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Viewers of the hit BBC One show The traitors I was captivated by contestant Charlotte's bold strategy: faking a Welsh accent.
The 33-year-old London business director adopted the persona in a bid to bolster her trustworthiness among her peers and, surprisingly, the ruse appears to be working.
But does his tactic have any basis in reality? Can an accent really influence how we perceive someone's trustworthiness?
Surprisingly, yes. Studies suggest that the way a person speaks, including their accent, can significantly affect their appearance of confidence. A familiar or reassuring tone can foster trust, while an unfamiliar accent can sometimes raise suspicion or uncertainty.
In Charlotte's case, adopting a Welsh accent may be contributing to her success in fooling her fellow contestants. Whether this calculated move will ultimately lead her to victory remains to be seen, but it certainly highlights the fascinating power of accents in shaping social perceptions.
A recent study, carried out by the University of Cambridge, found that the Received Pronunciation (RP) accent, often considered posh, was considered the least likely to engage in criminal behaviour, while Liverpool and Bradford accents were they considered more likely.
As accents continue to influence our social and professional relationships, we've spoken to linguistics experts to explore how these subtle cues affect our trust decisions.
Accents don't inherently convey specific information, so the impressions we form are often influenced by stereotypical beliefs and associations we have with certain accents, explains Natalie Braber, Professor of Linguistics at Nottingham Trent University.
“What we know is that people make very quick judgments about other people based on their accent, and that they tend to focus on two main types of characteristics; status and solidarity,” says Braber. “State includes things like: How smart is this person? How rich is this person?
“What we found in the research is that certain accents, such as RP or the posh accents of South East England, tend to score higher on these status traits.
“However, solidarity refers to things like: how trustworthy is this person? How much do I like this person? How fun is this person? So, we tend to make those kinds of associations with particular accents.”
What accents do people tend to trust the most?
Studies on accent bias highlight common trends that suggest a preference for softer accents, such as Welsh and Irish.
“There are certain accents that, regardless of who listens to them, tend to have a high level of solidarity in things like trustworthiness,” Braber shares. “This includes general Scottish accents, Irish and North East accents. Like Newcastle, which usually values solidarity a lot.
“Maybe it's because people have very positive associations with those places or think that the people who are from there are friendly, and then they associate that with the accent that the people have.”
Charlotte Berman, a 33-year-old business director from London, adopted this stereotype by using a Welsh accent in an effort to be seen as trustworthy on the latest season of the popular BBC show, The Traitors.
“Its musical quality has an undeniable charm that people have noticed has an almost relaxing effect,” acknowledges Noël Wolf, linguistic expert at the language learning platform Babbel.
“In Charlotte's case, her use of her mother's Welsh accent seems to have served her well while she remains in the competition; However, Elen, who speaks fluent Welsh and is a native of Cardiff, was the third player to be 'killed', so it's not always an ironclad strategy. .”
What accents do people tend to trust least?
“Certain urban accents, from cities like Birmingham and Liverpool, tend to score low on both solidarity and status,” says Braber. “Obviously, if you have a particular accent, you don't think everyone who speaks like you is bad, but these are the kinds of trends we see when we do experiments with large groups of people.
“If it's a big city, people might think that it's a little dangerous, or that crime rates are higher there, and start linking these factors to that particular accent as well.”
Cultural representation can also feed this narrative.
“There's some interesting research looking at Disney characters in movies and showing how the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys' have different types of accents,” Braber notes. “If you're told over and over again that the good guys and the bad guys have certain accents across different cultural representations, then it's something that's hard to escape.”
Are we more likely to trust people who have the same accent as us?
In general, people are more likely to trust accents they know and are less likely to trust those to which they have limited exposure.
“Talking to someone who has the same accent as your childhood friends, family, or the community you grew up in inevitably builds trust,” Wolf says. “Likewise, listening to someone who speaks with the same tone and cadence as you is much easier to process cognitively than trying to understand another accent.”
What are the consequences of accent bias?
Accent bias can have all kinds of detrimental effects on both your social and professional lives.
“Historically, accent prejudice has fostered and maintained a centralization of wealth and power, as those considered 'well-spoken' remained entrenched among society's elite, limiting the mobility of those with regional accent,” reflects Wolf. “Today, accent prejudice can have similar consequences, leading to unequal opportunities in the workplace, schools, and social interactions, as regional stereotypes remain imposed tropes to this day.”
So how can we overcome this bias?
“By becoming familiar with the variety of accents that the UK and the rest of the world have to offer, we can better appreciate the dialects themselves and the cultures that surround them, and we can perceive accents as the fascinating and enriching tapestry that they are,” he says Wolf.
