Accent Speaks Louder than Ability: Elucidating the Effect of Nonnative Accent on Trust

Abstract

Nonnative accent often leads to prejudicial judgments. In this paper, we examine the effect of a job candidate’s Mandarin Chinese accent on a hiring manager’s perceptions of trust and the three dimensions of trustworthiness. The results of an online experiment with 179 working adults suggest that speaking with a nonnative accent (vs. no accent) adversely affects hiring decision-makers’ perceptions of trust and the ability dimension of trustworthiness, but not the benevolence and integrity dimensions. We also examined the effects of perspective taking (vs. no perspective taking) on trust and trustworthiness to test its beneficial role in interpersonal evaluations. The findings suggest that perspective taking may significantly mitigate the effect of language-based stigma on people’s judgments, providing evidence-based insights for organizational leaders and HR professionals.

Keywords

language-based stigma bias trust trustworthiness perspective taking

Introduction

How can a supposedly imperfect command of the English language by someone who did not have the good fortune of being born and raised in what linguist David Crystal has termed an “inner circle” country—such as the United Kingdom, the United States, or Canada—be acceptable grounds for dismissing their considerable expertise?

– Schmid (2019), Here’s How Your Foreign Accent Can Unfairly Destroy Your Credibility

Nonnative English speakers’ (NNES_s) spoken communication is often perceived as being less credible regardless of its truthfulness (Fuertes et al., 2012; Lev-Ari & Keysar, 2010). In 2019, for example, a judge rejected a nonnative English-speaking pathologist’s testimony based on the doctor’s foreign accent, and minor grammatical and phonetic errors in his statement. As shown in the epigraph, the judge’s mistreatment was criticized, and scholars have raised questions concerning unfair judgments toward NNESs based on language-based stigma (Hideg et al., 2022; Kim et al., 2019). Indeed, English is “the global language of business” (Neeley, 2012, p. 177), thereby leading language to be a strong and salient marker for one’s identity in work settings. As a result, nearly 1.2 billion NNESs at work around the world (Stevens, 2019) likely encounter explicit and implicit mistreatment and struggle to move up the career ladder (Hosoda et al., 2012; Huang et al., 2013; Livingston et al., 2017; Timming, 2017).

Despite its prevalence, language-based stigma has received limited attention compared to other types of stigmas at work, such as race, gender, age, and disability (Birney, 2020; Hideg et al., 2022; Kim et al., 2019; Russo et al., 2017). In this study, we apply theoretical and empirical insights gleaned from stigma and trust literature to examine how a speaker’s nonnative accent (i.e., Mandarin Chinese) damages a listener’s trust perceptions in a hiring context. Our study extends evidence on the effects of speakers’ accents on interpersonal evaluations (see Fuertes et al. [2012] for review) by examining its effects on trust and three dimensions of trustworthiness: ability, benevolence, and integrity. This elucidates the current understanding of why NNESs can be disadvantaged in a hiring context. Importantly, we also examine the potential beneficial role of perspective taking (PT) to answer the recent call for more research on critical moderators that can help reduce language-based stigma (Hideg et al., 2022). PT helps people put themselves in others’ shoes, which can have benefits to interpersonal evaluations (Ku et al., 2015; Todd et al., 2012). Thus, testing the role of PT can help business leaders design and implement evidence-based practices that make their organizations more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

Hypotheses

Stigma theory suggests that people with a stigmatized identity tend to be devalued because of social stigma (Goffman, 1963). Nonnative accents serve as an implicit cue that leads NNESs to be misjudged (Russo et al., 2017; Summers et al., 2018). Given that trust is a fundamental element of social interaction (Mayer et al., 1995), if nonnative accents unfairly influence people’s trust perceptions, this likely hurts NNESs’ career opportunities and work relationships substantially. Although past primary studies have examined the relation between nonnative accent and trust (e.g., Caballero & Pell, 2020; Lev-Ari & Keysar, 2010), they have defined trust as a generic concept. Yet, trustworthiness (but not trust) embodies three different attributed characteristics of the trustee, including ability—an individual’s perceptions based on domain-specific judgments of the trustee’s competence, benevolence—an individual’s perceptions of a trustee’s goodwill and caring, and integrity—whether the trustee will choose to act ethically and to the benefit of the trustor (Colquitt et al., 2007; Mayer et al., 1995). To address the conceptual and empirical distinctiveness among trust perceptions and to expand our knowledge of why nonnative accents unfairly hurt trust perceptions, these perceptions need to be broken down into trust and three dimensions of trustworthiness. Thus, we posit the following:

Hypothesis 1

(H1): People will rate a job candidate with a Mandarin Chinese accent (i.e., NNES) lower than a job candidate with no accent (i.e., native English speaker) on (a) trust, (b) ability, (c) benevolence, and (d) integrity.

We also examine the role of perspective taking (PT)—an individual’s cognitive process to understand another person’s viewpoints (Galinsky et al., 2005). This goal-oriented cognitive effort has been shown to relate to positive attitudes and behaviors toward others (Longmire & Harrison, 2018; Sherf & Morrison, 2020) and tends to result in more favorable outcomes in contexts requiring interpersonal interactions (Galinsky et al., 2008; