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. 2025 Jun 2;116(4):1009–1027. doi: 10.1111/bjop.70000

Higher‐pitched voices are perceived as financially trustworthy

Jillian J M O'Connor 1,✉
PMCID: PMC12514320  PMID: 40457593

Abstract

Previous research is mixed as to whether listeners perceive higher‐ or lower‐pitched voices as more financially trustworthy. These mixed results may be owing to variation in the degree of risk implied in the scenarios used to measure perceptions of financial trustworthiness. I tested whether the degree of risk in the type of trust game used to elicit such perceptions (i.e., potential profit/loss versus equal/unequal division of money) and/or perceptions of financial risk‐taking clarifies the influence of voice pitch on perceptions of financial trustworthiness. I found that listeners preferred partners with higher‐ rather than lower‐pitched voices, regardless of the degree of risk involved in the trust game. Listeners also sent more money to both proposers and responders with higher‐pitched voices. In contrast, listeners perceived lower‐pitched voices as more likely to take financial risks and as more generally trustworthy. Perceptions of financial trustworthiness were positively associated with perceptions of general trustworthiness but were not related to perceptions of financial risk‐taking. These findings suggest that speakers with higher‐pitched voices are perceived as relatively financially trustworthy, independently of implied or perceived financial risk.

Keywords: economic game, financial risk, fundamental frequency, masculinity, trust game, trustworthiness, voice pitch

Trustworthiness is the expectation of good faith in dealings vulnerable to exploitation (Cox, 2004). In other words, perceptions of another as trustworthy mean that we would anticipate them to be fair and honourable in their interactions with us. Trustworthiness is one of the primary first impressions that are spontaneously formed by perceivers based on brief visual or vocal cues (Baus et al., 2019; McAleer et al., 2014; Todorov et al., 2014). Although these impressions of trustworthiness may not be accurate (Schild et al., 2020), they nonetheless have important consequences for everyday life. For instance, individuals who are perceived as more trustworthy are given lighter criminal sentences (Wilson & Rule, 2015, 2016), are entrusted with more money (van't Wout & Sanfey, 2008), hold higher positions in corporate management (Linke et al., 2016) and are preferred as leaders during times of peace (Chen et al., 2014; Little et al., 2012; Schild et al., 2022). Therefore, people who are perceived as more trustworthy receive more favourable outcomes across multiple social contexts.

The influence of voice pitch on perceptions of trustworthiness

One of the characteristics that influences perceptions of trustworthiness is voice pitch. Lower‐pitched women's voices tend to be perceived as more trustworthy in general than higher‐pitched voices (Klofstad et al., 2012; O'Connor & Barclay, 2017). In comparison, the direction of the influence of voice pitch on perceptions of trustworthiness from male voices remains equivocal. Some studies find that higher‐pitched male voices are perceived as more generally trustworthy (McAleer et al., 2014; O'Connor & Barclay, 2018), whereas others find that it is lower‐pitched male voices (Oleszkiewicz et al., 2017; Tigue et al., 2012). Other work has failed to detect a main effect of voice pitch on perceptions of general trustworthiness (Klofstad et al., 2012; O'Connor & Barclay, 2017; Vukovic et al., 2011). Despite this variation, listeners who trust lower (or higher)‐pitched voices in general also perceive lower (or higher)‐pitched voices as financially trustworthy. The influence of voice pitch on perceptions of financial trustworthiness has previously been examined with a hypothetical version of the trust game (Berg et al., 1995). Here, listeners in the role of the proposer select who they prefer to divide a hypothetical sum of money based only on the sound of the responder's voice. The money may be divided equally so that participants receive half the total, or unequally, so that the participants receive less than half. Listeners select male and female speakers with higher‐pitched voices more often to divide the money (Montano et al., 2017; O'Connor & Barclay, 2017), with higher voice pitch having a stronger influence on preferences for female voices among both male and female listeners (O'Connor & Barclay, 2017). These findings suggest that higher‐pitched voices are perceived as more financially trustworthy.

However, not all research finds that higher‐pitched voices are perceived as more financially trustworthy. Schild et al. (2020) measured perceptions of financial trustworthiness in response to a scenario in which listeners could experience a potential financial profit or loss, and found that it was lower‐ rather than higher‐pitched male voices that were perceived as more financially trustworthy. The authors suggested that the divergence of their results from previous findings of higher‐pitched voices as more financially trustworthy may be owing to the potential for monetary loss or profit in the perception‐eliciting scenario, rather than equal division of money as in previous research (Montano et al., 2017; O'Connor & Barclay, 2017). However, it is unclear why monetary profit/loss versus equal/unequal division of money would change the direction of the influence of voice pitch on perceptions of financial trustworthiness. One possibility is that the difference in findings among these studies is the involvement of financial risk. The perception‐eliciting scenario described by Schild et al. (2020) involves financial risk, as there is the potential for either monetary profit or loss of the initial investment. In comparison, when financial trustworthiness is measured in response to scenarios involving the equal/unequal division of money, there is arguably a lower degree of risk, as there is still the potential to earn a small amount money (Montano et al., 2017; O'Connor & Barclay, 2017).

If the degree of financial risk implied in the perception‐eliciting scenario accounts for the divergent findings of the effect of male voice pitch on financial trustworthiness, then modifying the hypothetical trust games used by previous researchers (Montano et al., 2017, O'Connor & Barclay, 2017) to include potential monetary loss or profit could lead to a preference for game partners with lower‐pitched rather than higher‐pitched voices. Indeed, Chua et al. (2020) found that listeners were more likely to select the risky option of a lottery over a guaranteed sum of money when these two options were coupled with a lower‐pitched versus higher‐pitched voice. As lower‐pitched voices are perceived as generally more competent (Oleszkiewicz et al., 2017), this could potentially translate into a speakers' perceived ability to avoid monetary losses and enjoy profits. Therefore, lower‐pitched speakers may be preferred in the trust game involving profit/loss if lower‐pitched voices make listeners more tolerant of risk.

In the present study, I compare the influence of voice pitch on financial trustworthiness by using two different versions of the trust game, one which involves the equal/unequal division of money, and one which permits potential monetary gain or loss (i.e., financial risk). In addition, while Schild et al. (2020) investigated responses to male voices varying in pitch, here I examine perceptions of financial trustworthiness from both male and female voices.

Perceptions of financial risk‐taking from voice pitch

If the presence of financial risk changes the direction in which voice pitch influences perceptions of financial trustworthiness, then voice pitch may also influence perceptions of financial risk‐taking itself. Previous research failed to find a significant effect of voice pitch on perceptions of general financial behaviour, such as the tendency to spend versus save money (O'Connor et al., 2012). However, CEOs with lower‐pitched voices were more likely to be employed by firms with riskier strategies and were more likely to be fired after the 2008 global financial crisis (Kim et al., 2024). While this finding suggests an association between financial risk‐taking and voice pitch, there has yet to be any research examining perceptions of financial risk‐taking from voices varying in pitch. Research examining the influence of facial appearance on perceptions of risk‐taking found that dominant‐looking faces were rated as more likely to take financial risks (Hareli et al., 2021). As lower‐pitched voices are also perceived as relatively more dominant (Aung et al., 2021; Jones et al., 2010; Puts et al., 2006), they may also be perceived as likely to take financial risks. Other social perceptions are also concordant across voices and faces. For instance, lower male voice pitch and relatively masculine facial appearance both elicit perceptions of greater infidelity risk (Kruger, 2006; O'Connor et al., 2011; O'Connor, Pisanski, et al., 2014) and romantic rivalry (O'Connor et al., 2012). Therefore, lower‐pitched voices, which are perceived as more dominant, may influence perceptions of risk‐taking in the same manner as dominant‐looking faces. Here, I test whether voice pitch influences perceptions of financial risk‐taking and whether these perceptions are associated with perceptions of financial trustworthiness as measured by trust game behaviour.

The influence of voice pitch on responder behaviour

Thus far, research has focused on how voice pitch influences the decisions of listeners in the role of the proposer in a hypothetical trust game (Montano et al., 2017; O'Connor & Barclay, 2017). There has yet to be an examination of whether and how proposer voice pitch may influence responders, who decide how much money to return to the sender (Berg et al., 1995). In contrast to the decisions of the proposer, the responder's decision does not involve risk and is therefore not rooted in perceptions of the trustworthiness of the proposer (Ashraf et al., 2006). Rather, trustworthy behaviour on the part of the responder may function to facilitate future affiliation with the proposer, even in one‐shot games (Krupp et al., 2011). In other words, trustworthy behaviour from responders may signal the desire for social partnership. Two important aspects of potential social partners are the willingness and ability to confer benefits (Dhaliwal et al., 2022). In the context of voice perception, lower‐pitched voices are perceived as higher in socioeconomic status (O'Connor, Fraccaro, et al., 2014), dominance (Aung et al., 2021; Jones et al., 2010; Puts et al., 2006) and are preferred as leaders (Klofstad et al., 2012). Beyond perceptual studies of voice pitch, Mayew et al. (2013) found that CEOs with lower‐pitched voices worked for larger companies and enjoyed longer employment with greater compensation. Therefore, speakers with lower‐pitched voices may be perceived as more likely to be able to confer greater social and/or material benefits.

While speakers with lower‐pitched voices may be perceived as more able to provide benefits, speakers with higher‐pitched voices may be perceived as more willing to provide them. For instance, speakers with higher‐pitched voices are perceived as more cooperative (Knowles & Little, 2016) and as more likely to invest in their romantic partners (O'Connor et al., 2012). Therefore, higher voice pitch is more strongly associated with the willingness rather than the ability to provide benefits to social partners. Given that the willingness of a social partner to confer benefits is often valued over ability (Dhaliwal et al., 2022), responders may return more money to speakers with higher‐ rather than lower‐pitched voices. Here, I test whether responders return more money in the trust game to proposers with higher‐ or lower‐pitched voices.

The present study

The purpose of this study is to test the influence of voice pitch on perceptions of financial trustworthiness, financial risk‐taking and responder behaviour in a hypothetical trust game. I further examine whether perceptions of financial trustworthiness and/or responder behaviour are associated with perceptions of general trustworthiness from voices varying in pitch. I hypothesize the following.

Financial trustworthiness

I test whether voice pitch influences perceptions of financial trustworthiness as measured by partner selection in two versions of the trust game: profit/loss and unequal/equal division. If higher‐pitched voices are perceived as more financially trustworthy, then listeners will select a greater proportion of higher‐ versus lower‐pitched speakers as partners in the trust game. Further, proposers will transfer a higher amount of money to responders with higher‐pitched voices. However, if lower voice pitch leads to greater risk tolerance among listeners (Chua et al., 2020), then participants will prefer lower‐pitched speakers as game partners more often in the context of the profit/loss trust game than in the division trust game.

Financial risk‐taking

If apparent dominance increases perceptions of financial risk‐taking (Hareli et al., 2021) and lower‐pitched voices are perceived as more dominant (Aung et al., 2021; Jones et al., 2010; Puts et al., 2006), then lower‐pitched voices will be perceived as more likely to take financial risk than will higher‐pitched voices. I also examine whether perceptions of financial risk‐taking are associated with perceptions of financial trustworthiness.

Responder behaviour

If higher voice pitch is more strongly associated with the willingness to provide social benefits than is lower voice pitch, and individuals have a stronger preference for willing over able social partners (Dhaliwal et al., 2022), then responders will return more money to proposers with higher‐pitched voices. Alternatively, if the ability to provide potential benefits is relatively more important than willingness, then responders will return more money to speakers with lower‐pitched voices.

General trustworthiness

If perceptions of general trustworthiness underlie proposer but not responder behaviour in the trust game (Ashraf et al., 2006), then perceptions of general trustworthiness from lower (or higher)‐voices will be positively associated with the selection of lower (or higher)‐pitched speakers as partners in the trust game, but not with the amount of money returned by responders. Consistent with prior work (Klofstad et al., 2012; O'Connor & Barclay, 2017), I predict that lower‐pitched women's voices will be perceived as generally trustworthy. However, given that the findings of the influence of male voice pitch on perceptions of general trustworthiness are mixed, perceptions of general trustworthiness in the current study may not be influenced by male voice pitch in a systematic manner. I further attempt to replicate the positive association between perceptions of general trustworthiness and perceptions of financial trustworthiness from voices varying in pitch (O'Connor & Barclay, 2017; Schild et al., 2020).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Participants

This study was approved by the institutional Research Ethics Board. All participants provided informed consent and were compensated with partial course credit for participation.

I used G*Power (Faul et al., 2007) to calculate sample size requirements (n = 84) to detect a medium correlation (r = .30) with 80% power and α = .05. First‐year undergraduate students (n = 118) were recruited until it was estimated that the calculated sample size was achieved. Participants reported their age (M = 19.31, SD = 2.88), biological sex (n = 94 female, n = 24 male), gender identity and sexual orientation. Participants reported gender identity in response to the question ‘How do you self‐identify in terms of gender’? by selecting either ‘man’ (n = 24 biological males), ‘woman’ (n = 90 biological females), ‘I do not identify with the gender binary’ (n = 3 biological females) or ‘I prefer not to disclose information regarding my gender’ (n = 1 biological female). Sexual orientation frequencies are reported in Table 1.

TABLE 1.

Frequencies of self‐reported sexual orientation by biological sex.

Sexual orientation Biological sex
Female Male
1 ‐ Completely Heterosexual 54 16
2 16 5
3 9 1
4 ‐ Completely Bisexual 7 0
5 4 0
6 2 1
7 ‐ Completely Homosexual 1 1
Asexual 1 0
Total 94 24
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Note: Sexual orientation was reported on a scale with anchors at response options 1, 4 and 7. The response option ‘asexual’ was unnumbered.

Stimuli

Recordings of 48 speakers (n = 24 male, n = 24 female) were manipulated to be higher and lower in pitch by 0.5 equivalent rectangular bandwidths (ERBs) of the baseline frequency using Praat software (Boersma & Weenink, 2024). The ERB scale quantifies frequencies in reference to the psychoacoustics of human hearing by accounting for the differences between natural frequencies and pitch perception (Tranmüller, 1990). This resulted in four categories of voice pitch manipulation: raised female voices (M = 252.48 Hz, SD = 21.20), lowered female voices (M = 202.70 Hz, SD = 19.03), raised male voices (M = 140.19 Hz, SD = 10.06) and lowered male voices (M = 100.95 Hz, SD = 9.20). This technique and amount of voice pitch manipulation are consistent with prior research on social perceptions from voice pitch (e.g., Jones et al., 2010; Klofstad et al., 2012; Montano et al., 2017; O'Connor & Barclay, 2017) and are above the just noticeable difference for pitch discrimination (i.e., 4.1%; Re et al., 2012).

Each rating context contained 12 different speaker identities (n = 6 per speaker sex). The rating contexts were: (1) trust games, (2) financial trustworthiness, (3) financial risk‐taking, (4) general trustworthiness. Voice stimuli in the financial risk and general trustworthiness rating context spoke the Canadian English monophthong vowels /ɑ/ ‘ah’, /i/ ‘ee’, /Ɛ/ ‘eh’, /o/ ‘oh’, /u/ ‘oo’. Voice stimuli in the trust games spoke the word ‘hello’ to facilitate direct replication of the findings of O'Connor and Barclay (2017). Voice stimuli were recorded with Canadian English pronunciation. The utterance ‘hello’ was produced in a naturalistic manner, without instruction as to the placement of stress (see Figure 1). Research has demonstrated that voice pitch has similar effects on social perceptions across variation in utterance content and duration (Groyecka‐Bernard et al., 2022; Pisanski et al., 2021).

FIGURE 1.

FIGURE 1

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Example pitch contours (a), intensity contour (b), and spectrogram (c) of ‘hello’. The pitch contour (a) of an unmanipulated male voice (116 Hz) is indicated by the solid black line. The pitch‐manipulated versions of the male voice are indicated by the dotted red line (raised pitch, 138 Hz) and dashed blue line (lowered pitch, 96 Hz). The intensity contour (b) of the unmanipulated male voice is indicated by the solid black line.

In addition, voice identity and speech content (i.e., ‘hello’ and vowel sounds) varied across rating contexts in order to reduce the probability of listeners providing consistent responses across tasks (O'Connor & Barclay, 2017) and to obscure the purpose of the study.

Measures

To assess perceptions of general trustworthiness, participants were instructed ‘In this experiment, you will be asked to listen to pairs of voices. Pick the voice of the person that you think sounds more trustworthy’. In the financial risk context, participants were instructed to ‘Listen to each of the female/male voices. Pick the voice of the person that you think sounds more likely to take financial risks, such as gambling or playing the stock market’.

Trust games

Division trust game

Following O'Connor and Barclay (2017), in the ‘division’ version of the trust game (see Figure 2a) participants were instructed:

Imagine you have been given $10, which will be divided by one of the other players. The other player can either (1) divide the money equally so that you each receive $5 or (2) divide the money unequally so that you receive $3 and the player 2 keeps $7. Listen to both female/male voices, then select which person you trust to divide the money.

Participants responded on a scale from 1 (‘Trust voice 1 much more’) to 7 (‘Trust voice 2 much more’), with 4 labelled as ‘Trust voice 1 and voice 2 equally’.

FIGURE 2.

FIGURE 2

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Division trust game (a), profit trust game (b), and trust game as responder (c). Participants are represented by ear symbols. Voice stimuli are represented by the callout symbol with the utterance ‘hello’ and the associated voice pitch manipulation (lowered pitch, raised pitch) are approximated representations of male voice pairs of the same identity. Grey arrows point to the type of decision made by the participant.

Profit trust game

In the ‘profit’ version of the trust game (see Figure 2b), participants were instructed:

Imagine you have been given $10. You can send none, some, or all of this money to another player. If you send any of this money to another player, it will get tripled. For example, if you send $10 to the other player, they will have $30. The other player can then decide how much of this money they will keep and how much money they will return to you. They can decide to return none, some, or all of the money to you. Listen to both female/male voices, then select which person you would prefer to play this game with.

Participants then entered how much money they would send to the selected speaker, which could be any amount between $0 and $10.

Trusts game as responder

I used the strategy method (Selten, 1967, as cited in Thielmann & Hilbig, 2015) to assess participants' behaviour in the role of the responder in the profit version of the trust game (see Figure 2c). In each trial, participants listened to a single voice (either a raised or lowered version of a male or female voice) and decided how much money they would return to them for amounts between $1 and $10, in $1 increments. For instance, for the $10 endowment, participants would see the prompt: ‘If this person sent you $10, it would be tripled to $30. How much money would you return to them’? Participants entered responses of any amount between $0 and the highest possible return (e.g., $30). Participants were instructed as follows:

In this experiment, you will play a series of economic games for theoretical money. No real money is involved. Please make your decisions as if you were playing for real money. You will be asked to listen to a voice. Imagine that this person has been given $10. They can send none, some, or all of this money to you. If they send any of this money to you, it will get tripled. For example, if they send $10 to you, you will have $30. You can then decide how much of this money you will keep and how much money you will return the other player. Listen to each female/male voice, then decide how much money, if any, you would return to them.

Procedure

All data were collected in‐lab via Qualtrics software (https://www.qualtrics.com). Participants listened to voices through wired over‐ear headphones. In each trial, participants selected between raised and lowered versions of each voice in the financial risk‐taking and general trustworthiness rating contexts, as well as in the trust games when in the role of the proposer. Participants listened to each voice individually when completing the trust game in the role of the responder.

Participants were randomly assigned to the role of the proposer in either the division or profit versions of the trust game. All participants completed ratings of general trustworthiness, financial risk, general trustworthiness and acted in the role of the responder in the profit version of the trust game. The order of rating contexts, order of voices within each rating context and order of voice pairs within trials were fully randomized. Participants completed the demographic survey after all voice ratings were completed.

RESULTS

Statistical analysis

I calculated the proportion of trials in which participants chose the lower‐pitched version of a voice pair, separately for the rating context. For the division version of the trust game, participants were considered to have chosen the lower‐pitched voice if they selected a rating above the scale midpoint (i.e., 5 or higher), but not if they selected the midpoint (4) or lower (for study data, see O'Connor, 2024).

To calculate the amount of money listeners returned in the profit trust game, I averaged the dollar amount sent to each combination of sex of speaker and voice manipulation separately, which resulted in 4 scores per participant: average amount of money sent in the profit trust game to (1) female speakers with raised voices, (2) female speakers with lowered voices, (3) male speakers with raised voices and (4) male speakers with lowered voices.

Responder behaviour in the trust game was calculated as the proportion of the total possible amount returned to the proposer, for each trial separately. For instance, if the tripled amount was equal to $30 and the responder returned $15, this would be equal to 0.5. Each proportion was then averaged across endowment levels to create 4 scores: the proportion of the total money returned to (1) raised female voices, (2) lowered female voices, (3) raised male voices and (4) lowered male voices.

