So, it’s official. If you’ve got a great voice, you’re going to have a better sex life, and live longer! I must fire my Marketing Department. How could they have missed this opportunity to promote the importance of improving vocal skills?!!

Actually, the original research conducted by Dr Gordon G Gallup Jr., and Dr Susan Hughes, highlights many interesting results, and before you all rush to sign up for our Vocal Fitness classes to increase the longevity of your social endeavours, I should point out that some of the findings merely reaffirm what we all instinctively know; the voice is very seductive and it plays a huge part in how we perceive others, and how others perceive us.

In his best selling book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion”, Robert Cialdini identifies ‘Likeability’ as one of the 6 principles of successful persuasion, and there’s no doubt that if we like what we hear, we can be very easily hooked. The aphrodisiac power of the voice has been exploited by Actors, Singers, Radio Presenters and Speakers since the invention of Thomas Edison’s Mechanical Phonograph Cylinder in 1877.

In his research, Dr Gallup states that the voice “seems to be a medium for the transmission of biologically relevant information”, and we all recognise our ability to create in our mind someone’s height, hair colour, facial characteristics and body shape solely based on the ‘voice’ we’ve heard. Often we can get the superficial descriptions wrong, but what Gallup and Hughes’ findings clearly confirm is that attractive voices correlate to more healthy, virile and attractive looking people.

Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and thankfully each of us has our own personal take on what widens the pupils when we meet potential partners. Our brain plays a vital function in how this perception is processed, and our emotional intelligence helps us filter this information so that we make vocal and physical choices when we engage with our family, friends and colleagues.

Why not make a choice to improve your voice in the coming months? Not only will you turn ears with your dulcet tones, confidence and clarity, but Doctors Gallup and Hughes suggest that there are many more benefits waiting for you to enjoy!

To read the original research, published in Evolution and Human Behavior, follow this link:
http://www.albany.edu/news/pdf_files/Hughes%20article.pdf

© Poll Moussoulides

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