The adult voice is a strong bio-social marker for masculinity and femininity. In this study we investigated whether children make gender stereotypical judgments about adults’ occupational competence on the basis of their voice. Forty-eight 8- to 10- year olds were asked to rate the competence of adult voices that varied in vocal masculinity (by artificially manipulating voice pitch) and were randomly paired with 9 occupations (3 stereotypically male, 3 female, 3 gender-neutral). In line with gender stereotypes, children rated men as more competent for the male occupations and women as more competent for the female occupations. Moreover, children rated speakers of both sexes with feminine (high-pitched) voices as more competent for the female occupations. Finally, children rated men (but not women) with masculine (low-pitched) voices as more competent for stereotypically male occupations. Our results thus indicate that stereotypical voice-based judgments of occupational competence previously identified in adults are already present in children, and likely to affect how they consider adults and interact with them in their social environment.

成人的声音是男性气质和女性气质的强大生物社会标志。在这项研究中，我们调查了儿童是否根据自己的声音对成年人的职业能力进行性别定型判断。要求对48位8至10岁的成年人进行评价，以评估声音的男性气质（通过人工操纵音高）变化并随机与9种职业配对的成年声音的能力（3种定型男性，3种女性，3种性别中性） ）。根据性别陈规定型观念，孩子们将男人评为男性胜任男性，而女性则为女性胜任。此外，孩子们认为具有女性声音（高音调）的男女说话者更胜任女性职业。最后，孩子认为男性（低调）的声音（而不是女性）更胜任刻板印象的男性职业。因此，我们的结果表明，以前在成年人中发现的基于语音的职业能力定型判断已经存在于儿童中，并且很可能会影响他们如何看待成年人并在社交环境中与他们互动。