Statistical analyses were conducted with two‐tailed probability estimates. I used the Holm method (Holm, 1979) to maintain a family‐wise error rate of α = .05 when conducting multiple comparisons.

Does voice pitch influence perceptions of economic trustworthiness?

I examined whether voice pitch influenced the selection of voices across rating contexts and whether the selection of higher‐ or lower‐pitched voices was contingent on the type of trust game played using a repeated measures ANOVA [within‐subject factors: rating context (trust game, general trustworthiness, financial risk), sex of speaker (male, female); between‐subject factor: trust game type (division, profit)]. Paired samples t‐tests were used to further investigate main effects and interactions, and one‐sample t‐tests against chance levels (0.5) clarified the direction of influence of voice pitch on perceptions (see Figure 3).

FIGURE 3.

FIGURE 3

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Mean and 95% CI of the proportion of trials in which listeners chose the higher‐pitched version of a voice pair in the trust games, as trustworthy in general, and as likely to take financial risks. CIs that do not overlap with the dotted line are significantly different from chance (0.50), indicated by *. Significant differences between conditions are indicated by the associated Holm p‐value. Perceptions of financial risk‐taking were not significantly different between male and female speakers but were significantly different from chance (0.5) when collapsed across speaker sex.

As Mauchly's Test of Sphericity indicated that the assumption of sphericity had not been met for the within‐subject factor of context (W = .747, χ 2 = 33.51, df = 2, p < .001) and Ɛ = .82, I report the Huynh–Feldt corrected values for this factor (Verma, 2015). These corrected values do not qualitatively change the pattern of results.

There was a significant main effect of rating context (F 1.63,188.976 = 46.10, p < .001, ƞ p 2 = .284). Paired t‐tests indicated that participants chose significantly fewer lower‐pitched voices in the trust games (M = 0.33, SE = .021, 95% CI = 0.30, 0.37) than they did in the general trustworthiness (M = 0.61, SE = .018, 95% CI = 0.57, 0.65, t 117 = 12.64, p < .001, Holm p = .003, Cohen's d = 1.16) or financial risk contexts (M = 0.56, SE = .024, 95% CI = 0.52, 0.61, t 117 = −6.90, p < .001, Holm p = .003, Cohen's d = 0.64). There was no significant difference in the proportion of lower‐pitched voices selected in the general trustworthiness versus financial risk contexts (t 117 = 1.32, p = .189, Holm p = .189, Cohen's d = 0.12).

This main effect was qualified by a significant interaction between the sex of the speaker and the rating context (F 2,232 = 12.64, p < .001, ƞ p 2 = .098). Paired t‐tests indicated that listeners selected a higher proportion of lower‐pitched voices when the speaker was female than male when rating general trustworthiness (t 117 = 5.05, p < .001, Holm p = .003, Cohen's d = 0.47). Listeners chose lower‐pitched voices as generally trustworthy significantly more often than chance for both female (t 117 = 7.67, p < .001, Holm p = .005, Cohen's d = 0.71) and male voices (t 117 = 2.34, p = .021, Holm p = .021, Cohen's d = 0.21).

As there were no significant effects or interactions with respect to game type, trust game behaviour was collapsed across the profit and division versions of the trust games. Listeners selected a higher proportion of lower‐pitched voices when speakers were male than when they were female (t 117 = −2.58, p = .011, Holm p = .022, Cohen's d = 0.24). Listeners selected lower‐pitched male (t 117 = −5.43, p < .001, Holm p = .005, Cohen's d = 0.50) and female voices (t 117 = −8.01, p < .001, Holm p = .005, Cohen's d = 0.74) significantly less often than chance (0.5) in the trust games.

In the financial risk‐rating context, the proportion of trials in which participants selected the lower‐pitched voice did not differ by speaker sex (t 117 = 1.10, p = .275, Holm p = .275, Cohen's d = 0.10). Therefore, perceptions of financial risk‐taking were collapsed across speaker sex (M = 0.56, SE = .024, 95% CI: 0.52, 0.61). A one‐sample t‐test showed that lower‐pitched voices were selected significantly more often than chance as likely to take financial risks (t 117 = 2.62, p = .010, Holm p = .02, Cohen's d = 0.24).

There were no other significant main effects or interactions (all F < 2.79, all p > .098, all ƞ p 2 < .023).

Does voice pitch influence the amount of money proposers send in the trust game?

In the profit version of the trust game, listeners in the role of proposer sent an average of $4.08 (SE = $0.22) to responders, collapsed across voice pitch and sex. To test whether responder voice pitch influenced how much money proposers sent to responders in the profit version of the trust game, I conducted a repeated measures ANOVA [within‐subject factors: sex of speaker (male, female), voice manipulation (raised, lowered)]. There was a significant main effect of voice pitch manipulation (F 1,58 = 16.78, p < .001, ƞ p 2 = .224). Listeners sent more money to raised voices (M = $4.65, SE = 0.266, 95% CI: 4.12, 5.19) than to lowered voices (M = $3.50, SE = 0.257, 95% CI: 2.99, 4.02, Cohen's d = 4.08). There were no other significant main effects or interactions (all F < 2.07, all p > .156, all ƞ p 2 < .034).

Does proposer's voice pitch influence responder's behaviour?

