Understanding one’s character through the voice: Dimensions of personality perception from Chinese greeting word “Ni Hao”

ABSTRACT

Previous western studies revealed a two-dimensional model (valence and dominance) in voice impressions. To explore the cross-cultural validity of this model, the present study recruited Chinese participants to evaluate other people’s personality from recordings of Chinese vocal greeting word “Ni Hao”. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with Varimax Rotation and Parallel Analysis was used to investigate the dimensions underlying personality judgments. The results also revealed a two-dimensional model: approachability and capability. The approachability dimension was similar to the valence dimension reported in a previous study. It indicated that the approachability/valence dimension has cross-cultural commonality. Unlike the dimension of dominance which was closely related to aggressiveness, the dimension of capability emphasized the social aspects of capability such as intellectuality, social skills, and tenacity. In addition, the acoustic parameters that were used to infer the personality of speakers, as well as the relationship between vocal attractiveness and the personality dimensions of voice, were also partially different from the findings in Western culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese
• first impression
• personality perception
• voice perception

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/azsb6/.

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badge for Open Materials. The materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/azsb6/.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Liaoning Education Department (No. LZ2020001), the Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province (No.201602454), the Youth Foundation of Social Science and Humanity, China Ministry of Education (No. 17YJC190010) and the National Education Science Planning Young Project (No. CHA190271)

Notes on contributors

Qi Wu

Qi Wu is a doctoral student at Liaoning Normal University in Dalian, China. Her research focuses on personality perception of faces and voices.

Ying Liu

Ying Liu is a Professor at Liaoning Normal University in Dalian, China. His research focuses on cognitive neural mechanism of language.

Dong Li

Dong Li is a doctoral student at Liaoning Normal University in Dalian, China. His research focuses on first impression of faces and voices, as well as their integration effect.

Haizhou Leng

Haizhou Leng got his PhD in basic psychology in 2020 from Liaoning Normal University in Dalian, China. His research focuses on social perception of faces.

Zahida Iqbal

Zahida Iqbal got her PhD in basic psychology in 2020 from Liaoning Normal University in Dalian, China. Her research focused on cultural similarities and differences on the identification of facial expressions.

Zhongqing Jiang

Zhongqing Jiang is a Professor at Liaoning Normal University, in Dalian, China. His research focuses on interpersonal perception and emotional processing.