Sounds sweet, sounds bitter: How the presence of certain sounds in a brand name can alter expectations about the product’s taste

Would you hire Liam over Kirk? Name sound symbolism and hiring

Sound symbolism is the phenomenon by which certain language sounds evoke particular associations. Previous work has demonstrated that names evoke personality associations based on the sounds they contain, with names containing sonorant consonants evoking different associations than those containing voiceless stops. Here we examined whether these associations would impact a mock hiring task. We created job ads that described an ideal candidate as being high in one of the six factors of the HEXACO framework of personality. Participants were given a pair of candidates, one whose name contained sonorants (e.g., "Molly") and one whose name contained voiceless stops (e.g., "Katie"). Whether job ads contained three personality adjectives (Experiment 1), a single adjective (Experiment 2), or a single adjective and a picture (Experiment 3) participants were more likely to choose the candidate with the sonorant name for certain personality factors. In Experiment 4 participants saw videotaped mock interviews of candidates presented with a sonorant or voiceless stop name. Names were less influential in the presence of audiovisual information than perceived name fit. These results demonstrate the impact of name sound symbolism in a more material scenario. They also help establish boundary conditions and moderators for name sound symbolism.

The Gender-Equality Paradox and Optimal Distinctiveness: More Gender-Equal Societies Have More Gendered Names

Findings in several domains have documented a gender-equality paradox, where greater social and economic gender equality predicts increased gender differentiation. Many of these findings have used subjective rating scales and thus have been dismissed as artifactual due to different reference groups in more versus less gender-equal societies. Although recent research has documented the gender-equality paradox using an objective criterion—pursuit of degrees in STEM—the robustness of this finding has also been challenged. The current investigation offers evidence for the gender-equality paradox using an objective marker of gender differentiation: baby names. We find given names are more phonetically gendered in more gender-equal societies, with female names being more likely unvoiced (a softer sound) and male names being more likely voiced (a harder sound). We offer a theoretical explanation based on optimal distinctiveness theory to explain why increasing gender equality might motivate a preference for greater gender differentiation.

Sooo Sweeet! Presence of Long Vowels in Brand Names Lead to Expectations of Sweetness

Throughout the history of languages, poets and writers have used linguistic tools to enhance euphony in their creations. One of the widely used tools to convey melody in any written (or spoken) creative art form is the use of long vowels. This paper examines the linkages between long (vs. short) vowel sounds and taste expectations of sweetness. Across four studies, we demonstrate that people expect products with brand names containing long vowels to taste sweeter than those including short vowel sounds. In studies 1 and 2, we demonstrate this association with the use of self-reported measures, and in studies 3 and 4, we employ indirect measures (implicit taste-shape correspondence and Single Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT) paradigm) to show the effect holds at a subconscious level of processing. Previous research in this field has typically linked vowel position (high vs. low or front vs. back) with product or brand attribute expectations. This paper contributes to the growing body of literature in this field by demonstrating the importance of vowel length in sound symbolism, and more precisely, how it pertains to the taste continuum.