As responders, the average proportion of money that participants returned was 0.33 (SE = 0.013). I tested whether proposer voice pitch influenced the amount of money returned in the profit trust game with a repeated measures ANOVA [within‐subject factors: voice pitch manipulation (raised, lowered), sex of speaker (male, female)]. There was a significant main effect of voice pitch manipulation (F 1,117 = 4.14, p = .044, ƞ p 2 = .034) in which listeners returned more money to raised (M = 0.34, SE = 0.013, 95% CI: 0.31, 0.36) versus lowered voices (M = 0.32, SE = 0.013, 95% CI: 0.30, 0.35, Cohen's d = 1.86).

There was a significant main effect of speaker sex (F 1,117 = 30.96, p < .001, ƞ p 2 = .21). Listeners returned more money to female (M = 0.35, SE = 0.013, 95% CI: 0.33, 0.38,) than to male speakers (M = 0.31, SE = 0.013, 95% CI: 0.28, 0.33, Cohen's d = 5.22). There was no significant interaction between voice manipulation and speaker sex (F 1,117 = 0.25, p = .618, ƞ p 2 = .002).

Correlations among listener perceptions and trust game behaviours

Listeners who perceived lower‐pitched voices as generally more trustworthy also selected lower‐pitched voices more often in the trust games. These associations survived correction for multiple comparisons among perceptions of female voices but not male voices (see Table 2). In other words, women who sound more trustworthy in general also sound more financially trustworthy. Listeners' perceptions of lower‐pitched voices as generally trustworthy also tended to be inversely related to perceptions of lower‐pitched voices as likely to take financial risks, but these relationships did not survive correction for multiple comparisons.

TABLE 2.

Correlations among listener perceptions and trust game behaviours.

1 2 3 4 5

  1. Financial trustworthiness

 – .33 (.001, .010)* −.15 (.113, .565) −.06 (.509, 1.00) .05 (.576, 1.00)
  • 2

    General trustworthiness

 .23 (.014, .126) – −.33 (.001, .010)* −.02 (.818, 1.00) .14 (.142, .568)
  • 3

    Financial risk‐taking

 .05 (.576, 1.00) −.21 (.020, .160) – −.22 (.015, .090) −.31 (.001, .010)*
  • 4

    $ returned to higher‐pitched voices

 −.03 (.747,1.00) .01 (.883, 1.00) −.10 (.307, 1.00) – .77 (.001, .010)*
  • 5

    $ returned to lower‐pitched voices

 .038 (.684, 1.00) .06 (.512, 1.00) −.123 (.183, 1.00) .89 (.001, .010)* –
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Note: Bivariate correlations (and p‐values, Holm p‐values) across rating contexts for participants (n = 118). Female voices are above the diagonal; male voices are below the diagonal. Bold indicates p < .05; * indicates Holm‐corrected p < .05.

In the role of responders, listeners who returned more money to higher‐pitched proposers also returned more money to lower‐pitched proposers, for both male and female speakers. Listeners who perceived lower‐pitched female voices as more likely to take financial risks also returned less money to proposers with lower‐pitched female voices. The association between perceptions of financial risk‐taking and money returned to proposers with higher‐pitched female voices was no longer significant when controlling for multiple comparisons. There were no significant relationships among perceptions of financial risk‐taking and the amount of money returned to proposers with either higher‐ or lower‐pitched male voices.

DISCUSSION

Higher‐pitched voices are perceived as more financially trustworthy

The present study examined whether voice pitch influenced perceptions of financial trustworthiness in different directions when measured via a trust game involving equal/unequal division versus profit/loss. I found that participants preferred trust game partners with higher‐ rather than lower‐pitched voices, regardless of the type of trust game. These findings are consistent with previous research finding that higher‐pitched voices are perceived as more financially trustworthy in the context of the division version of the trust game (Montano et al., 2017; O'Connor & Barclay, 2017) but contrast with findings that lower‐pitched voices are perceived as more financially trustworthy when there is the possibility of monetary profit/loss (Schild et al., 2020). Therefore, the present findings do not support the suggestion that the conflicting findings of the effect of voice pitch on perceptions of financial trustworthiness stem from differences in the potential monetary outcomes of perception‐eliciting scenarios.

An alternate explanation is that the differing findings are owing to differences in the type of voice stimuli. Schild et al. (2020) asked participants to rate unmanipulated voices naturally varying in pitch, rather than voices manipulated to be higher or lower in pitch as in the current and previous research (Montano et al., 2017; O'Connor & Barclay, 2017). However, other research on social perceptions from voice pitch has demonstrated similar results across studies regardless of whether voice stimuli were or were not manipulated in pitch. For example, lower‐pitched male and higher‐pitched female voices are perceived as attractive (Collins & Missing, 2003; Feinberg et al., 2008; Hodges‐Simeon et al., 2010; Jones et al., 2010; Sui et al., 2019), and lower‐pitched male and female voices are perceived as dominant (Aung et al., 2021; Borkowska & Pawlowski, 2011; Jones et al., 2010; Puts et al., 2006) when tested using manipulated or naturally varying voice pitch. While the present study cannot eliminate this explanation, it would be incongruous for the specific social perception of financial trustworthiness to be influenced in different directions by manipulated versus naturally varying voice pitch. A more parsimonious explanation is that the test of an association between voice pitch and perceptions of financial trustworthiness in Schild et al. (2020) was underpowered. Detecting a medium association with 80% power and α = 0.05 would require at least 84 participants (G*Power, Faul et al., 2007), whereas Schild and colleagues collected ratings of financial trustworthiness from 31 participants. Underpowered studies can result in greater type I and II errors and demonstrate larger effect sizes than do sufficiently powered analyses (Button et al., 2013). Therefore, the evidence from sufficiently powered analyses demonstrates agreement; higher‐pitched voices are perceived as more financially trustworthy than are lower‐pitched voices.

