Here is a brief excerpt from an article by Matt Richtel for The New York Times. To read the complete article, check out others, and obtain subscription information, please click here.
Credit: Michael Waraksa
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Few methods beat email for sending communication blasts, getting a note in front of a far-flung sales prospect or employer, or attaching pictures and documents.
Too bad about the downside: You may not sound your smartest.
New research shows that text-based communications may make individuals sound less intelligent and employable than when the same information is communicated orally. The findings imply that old-fashioned phone conversations or in-person visits may be more effective when trying to impress a prospective employer or, perhaps, close a deal.
Vocal cues “show that we are alive inside — thoughtful, active,” said Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and one of two co-authors of the paper, “The Sound of Intellect,” published in Psychological Science this month. “Text strips that out,” he added.
In the first of a series of experiments presented in the paper, the researchers recruited 18 M.B.A. candidates from Booth. The students were asked to prepare a brief pitch to a prospective employer — a roughly two-minute proposal that the researchers recorded on video.
Separately, the researchers recruited 162 people who were visiting the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago to evaluate these pitches. Some of these museum-goers watched the video, a second group listened to the audio without watching the video, and a third group read a transcript of the pitch.
What the researchers found was that the evaluators who heard the pitches — whether in the audio or video version — “rated the candidates’ intellect more highly” than those who read the transcript, the paper reported. Those who listened or watched also rated the candidates more likable and, critically, more employable.
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Here is a direct link to the complete article.
Matt Richtel is a bestselling author of and Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times reporter. His latest work, A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age, was published by William Morrow (June 2015).