You may have noticed that the voices of politicians seem to change as they rise up the ranks.

你可能會(huì)注意到，政客升往高職時(shí)，他們的聲音也隨之改變。

Now scientists claim that being in a position of power can fundamentally change the way you speak and other people can pick up on these vocal cues.

科學(xué)家研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，位高權(quán)重會(huì)從根本上改變你的說話方式，而其他人能注意到這種語言暗示。

They say that the cues - such as talking more loudly with less variation in pitch - tell people who is really in charge, regardless of what an individual is saying.

科學(xué)家認(rèn)為，聲音嘹亮、音調(diào)平緩的說話方式，能告訴別人誰是這個(gè)團(tuán)體的當(dāng)權(quán)者，而不在乎別人怎么想。

‘Our findings suggest that whether it's parents attempting to assert authority over unruly children, haggling between a car salesman and customer, or negotiations between heads of states, the sound of the voices involved may profoundly determine the outcome of those interactions,’ psychological scientist Sei Jin Ko of San Diego State University said.

圣地亞哥州立大學(xué)（San Diego State University）的心理學(xué)家柯謝金（Sei Jin Ko）指出：“研究表明，不管是父母想在任性的小孩面前樹立威信，還是汽車銷售員與顧客討價(jià)還價(jià)，抑或是各國(guó)元首進(jìn)行會(huì)談，他們的說話方式都會(huì)對(duì)這些互動(dòng)造成深遠(yuǎn)影響。

Dr Ko and her team had long been interested in non-language-related properties of speech, but it was former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that inspired them to investigate the relationship between acoustic cues and power.

柯博士的團(tuán)隊(duì)一直對(duì)演講中的的非語言方面很有興趣，但前英國(guó)首相撒切爾夫人的經(jīng)歷激發(fā)了他們好奇心，讓他們想要研究聲信號(hào)與權(quán)力的關(guān)系。

‘It was quite well known that Thatcher had gone through extensive voice coaching to exude a more authoritative, powerful persona,’ she explained.

柯博士解釋道：“眾所周知，撒切爾夫人曾受過大量的語音訓(xùn)練，以便顯得更具權(quán)威、更強(qiáng)勢(shì)。”

‘We wanted to explore how something so fundamental as power might elicit changes in the way a voice sounds, and how these situational vocal changes impact the way listeners perceive and behave toward the speakers.’

“因此，我們想要探究權(quán)力這類東西，是如何讓聲音發(fā)生變化的；還有不同場(chǎng)合的聲音變化，會(huì)如何在觀念和行動(dòng)上影響聽眾。

To find out, Dr Ko, Melody Sadler, also of San Diego State and Adam Galinsky of Columbia Business School, designed two studies.

為了找出答案，柯博士與同事梅洛迪·薩德勒(Melody Sadler)，以及哥倫比亞商學(xué)院的亞當(dāng)·加林斯基(Adam Galinsky)設(shè)計(jì)了兩個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)。

In the first experiment, they recorded 161 college students reading a passage so they could record their natural acoustics.

在第一個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)中，他們請(qǐng)來161名大學(xué)生朗讀文章，然后錄下他們的聲音。

The participants were then randomly assigned to play a specific role in a negotiation exercise, according to the study, published in the journal Psychological Science.

然后這些學(xué)生被隨機(jī)分組，在談判練習(xí)中扮演特定的角色。該研究成果被發(fā)表在《心理科學(xué)》期刊上。

Students assigned to a ‘high rank’ were told to go into the negotiation imagining that they either had a strong alternative offer, valuable inside information, or high status in the workplace. Alternatively, they were also asked to recall an experience in which they had power before the negotiation started.

在模擬談判時(shí)，被分配到“高層”的學(xué)生要想象他們有強(qiáng)大的實(shí)力、珍貴的內(nèi)部信息和較高的工作地位。此外，研究者也要求他們?cè)谡勁星埃叵胱约涸?jīng)擁有權(quán)力的經(jīng)歷。

Low-rank students, on the other hand, were told to imagine they had either a weak offer, no inside information, or low workplace status, or they were asked to recall an experience in which they lacked power.