Responders return more money to proposers with higher‐pitched voices

When playing the trust game as responders, participants transferred more money to proposers with higher‐pitched voices, for both male and female voices. To the author's knowledge, this is the first test of the influence of proposer voice pitch on responder behaviour in an economic game. In addition, the amount of money returned to higher‐pitched or lower‐pitched voices appeared to be unrelated to perceptions of general trustworthiness. As the strategy method was used to elicit responder behaviour to different levels of proposer transfers, the effect of higher voice pitch eliciting greater returns was independent of proposer behaviour and is therefore unrelated to beliefs regarding reciprocation. This pattern of results suggests that listeners may infer greater willingness to confer social and/or material benefits from speakers with higher‐pitched voices. Furthermore, as lower‐pitched male voices are perceived as belonging to men with relatively higher socioeconomic status (O'Connor, Fraccaro, et al., 2014) and prestige (Aung et al., 2024), men with lower‐pitched voices may be presumed to possess greater social and material benefits and yet be less willing to bestow those benefits on others.

Other work has found that proposers with faces higher in apparent health also elicit greater reciprocity from responders, but this effect was largely owing to the attractiveness of such faces (Krupp et al., 2011). Although the present study did not examine perceptions of vocal attractiveness, it is unlikely that this effect of higher voice pitch on responder returns is due to perceptions of vocal attractiveness because (1) lower male voice pitch is generally perceived by both men and women as more attractive than are higher‐pitched voices (e.g., Hodges‐Simeon et al., 2010; Jones et al., 2010; O'Connor & Barclay, 2017), and (2) there was no significant interaction between speaker sex and voice pitch manipulation, which would reasonably be predicted if perceptions of attractiveness underlie this effect.

Lower‐pitched voices are perceived as more likely to take financial risks

While higher‐pitched voices were perceived as more financially trustworthy, lower‐pitched voices were perceived as more likely to take financial risks. This is consistent with prior findings of an association between CEOs' lower voice pitch and financially risky cooperate strategies (Kim et al., 2024). As lower‐pitched voices are also perceived as higher in socioeconomic status (O'Connor, Fraccaro, et al., 2014) and relatively more dominant (Aung et al., 2021; Jones et al., 2010; Puts et al., 2006), but not less likely to save rather than spend money (O'Connor et al., 2012), it may be that lower voice pitch is presumed to cue a speaker's ability to accrue resources and/or tolerate material losses. Indeed, both higher socioeconomic status (Grable, 2000) and trait dominance (Demaree et al., 2009) are positively associated with financial risk tolerance. Future research may test whether perceptions of socioeconomic status and/or dominance contribute to perceptions of financial risk‐taking from voices varying in pitch.

Lower‐pitched voices are perceived as more generally trustworthy

I found that listeners perceived lower‐pitched voices as relatively more trustworthy in general, and the effect of lower voice pitch on perceptions of general trustworthiness was greater for female than for male voices. On the one hand, the finding that lower‐pitched female voices are more trustworthy in general is consistent with prior findings (Klofstad et al., 2012; O'Connor & Barclay, 2017; cf. Schild et al., 2022). On the other hand, the finding that lower male voice pitch is perceived as generally more trustworthy agrees with some research (Oleszkiewicz et al., 2017; Schild et al., 2022; Tigue et al., 2012) but contrasts with other work finding higher male voice pitch is more trustworthy in general (McAleer et al., 2014; O'Connor & Barclay, 2018), or those that fail to detect a significant main effect of male voice pitch on perceptions of general trustworthiness (Klofstad et al., 2012; O'Connor & Barclay, 2017; Schild et al., 2020; Vukovic et al., 2011). This lack of agreement concerning the influence of voice pitch on perceptions of general trustworthiness suggests that there may be greater variation in listener perceptions of general trustworthiness from men's voices than previously presumed.

Associations among measures

For both male and female voices, there was a significant positive association between perceptions of trustworthiness and selection of partners in the trust games. That is, when listeners perceived higher‐pitched speakers as more trustworthy in general, they also selected trust game partners with higher‐pitched voices. O'Connor and Barclay (2017) also found that preferences for higher‐pitched (or lower‐pitched) partners in the trust game were associated with greater perceived general trustworthiness from higher‐pitched (or lower‐pitched) voices. The findings that perceptions of general trustworthiness from voices were associated with perceptions of financial trustworthiness as measured by partner preferences in the trust games but not with the amount of money returned to proposers are consistent with the claim that proposer behaviour, but not responder behaviour, is contingent on perceptions of trustworthiness (Ashraf et al., 2006).

