Myth busted? Challenging what we think we know about charismatic speech

Charisma is a complex phenomenon. This fact manifests itself not least in an abundance of myths, half-truths, and unanswered research questions. Most charisma myths have not been uncontroversial, and since empirical investigations have advanced quickly over the past years, we take the opportunity in this paper to revisit ten of the most important myths that relate primarily, but not exclusively, to the linguistic and phonetic aspects of charisma, such as the interactions between verbal and nonverbal and between segmental and prosodic cues, as well as the roles of breathing and fundamental frequency in charisma perception. The result is a very diverse picture. Some myths, including very old ones, can be accepted. Others must be rejected in the light of contradicting empirical results. The status of some myths remains unsettled. Furthermore, in discussing that diverse picture, our paper points towards knowledge gaps in research and practice and gives concrete directions as to where to go from here.

1. Ahluwalia, R. & Burnkrankt, R. E. (2004). Answering Questions about Questions: A Persuasion Knowledge Perspective for Understanding the Effects of Rhetorical Questions. Journal of Consumer Research, 31, 26-42. CrossRef

2. Amon, I. (2016). Die Macht der Stimme. Munich: Redline.

3. Antonakis, J., Bastardoz, N. & Jacquart, P. (2016). Charisma: an ill-defined and ill-measured gift. Ann. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav., 3, 293-319. CrossRef

4. Antonakis, J., Fenley, M. & Liechti, S. (2011). Can charisma be taught? Tests of two interventions. Acad. Manag. Learn. Educ., 10, 374-396. CrossRef

5. Antonakis, J., d'Adda, G., Weber, R. & Zehnder, C. (2015). "Just words? Just speeches?" On the economic value of charismatic leadership. In: Working Paper. Department of Organizational Behavior, University of Lausanne.

6. Awamleh, R. & Gardner, W. L. (1999). Perceptions of leader charisma and effectiveness: The effects of vision content, delivery, and organizational performance. The Leadership Quarterly, 10, 345-373. CrossRef

7. Barbosa, P. A. & Niebuhr, O. (submitted). Persuasive speech is a matter of acoustics and chest breathing only. Journal of Speech Sciences.

8. Barker, A. (2011). Improve Your Communication Skills. London: Replika Press.

9. Barnes, J., Veilleux, N., Brugos, A. & Shattuck-Hufnagel, S. (2012). Tonal Center of Gravity: A global approach to tonal implementation in a level-based intonational phonology. Laboratory Phonology, 3, 337-383. CrossRef

10. Barrick, M. R. & Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44, 1-26. CrossRef

11. Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations. New York: Free Press.

12. Batrinca, L., Stratou, G., Shapiro, A., Morency, L.-P. & Scherer, S. (2013). Cicero - towards a multimodal virtual audience platform for public speaking training. In: Proceedings Intelligent Virtual Agents 2013, 116-128, Edinburgh, UK. CrossRef

13. Bell, R. L. (2011). Is your speech filled with um? 3 tips to eliminate filled pauses from your professional presentation. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261551832_Is_your_speech_filled_with_um_3_tips_to_eliminate_filled_pauses_from_your_professional_presentation (last access: 13 June, 2019).

14. Berger, S., Niebuhr, O. & Peters, B. (2017). Winning over an audience - a perception-based analysis of prosodic features of charismatic speech. in: Proceedings 43rd Annual Meeting of the German Acoustical Society, 793-796.

15. Biadsy, F., Rosenberg, A., Carlson, R., Hirschberg, J. & Strangert, E. (2008). A cross-cultural comparison of American, Palestinian, and Swedish perception of charismatic speech. In: Proc. Speech Prosody 2008, 579-582. Campinas, Brazil.

16. Brem, A. & Niebuhr, O. (2019). Dress to Impress? On the Interaction of Attire with Prosody and Gender in the Perception of Speaker Charisma. In: M. Barkat-Defradas, B. Weiss, J. Trouvain & J. J. Ohala (Eds.), Voice Attractiveness: Studies on Sexy, Likable, and Charismatic Speakers. New York: Springer Nature.

