A 2013 study found that male chief executives with deeper voices managed larger businesses and received higher pay. It examined 792 leaders of public companies, whose shares people can buy. Researchers from Duke University and the University of California, San Diego, carried out the work.
For a typical executive at a typical company in the study, a voice about 22 hertz lower was associated with managing a business roughly $440 million larger. Hertz measures the frequency of a sound. The same difference in voice was linked to about $187,000 more in annual pay and around 151 extra days in the job.
However, the researchers stressed that a link does not prove cause and effect. Having a deeper voice did not necessarily cause these leaders to earn more or manage bigger businesses. It also remains unclear whether choosing people with lower voices leads to better leadership.
A separate 2012 study explored voting preferences. Researchers recorded men and women asking for votes, then digitally created higher and lower versions of each voice. Male and female listeners both preferred the lower versions, whether the speaker was a man or a woman.