另一方面，“底層”的學(xué)生則要想象他們處于劣勢(shì)地位，并回想自己沒有權(quán)力的時(shí)候。

The students then read a second passage aloud in character, as if they were negotiating with an imaginary adversary and their voices were recorded.

然后，學(xué)生們以各自的身份大聲朗讀第二段文章，就像他們?cè)谂c想象中的對(duì)手談判一樣，與此同時(shí)，研究者錄下他們的聲音。

All the students involved in the experiment read the same opening, which allowed the researchers to examine acoustics fairly, because the contents of the passage remained the same.

因?yàn)樗械膶W(xué)生都朗讀了相同的段落和的內(nèi)容，所以研究者能公正地檢驗(yàn)聲音效果。

Comparing the first and second recordings, the researchers found that the voices of students assigned to high-power roles tended to go up in pitch, as well as become more monotone - with less variable in pitch – and varied more in volume than the voices of students assigned low-power roles.

比對(duì)第一段與第二段錄音，研究者們發(fā)現(xiàn)：被分配到“高層”的學(xué)生，聲音高亢、音調(diào)平緩，而且音量也比“底層”角色的學(xué)生大。

‘Amazingly, power affected our participants' voices in almost the exact same way that Thatcher's voice changed after her vocal training,’ said Professor Galinsky.

賈林斯基說：“令人驚奇的是，測(cè)試者受權(quán)力影響后的聲音變化，幾乎與撒切爾夫人受語音訓(xùn)練后的聲音變化一模一樣。”

While Baroness Thatcher's voice got deeper overall thanks to voice coaching, the researchers told MailOnline that it got higher pitched in 'power situations'.

研究人員向《每日郵報(bào)》表示，撒切爾夫人通過語音訓(xùn)練，雖然聲音整體上有很大改變，但在“權(quán)力場(chǎng)合”中，她會(huì)用更高的音調(diào)演講。

'That is different from a voice being generally high or low pitched,' they explained.

'Or to put it another way, even if speaker A's voice is generally lower pitched than speaker B's voice, both speakers can increase their pitch to the same degree in a high power situation.'

他們解釋說：“這與一般人平時(shí)說話的音調(diào)高低不同。換句話說，即使A說話的音調(diào)本身就低于B，但在需要權(quán)力的場(chǎng)合中，兩人的音調(diào)都會(huì)有相同程度的提高。

And the students' vocal cues didn't go unnoticed.

此外，學(xué)生聲音的變化也能引起聽眾的注意。

A second experiment with a separate group of college students revealed that listeners, who had no knowledge of the first experiment, were able to pick up on these power-related vocal cues to determine who did and did not have power.

第二個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)邀請(qǐng)了另一群大學(xué)生，他們并不清楚之前的實(shí)驗(yàn)，但也能通過發(fā)言者不同的說話方式，確定其有權(quán)或無權(quán)。

Listeners ranked speakers who had been assigned to the high-rank group as more likely to engage in high-power behaviours and they were able to spot whether a speaker held a position of power or not, with ‘considerable accuracy’.

聽眾會(huì)把發(fā)言者分配到不同組別，被分到“高層”組的往往是之前扮演有權(quán)力的人，而且聽眾能“相當(dāng)準(zhǔn)確”地發(fā)現(xiàn)發(fā)言者是否擁有權(quán)力。

Echoing the findings of the first experiment, listeners tended to associate higher pitch and voices that varied in volume, with powerful people. They also associated louder voices with higher power.

這也印證了第一個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)的結(jié)果，聽眾傾向于把嗓音高亢及聲音嘹亮的發(fā)言者，視為擁有更高權(quán)力的人。

‘These findings suggest that listeners are quite perceptive to these subtle variations in vocal cues and they use these cues to decide who is in charge,’ Professor Galinsky said.

賈林斯基教授說：“這些發(fā)現(xiàn)指出，聽眾相當(dāng)了解聲音暗示的微妙變化，并用這些暗示來判斷誰是當(dāng)權(quán)者。”

（譯者：zoe212 編輯：丹妮）