Accents not only help us to distinguish where someone may originate from, but also influence how we perceive their character and their capabilities.  For instance, research has shown that we tend to rate salespeople less highly when they speak with an accent.  Indeed, we may even be less inclined to nominate someone for a promotion if they have a foreign accent.

Interestingly, this discrimination seems independent of whether we find an accent pleasing or not, with researchers suggesting it is largely because of the role our accent plays in signifying whether someone is a member of an ingroup or an outgroup.

Beyond prejudice

Research from Royal Holloway signifies that this isn’t a simple matter of prejudice at work.  The study shows that we can sometimes struggle to process speech when it is spoken with a foreign accent, which in turn influences how we perceive it, as we’re less likely to believe information if we find it harder to process.

When volunteers were asked to listen to various trivia-related statements, they tended to rate the statements as more believable when they were spoken by a native speaker than when they were spoken by someone with a Polish accent.

The researchers then tested whether the ease of processing one’s language influenced how it was perceived.  They built on prior work that showed that exposure to different accents makes it easier to understand them, so the volunteers were exposed to stories read by Polish speakers before completing the trivia task.

The volunteers were then tested to see if this exposure increased their comprehension of Polish-accented speech, which the results showed it did.  This, in turn, reduced any bias against the trivia read by the Polish speakers, suggesting that exposure to different accents can play a big role in reducing our biases against them.

By creating more diverse populations, we can ensure that this exposure exists and the biases that result from unfamiliarity are reduced and our words are treated purely on their merits.