How someone sounds may be as important as what they say, new research suggests. While you may not notice subtle differences in the way you and people who live near you pronounce certain words, someone in another country would probably pick up on it. It turns out, accents influence trust and a new survey reveals which ones Americans trust and like most.
Podcastle, an AI voice platform, polled 1,000 U.S. adults to find out their feelings about certain accents and found:
- Americans don’t just find the British accent the most trustworthy (42%), they also think it’s the most appealing (46%).
- And that holds true across the U.S., from Florida to New York to Hawaii.
- The American Southern accent is the second most popular accent (31%).
- People like Southern accents so much, they’re 157% more likely to trust someone with one over someone with a non-regional American accent.
- And they definitely prefer folks with a Southern drawl more than a New York accent. Americans are 256% more likely to trust a Southern accent over a New Yorker’s and find it 232% more appealing than a New York accent.
- In fact, 60% of Americans admit they find the New York accent annoying and 45% of New Yorkers agree their own accent can be irritating.
- Only 10% of those surveyed say they trust someone with a New York accent.
- But we have different preferences for different types of content. British accents are preferred most on platforms including audiobooks, podcasts and YouTube, and they’re tied with Scottish accents as the favorite on TikTok.
- Nearly half (48%) of Americans associate British accents with calmness.
- Southern accents are tied with British ones as the favorite for documentaries.
- French accents leave 38% of Americans confused, while Australian (35%) and Irish (32%) are associated with calmness.
Source: NY Post