17. Camper Bull, R. (2010). Moving from Project Management to Project Leadership: A practical guide to leading groups. Boca Raton: CRC. CrossRef

18. Cangemi, F., Clayards, M., Niebuhr, O., Schuppler, B. & Zellers, M. (Eds.) (2018). Rethinking Reduction: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Conditions, Mechanisms, and Domains for Phonetic Variation. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. CrossRef

19. Carnegie, D. & Esenwein, J. B. (2011). The Art of Public Speaking. London: Walking Lion.

20. <bez popisu> CrossRef

21. Chen, A., Gussenhoven, C. & Rietveld, T. (2002). Language-specific uses of the Effort Code. In: Proc. Speech Prosody 2002, 211-214.

22. Chen, L., Feng, G., Joe, J., Leong, C. W., Kitchen, C. & Lee, C. M. (2014). Towards automated assessment of public speaking skills using multimodal cues. In: Proceedings 16th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (Istanbul). CrossRef

23. Clingingsmith, D. & Shane, S. (2017). Training aspiring entrepreneurs to pitch experienced investors: Evidence from a field experiment in the United States. Management Science, 64(11), 5164-5179. CrossRef

24. Clopper, C. G., Turnbull, R., Cangemi, F., Clayards, M., Niebuhr, O., Schuppler, B., & Zellers, M. (2018). Exploring variation in phonetic reduction: Linguistic, social, and cognitive factors. In: Cangemi, F. et al. (Eds.), Rethinking Reduction: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Conditions, Mechanisms, and Domains for Phonetic Variation (pp. 25-72). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. CrossRef

25. Corley, M. & Hartsuiker, R. J. (2003). Hesitation in speech can …um… help a listener understand. In: Proc. 25th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.

26. Costa, P. T. & McCrae, R. R. (1992). NEO PI-R Professional Manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

27. Curhan, J. R. & Brown, A. D. (2012). Parallel and divergent predictors of objective and subjective value in negotiation. In: K. S. Cameron & G. M. Spreitzer (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Positive Organizational Scholarship (pp. 579-590). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. CrossRef

28. D'Errico, F., Niebuhr, O. & Poggi, I. (2019). Humble voices in political communication: A speech analysis across two cultures. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 11620, 361-374. CrossRef

29. Daniels, N. (2013). How to train your voice to become more charismatic. Retrieved from https://like3net.blogspot.com/2015/09/how-to-train-your-voice-to-be-more_14.html (last access 13 June, 2019).

30. Davies, J. C. (1954). Charisma in the 1952 campaign. Am. Polit. Sci. Rev., 48, 1083-1102. CrossRef

31. D'Errico, F., Signorello, R., Demolin, D. & Poggi, I. (2013). The perception of charisma from voice. A crosscultural study. Proc. Humaine Association Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction, pp. 552-557. Geneva, Switzerland. CrossRef

32. Emrich, C. G., Brower, H. H., Feldman, J. M. & Garland, H. (2001). Images in words: Presidential rhetoric, charisma, and greatness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46, 527-557. CrossRef

33. <bez popisu> CrossRef

34. Etzioni, A. (1964). Modern Organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

35. Fasano, A. (2013). Wow the Crowd: Anthony Fasano's Guide to Public Speaking for Engineers. Retrieved from https://engineeringmanagementinstitute.org/wow-crowd-engineers-guide-public-speaking/ (last access: 13 June, 2019).

36. Fischer, K. (2000). From Cognitive Semantics to Lexical Pragmatics: The Functional Polysemy of Discourse Markers. Mouton de Gruyter. CrossRef

37. Fischer, K. (2018). Talking to robots. In: Elmentaler, M. & Niebuhr, O. (Eds.), An den Rändern der Sprache. Notes of a lecture series at Kiel University. Retrieved from https://www.uni-kiel.de/ pressemeldungen/index.php?pmid=2018-084-rv-sprache&pr=1. (last access 13 June, 2019).