The converse was true for perceptions of financial risk‐taking. Listeners who perceived higher‐pitched voices as more trustworthy in general tended to perceive lower‐pitched voices as more likely to engage in financial risk‐taking. This suggests that while perceptions of general trustworthiness and perceptions of financial behaviour are not interchangeable, they do overlap. Perceptions of general trustworthiness reflect, in part, not only who listeners think will behave fairly in the trust game but also who is more financially conservative even when the outcome does not impact the listener, that is, less likely to gamble. Furthermore, the lack of a significant association between perceptions of financial risk‐taking and proposer behaviour suggests that perceptions of financial trustworthiness are unlikely to be rooted in the speakers' presumed tolerance for risk. Therefore, the present study finds no evidence that the degree of risk, either as cued by the perception‐eliciting scenario or as cued by speaker voice pitch, explains listeners' selection of partners in the trust game based on voice pitch.

Although perceptions of financial risk‐taking were inversely associated with responder returns for female voices, the direction of this association was not consistent for higher‐ and lower‐pitched female voices, nor was it observed in response to male voices. Therefore, these findings may not represent meaningful relationships and should be interpreted with caution.

Limitations

While the findings indicate that higher‐pitched voices are perceived as more financially trustworthy whether the trust game involves more or less financial risk, the decisions were hypothetical as there was no actual financial exchange. The use of hypothetical payouts has two practical advantages. First, hypothetical payouts permit testing of voices manipulated in pitch, for which corresponding interactions between proposer and responder are not possible. Second, using hypothetical payouts avoids the need to deceive participants (Hertwig & Ortmann, 2001; Jamison et al., 2008). Although it is possible that the hypothetical nature of the trust games would influence the pattern of results, other research has found similar patterns of behaviour in trust games involving real versus hypothetical money (Thielmann et al., 2016). Future work may attempt to replicate the present findings with real monetary exchanges.

The participants in the present study were mostly female. The imbalance of male to female participants precludes analyses of whether the biological sex of the listener would potentially influence the results, given that such an analysis would be underpowered and hence potentially unreplicable (Button et al., 2013). It should also be noted that the sample included individuals with varying sexual orientations and gender identities. Consequently, analyses based on hypotheses presuming heterosexuality and cisgender identity would not be appropriate. Nonetheless, previous research has not detected statistically significant differences in the direction of influence of voice pitch on male and female listeners' perceptions of trustworthiness, either in general or in financial contexts (O'Connor & Barclay, 2017). Further, previous research found that perceptions of attractiveness in general were not significantly associated with perceptions of either general trustworthiness or financial trustworthiness (O'Connor & Barclay, 2017, 2018). A sex‐balanced sample would be relatively more important if perceptions relating to mate choice were under examination. In contrast, other social perceptions from voices varying in pitch are influenced by listener sex. For example, Bowern et al. (2023) found a stronger preference for female political candidates with lower‐pitched voices among male listeners, but not among female listeners. Therefore, future research could potentially demonstrate an effect of listener sex on social perceptions related to financial trustworthiness and risk‐taking.

The sample in the present study was comprised of young university‐attending adults and was therefore limited in the age and socioeconomic status of participants. Whether the pattern of results in the present study would be observed in a more diverse sample is unclear. For instance, older adults appear to form more positive evaluations of both voices and faces than do younger adults (Lortie et al., 2018; Zebrowitz et al., 2013). In single‐shot trust games, older adults are more trusting and trustworthy than younger adults are (Bailey et al., 2015; Greiner & Zednik, 2019). When taken together, the above suggests that voice pitch could potentially have weaker influences on the trust‐related perceptions and behaviours of older versus younger adults. Future research may examine this possibility.

CONCLUSIONS

Listeners perceive higher‐pitched voices as more financially trustworthy, as indicated by a stronger preference for partners with a higher‐pitched voice in two different versions of the trust game, one involving the equal/unequal division of money and the other with the potential for monetary profit/loss. Listeners in the role of the responder also returned a greater amount of money to proposers with higher‐pitched versus lower‐pitched voices, suggesting that higher voice pitch is perceived as a cue to the speakers' willingness to provide social and/or material benefits in social exchanges. Given that findings of behaviour in financial games are also found for physical effort (Vilares et al., 2011), speakers with higher‐pitched voices may benefit in other non‐material ways as well. In contrast, lower‐pitched voices were perceived as more trustworthy in general, yet as more likely to engage in financial risk‐taking. This may be because lower voice pitch is associated with higher dominance and/or socioeconomic status, which could translate into a greater tolerance for risk due to greater resource accrual or access. Future research may determine whether perceptions of risk‐taking from lower‐pitched voices are owing to associations with higher socioeconomic status and/or dominance.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Jillian J. M. O'Connor: Conceptualization; investigation; funding acquisition; writing – original draft; writing – review and editing; validation; visualization; methodology; formal analysis; project administration; data curation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (grant number 430‐2022‐0028). The funding body had no involvement in the study design, collection, analysis and interpretation of data, writing of the report and decision to submit the article for publication. The author would like to thank Lee Fabrigar for the use of laboratory infrastructure, David Feinberg for the use of voice stimuli and Jason Taggart for assistance with data collection.

O’Connor, J. J. M. (2025). Higher‐pitched voices are perceived as financially trustworthy. British Journal of Psychology, 116, 1009–1027. 10.1111/bjop.70000

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Mendeley Data at http://doi.org/10.17632/bt9tndsvx5.1, reference [O'Connor, 2024].

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Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Mendeley Data at http://doi.org/10.17632/bt9tndsvx5.1, reference [O'Connor, 2024].

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