Review of Psychology

Status. Senders’ voices and vocal pitches may be used to project and negotiate status relations in interpersonal contexts, including in mixed-gender dyads, in group settings, and during interviewee–interviewer interactions (Cheng et al. 2016, Hall et al. 2005, Ko et al. 2014, Leongomez et al. 2017, Zhang et al. 2018). Ko et al. (2014) found that, when participants were´ assigned to a more powerful role in a negotiation, they tended to use a higher, less variable pitch and were more variable in their loudness than were their less powerful counterparts. In a group setting, however, senders who initially used a deepening pitch were more likely to emerge as higher-ranking members (Cheng et al. 2016). Leongomez et al. (2017) observed that males and´ females who were low in self-perceived dominance increased their pitch more in the presence of a dominant interviewer than in the presence of a typical interviewer, and less pitch variability was observed in those higher in self-perceived dominance. These results suggest that changes in pitch and loudness may serve as more or less nonconscious vocal signals of senders’ actual or desired rank in a specific setting (quadrants 1 and 2).