38. Fox Cabane, O. (2012). The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism. New York: Penguin.

39. Fox Tree, J. E. (2001). Listeners' uses of um and uh in speech comprehension. Memory and Cognition, 29, 320-326. CrossRef

40. Frese, M., Beimel, S. & Schoenborn, S. (2003). Action training for charismatic leadership: Two evaluations of studies of a commercial training module on inspirational communication of a vision. Personnel Psychology, 56, 671-697. CrossRef

41. Fruehwald, J. (2016). Filled Pauses as a Sociolinguistic Variable. U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, 22, 41-49.

42. Gallardo, L. F. & Weiß, B. (2017). Towards Speaker Characterization: Identifying and Predicting Dimensions of Person Attribution. In: Proc. Interspeech 2017, 904-908. CrossRef

43. Gemmill, G. & Oakley, J. (1992). Leadership: an alienating social myth? Hum. Relations, 45, 113-129. CrossRef

44. Goman, K.G. (2008). The nonverbal advantage - Secrets and science of body language at work. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

45. Gregory, S. W. Jr. & Gallagher, T. J. (2002). Spectral analysis of candidates' nonverbal vocal communication: predicting U.S. presidential election outcomes. Soc. Psychol. Q., 65, 298-308. CrossRef

46. Gussenhoven, C. (2016). Foundations of intonational meaning: Anatomical and physiological factors. Topics in Cognitive Science, 8(2), 425-434. CrossRef

47. Hargrave, J. (1995). Let me see your body talk. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt.

48. Holladay, S. J. & Coombs, W. T. (1993). Communicating visions: An exploration of the role of delivery in the creation of leader charisma. Management Communication Quarterly, 6, 405-427. CrossRef

49. Holladay, S. J. & Coombs, W. T. (1994). Speaking of visions and visions being spoken an exploration of the effects of content and delivery on perceptions of leader charisma. Management Communication Quarterly, 8, 165-189. CrossRef

50. House, R. J. (1977). A 1976 theory of charismatic leadership. In: J. G. Hunt & L. L. Larson (Eds.), The Cutting Edge (pp. 189-207). Carbondale, IL: S. Ill. Univ. Press.

51. Howell, J. M. & Frost, P. J. (1989). A laboratory study of charismatic leadership. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 43(2), 243-269. CrossRef

52. John, O. P. & Srivastava, S. (1999). The Big-Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In: L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research, Vol. 2, (pp. 102-138). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

53. Judge, T. A. & Piccolo, R. F. (2004). Transformational and Transactional Leadership: A Meta-Analytic Test of Their Relative Validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(5), 755-768. CrossRef

54. Kraus, N. (2015). Deutlich sprechen lernen in 7 Tagen. Nico Kraus Verlag.

55. Levinson, S. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossRef

56. Mayew, W. J., Parsons, C. A. & Venkatachalam, M. (2013). Voice pitch and the labor market success of male chief executive officers. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34(4), 243-248. CrossRef

57. McAleer, P., Todorov, A. & Belin, P. (2014). How Do You Say 'Hello'? Personality Impressions from Brief Novel Voices. PLoS ONE, 9(3): e90779. CrossRef

58. Michalsky, J. (2016). Perception of pitch scaling in rising intonation. On the relevance of f0 median and speaking rate in German. In: Proceedings of P&P 12, Munich, Germany.

59. Michalsky, J., Kordsmeyer, T., Niebuhr, O. & Penke, L. (2019). Prosodic correlates of dominance and self-assurance. Acoustic cues to testosterone related personality states of male speakers. In: Proc. 1st International Seminar on the Foundations of Speech.

60. Mixdorff, H., Niebuhr, O. & Hönemann, A. (2018). Model-based prosodic analysis of charismatic speech. In: Proc. Speech Prosody 2018. CrossRef

61. Mortensen, K. W. (2011). The Laws of Charisma: How to Captivate, Inspire, and Influence for Maximum Success. New York: Amacom.

62. Niebuhr, O., Voße, J. & Brem, A. (2016). What makes a charismatic speaker? A computer-based acoustic prosodic analysis of Steve Jobs tone of voice. Computers and Human Behavior, 64, 366-382. CrossRef

63. Niebuhr, O., Tegtmeier, S. & Brem A. (2017). Advancing research and practice in entrepreneurship through speech analysis - from descriptive rhetorical terms to phonetically informed acoustic charisma metrics. Journal of Speech Sciences, 6, 3-26.

