in grad school we used to go to Cardinal games in St. Louis during the summer where bleacher seats were a couple bucks and the Cards were dominant and that was fun. This year, just for the soap opera-ness of it all, I'd like to see a Dodgers - Red Sox series with Manny hitting around 10 dingers to win it.

One thing I do know about baseball though is that managers are dumb. Take Terry Francona last night. His starter pitches 7 stellar shutout innings but he takes him out to start the 8th to bring in a guy that is just not as good (but is left-handed). This guy (Okajima?) gives up a 2 out walk and then in comes a skinny guy with weird socks who gives up another walk, a wild pitch, and then a 2 out game tying single. This kid had pitched 3 1/3 innings in this series and given up 4 hits and 2 walks up to this point.

Lucky for the Sox that the Angels manager helped bail them out with a "suicide squeeze" play later in the game. Hey Mike Scioscia, why do you think they call it what they call it?

People, what exactly is the externality / market failure that lets baseball managers be so very very bad?

Crazy things I tell myself

I actually worked up the nerve to say this at dinner last night with colleagues and this week's seminar speaker, Matt Harding:

"Y'know, I think there's a better chance that Greenspan will go down in history as the worst Fed chair than that Bush will go down in history as the worst president."

Really, I do.

Here is a fun Greenie slam that includes this great quote from April 2005:

“Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately. These improvements have led to rapid growth in subprime mortgage lending.”

HA!

Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength

George Miller and his buds on the Education and Labor Committee should be commended for having read their Orwell. How else to explain that their bill outlawing secret ballots for votes on whether a shop becomes unionized is titled "The Employee Free Choice Act".

Even George F. McGovern understands that the bill actually reduces free choice (and surely that is the actual intent of its sponsors as well, no?). "Under EFCA, workers could lose the freedom to express their will in private, the right to make a decision without anyone peering over their shoulder, free from fear of reprisal".

People, I have worked in a union shop as a union member and have even been a (minor) official in the union (the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers IBEW). While the Union was, in my judgment, a net plus for us workers, it was heavy handed in demanding that everyone toe the official line.

Bottom line: The secret ballot should be used MORE in union decision making, not less.

And now for something completely different

As a way to learn and then retain our Spanish language skilz, Mrs. Angus and I often watch telenovelas. One thing that always baffled me was, if someone, no matter how shady, filed a written charge against another person, that person went straight into custody. Presumed guilty. We were told by our Chilango friends that this portrayal didn't stretch the truth too far.

But now, thing may be changing as the Mexican Congress has voted to enshrine the presumption of innocence into the Constitution:

Mexican lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a sweeping judicial reform that would introduce public, oral trials and guarantee the presumption of innocence... President Felipe Calderón praised the measure, which would replace closed-door proceedings where judges rely on written evidence with U.S.-style open trials based on arguments presented by prosecutors and defense lawyers.

"Changing from an inquisitorial system, like the one Mexico has today, to an adversarial system based on oral trials, as are used in the American justice system, will provide much greater transparency, much more agility in the administration of justice," Calderón told a meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce.

Interesting. Maybe Barry Bonds and Roger Clemons should get their cases moved south of the border!

Bosses Don't Wear Bunny Slippers

New essay on EconLib.

You like, you not like. Let me know!

Whither the Fed?

Over at Economist's View, Mark Thoma asks if anything bad could come from the Bernanke Fed's seeming commitment to an "appease the markets" policy rule:

"I've been thinking about the way in which the Fed has been validating the expectations of financial markets when it makes rate decisions recently, or at least has appeared to do so, and wondering about the features of such a policy (whether or not expectation validation actually characterizes the Fed's behavior).

I've been asking around, and I don't know of a model that actually shows this, but it seems like continuous validation of financial market expectations could lead to unstable paths for the economy, at least over some time frame. If that is in fact a worry, and I think it is, then the question becomes how to avoid it."

This is exactly why I've been urging the Fed not to cut again on Tuesday. In my view, we cannot afford to have, or be perceived to have, a complete pander to the markets monetary policy. The Fed has to let people know: "Hey, we are independent. We don't just lick our finger and stick it up in the air. We are the proud sons of Paul Volcker for pete's sake."

We are partly in this mess due to ill advised discretionary monetary policy and I don't think more of the same is going to get us out of this mess. The Fed should follow a rule and I guess at this point, I'd pick an inflation targeting rule, say 2.5% annually for "headline" (i.e. actual) inflation?

Whattya say? Rule, yes or no? If no why not? If yes, what rule?