Dress to Impress? On the Interaction of Attire with Prosody and Gender in the Perception of Speaker Charisma

Understanding charismatic speech becomes a highly relevant issue in times of globalized markets and mobile on-demand mass media that strengthen the influence of individuals. Pushing phonetic research further into the realm of non-lexical charisma triggers, the present study is the first to investigate the combined effects of variation in attire and prosody on the perception of male and female speaker charisma. A perception experiment was carried out with Attire and Prosody as independent variables, each with two manipulation steps and embedded in a 2 × 2 orthogonal design. A total of 53 participants took part in the experiment and rated eight senior business leaders of well-known US American companies, four males and four females, on three approved charisma-related scales: convincing, passionate, charming. The audio-visual stimuli consisted of a keynote-speech excerpt of a speaker in combination with a matching photograph. Results clearly show that both Attire and Prosody had significant effects on the speakers’ perceived charisma. The charisma effects of Attire and Prosody are additive, but in gender-specific ways and with gender-specific effect sizes. A bipartite results pattern among the female speakers further suggests that it depends on their physical attractiveness whether Attire and Prosody conditions have a charisma-supporting or charisma-reducing effect. The results are discussed in terms of their practical implications for the daily business life of men and women.