Your voice and how you talk affect what people think of you more than what you actually say! | Source: ShutterStock

Your voice and how you talk are a big part of who you are–and now studies show that they actually affect what people think of you more than anything you say with them!

What qualities of your voice do people pick up on and criticize the most? If your voice is raspy, breathy, weak, gravelly or strained, people are shown to assume you’re weak, passive or tense as a person. (This isn’t entirely a fair assumption–sore throats happen to the best of us, and some of the coolest voices have some rasp to them: think Pink or Miley Cyrus!)

Other aspects of how you talk can bug people more than others. If you “up talk,” in which you raise your pitch toward the ends of your sentences so everything sort of sounds like a question, that apparently annoys the crap out of people. Also irritating to a lot of people? The “vocal fry” speaking trend, in which people sort of break into a rasp near the ends of their phrases. One expert speech pathologist explained that those traits “make the listener think the person who is speaking is either uncomfortable or in pain.” Yikes!

The bad part of how you talk affecting so much? Most of us are guilty of one or more of these at times, but we’re also pretty unaware of the problem. There’s a scientific reason for that: Your voice sounds different to you than it does to everyone else. When other people hear your voice, it’s traveling directly through the air to their ears, but when you hear your own voice, the sound first travels through the bones in your pretty lil’ head before it gets to your ears.

Thankfully though, if you do have some sort of vocal issue, they’re pretty easy to correct with speech therapy. An easy way to gauge your own voice? Record yourself and play it back. If you notice a vocal fry, up talking, or lots of “likes,” “umms,” “uhhs” or “ahs,” try to keep your voice in check–at least when you’re interviewing for an after school job or internship or giving a presentation!

And if you don’t feel like “fixing” your voice? We don’t blame you: How you talk is a big part of who you are, and you’re pretty awesome as is.

Do you think the sound of your voice affects how people treat you? Have you ever been complimented or criticized about how you talk? Tell us in the comments!

This singer’s voice was criticized for vocal frying–and it’s her trademark!

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