64. Niebuhr, O. (2017). Clear Speech - Mere Speech? How segmental and prosodic speech reduction shape the impression that speakers create on listeners. In: Proc. Interspeech 2017, 894-898. CrossRef

65. Niebuhr, O., Thumm, J. & Michalsky, J. (2018a). Shapes and timing in charismatic speech - Evidence from sounds and melodies. In: Proc. Speech Prosody 2018, 582-586. CrossRef

66. Niebuhr, O., Skarnitzl, R., and Tylečková, L. (2018b). The acoustic fingerprint of a charismatic voice - Initial evidence from correlations between long-term spectral features and listener ratings. In: Proc. Speech Prosody 2018, 359-363. CrossRef

67. Niebuhr, O. & Gonzalez, S. (2019). Do sound segments contribute to sounding charismatic? Evidence from acoustic vowel space analyses of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. International Journal of Acoustics and Vibration, 24, 343-355. CrossRef

68. Niebuhr, O. & Michalsky, J. (2019). Computer-generated speaker charisma and its effects on human actions in a car-navigation system experiment - Or how Steve Jobs' tone of voice can take you anywhere. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 11620, 375-390. CrossRef

69. Niebuhr, O. & Fischer, K. (2019). Do not hesitate! - Unless you do it shortly or nasally: How the phonetics of filled pauses determine their subjective frequency and perceived speaker performance. In: Proc. Interspeech 2019. CrossRef

70. Niebuhr, O. & Tegtmeier, S. (2019). Virtual-reality as a digital learning tool in entrepreneurship - How virtual environments help entrepreneurs give more charismatic investor pitches. In: R. Baierl, J. Behrens & A. Brem (Eds.), Digital Entrepreneurship: Interfaces Between Digital Technologies and Entrepreneurship. Berlin: Springer Nature. CrossRef

71. Niebuhr, O. & Wrzeszcz, S. (2019). A woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do, and a man's gotta say what a man's gotta say - Sex-specific differences in the production and perception of persuasive power. In: Proc. 13th International Pragmatics Association Conference.

72. Niebuhr, O. & Skarnitzl, R. (2019). Measuring a speaker's acoustic correlates of pitch - but which? A contrastive analysis based on perceived speaker charisma. In: Proceedings of 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences.

73. Niebuhr, O., Tegtmeier, S. & Schweisfurth, T. (2019). Female speakers benefit more than male speakers from prosodic charisma training - A before-after analysis of 12-weeks and 4-h courses. Frontiers in Communication, 4, 12. CrossRef

74. Ning, L. (2019). What makes a speaker sound charismatic? A cross-cultural study based on acoustic-prosodic analysis. MA thesis, Chair of Technology Management, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany.

75. Novák-Tót, E., Niebuhr, O. & Chen, A. (2017). A gender bias in the acoustic melodic features of charismatic speech? In: Proc. Interspeech 2017. CrossRef

76. Pangambam, S. (2016). Let's Face It: Charisma Matters by John Antonakis. Retrieved from https://singjupost.com/lets-face-it-charisma-matters-by-john-antonakis-full-transcript/ (last access: 13 June, 2019).

77. Park, S., Shoemark, P. & Morency, L.-P. (2014). Toward crowd-sourcing micro-level behavior annotations: The challenges of interface, training, and generalization. In: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces. CrossRef

78. Pentland, A. (2008). Honest Signals - How They Shape Our World. Cambridge: MIT Press. CrossRef

79. Peters, J. (2015). Charisma: How to Develop Personal Charisma and Leave that Lasting Impression on Everyone You Meet. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

80. Polla, B., D'Antona, G., Bottinelli, R. & Reggiani, C. (2004). Respiratory muscle fibres: Specialisation and plasticity. Thorax, 59(9), 808-817. CrossRef

81. Rosenberg, A. & Hirschberg, J. (2009). Charisma perception from text and speech. Speech Communication, 51, 640-655. CrossRef

82. Salomoni, S., van den Hoorn, W. & Hodges, P. (2016). Breathing and singing: Objective characterization of breathing patterns in classical singers. PLoS ONE, 11, e0155084. CrossRef

83. Schegloff, E. A. (2010). Some other "Uh(m)"s. Discourse Processes, 47, 130-174. CrossRef

84. Scherer, S., Layher, G., Kane, J., Neumann, H. & Campbell, N. (2012). An audiovisual political speech analysis incorporating eye-tracking and perception data. In: Proc. LREC'12.

