Evidence for the reproduction of social class in brief speech

Abstract

Significance Social class mobility narratives pervade public consciousness in the United States, and yet patterns of actual mobility remain relatively constrained. This work examines how the tendency to accurately perceive the social class position of targets, by virtue of listening to their brief speech, can constrain economic mobility and perpetuate inequality. We find that Americans can perceive the social class of targets based on exposure to brief speech patterns, that word pronunciation facilitates this perceptual process, and that these cues bias hiring decisions in favor of those higher versus lower in social class. The findings suggest that social interaction patterns related to the perception of brief speech are potentially causal in the maintenance of economic inequality. Economic inequality is at its highest point on record and is linked to poorer health and well-being across countries. The forces that perpetuate inequality continue to be studied, and here we examine how a person’s position within the economic hierarchy, their social class, is accurately perceived and reproduced by mundane patterns embedded in brief speech. Studies 1 through 4 examined the extent that people accurately perceive social class based on brief speech patterns. We find that brief speech spoken out of context is sufficient to allow respondents to discern the social class of speakers at levels above chance accuracy, that adherence to both digital and subjective standards for English is associated with higher perceived and actual social class of speakers, and that pronunciation cues in speech communicate social class over and above speech content. In study 5, we find that people with prior hiring experience use speech patterns in preinterview conversations to judge the fit, competence, starting salary, and signing bonus of prospective job candidates in ways that bias the process in favor of applicants of higher social class. Overall, this research provides evidence for the stratification of common speech and its role in both shaping perceiver judgments and perpetuating inequality during the briefest interactions.