Apr 24, 2021 12:00:00

Research shows that people with low voices are more likely to cheat, both men and women

In romantic relationships, not only appearance but also 'voice' is an important factor, and

a survey has shown that many women 'like men with low voices. However, a research team from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Göttingen announced the results of a study that 'men and women with low voices are more likely to cheat on their partners.'

Voice Pitch – A Valid Indicator of One's Unfaithfulness in Committed Relationships? | SpringerLink
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40750-020-00154-0

Men and women with deeper voices are more likely to be unfaithful to their partners, study suggests
https://www.psypost.org/2021/03/men-and-women-with-deeper-voices-are-more-likely-to-be-unfaithful-to-their-partners-study-suggests-60180

Humans make various social judgments based on the pitch of the other person's voice. For example, we tend to judge that 'men with low voices are attractive, but women with low voices are not attractive. Voice pitch is also known to reflect the other person's physical characteristics. In general, the lower the voice, the taller the person is and the higher the level of the male hormone testosterone .

Interestingly, voice pitch is also used as a cue for faithfulness in romantic relationships, with previous studies finding that women find men with lower voices more attractive, but also more likely to cheat.

So, to see whether voice pitch is actually associated with cheating on a partner, a research team led by psychologist Christoph Schild of the University of Copenhagen conducted

a meta-analysis of three data sets used in previous studies. The data set included 865 subjects, 315 men and 550 women, including multiple voice recordings and responses to the question 'Have you ever cheated on your partner in the past?'

The research team reanalyzed the audio included in each dataset, measured the average lowness of the voice, and investigated its association with cheating. After reanalyzing the three datasets together, the results showed that 'men and women with low voices were significantly more likely to have cheated in the past.' There have been previous studies that have investigated the association between voice pitch and cheating in men, but this is the first study to show that women's voice pitch is associated with cheating. The research team stated that the upper and lower limits of voice pitch and pitch fluctuations were not predictive factors for cheating.

Previous research led by Schild has shown that women can predict how likely a man is to cheat based on the pitch of his voice, suggesting that voice pitch may be used by women as a cue to avoid the costs of being in a relationship with an unfaithful partner.

Previous studies that found that men with lower voices tend to be more likely to cheat had speculated that 'because a low voice is linked to attractiveness in men, men with lower voices may have more sexual partners and cheat.' In this study, which showed that high voice pitch is associated with cheating in both men and women, it is suggested that masculine characteristics such as a 'low voice' may lead to an increase in sexual partners in both men and women. The research team stated that further research is needed to replicate this finding and find additional reasons to explain the association between high voice pitch and cheating.