85. Schjødt, H., Stodkilde-Jorgensen, A. W., Geertz, T. E. & Lund, A. (2010). The power of charisma-perceived charisma inhibits the frontal executive network of believers in intercessory prayer social cognitive and affective. Neuroscience, 6, 119-127. CrossRef

86. Seet, J. (2013). Speak Clearly: Crisp Clear Pronunciation. Retrieved from http://sgskill.com/?page=course_calendar&id=1097&m=9&y=2013 (last access: 13 June, 2019).

87. Shamir, B. & Howell, J. M. (1999). Organizational and contextual influences on the emergence and effectiveness of charismatic leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 10, 257-283. CrossRef

88. Shamir, B., Arthur, M. B. & House, R. J. (1994). The rhetoric of charismatic leadership: A theoretical extension, a case study, and implications for research. The Leadership Quarterly, 5, 25-42. CrossRef

89. Sharma, S., Bottom, W. & Elfenbein, H. A. (2013). On the role of personality, cognitive ability, and emotional intelligence in predicting negotiation outcomes: A meta-analysis. Organizational Psychology Review, 3(4), 293-336. CrossRef

90. Smith, R. R. (2010). Overcoming charisma. Forbes Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/2010/02/25/charisma-presence-communication-leadership-managing-speaking.html#4c4770716730 (last access 13 June, 2019).

91. Soorjoo, M. (2012). Here's the Pitch: How to Pitch Your Business to Anyone, Get Funded, and Win Clients. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.

92. Sopory, P. & Dillard, J. P. (2002). The persuasive effects of metaphor. A meta-analysis. Human Communication Research, 28, 382-419. CrossRef

93. Speech and Voice (2019). How breathing can improve your voice. Retrieved from https://www.speechandvoice.com/speech-voice-improvement-tips/how-breathing-can-improve-voice/ (last access: 13 June, 2019).

94. Sprague, J., Stuart, D. & Bodary, D. (2013). The Speaker's Handbook. Boston: Wadsworth.

95. Strangert, E. & Gustafson, J. (2008). What makes a good speaker? Subject ratings, acoustic measurements and perceptual evaluations. In: Proc. Interspeech 2008, 1688-1691.

96. Thorpe, C., Cala, S., Chapman, J. & Davis, P. (2001). Patterns of breath support in projection of the singing voice. Journal of Voice, 15, 86-104. CrossRef

97. Touati, P. (1993). Prosodic aspects of political rhetoric. In: Proc. ESCA Workshop on Prosody, 168-171.

98. Towler A. J. (2003). Effects of charismatic influence training on attitudes, behavior, and performance. Personnel Psychology, 56, 363-381. CrossRef

99. Towler, A., Arman, G., Quesnell, T. & Hoffman, L. (2014). How charismatic trainers inspire others to learn through positive affectivity. Computers in Human Behavior, 32, 221-228. CrossRef

100. Tucker, R. C. (1968). The theory of charismatic leadership. Daedalus, 97, 731-756.

101. Volkmann, S. (2013). Der kleine Stimmkompass. Lebendig sprechen - punktgenau landen. 21 Impulse für Haltung, Stimme, Körpersprache. Silke Volkmann Verlag.

102. Weber, M. (1947). The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe.

103. Weber, M. (1968). On Charisma and Institutional Building. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press.

104. Weninger, F., Krajewski, J., Batliner, A. & Schuller, B. (2012). The voice of leadership: Models and performances of automatic analysis in on-line speeches. IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, 3, 496-508. CrossRef

105. Włodarczak, M. & Heldner, M. (2016). Respiratory belts and whistles: A preliminary study of breathing acoustics for turn-taking. In: Proc. Interspeech 2016, 510-514. CrossRef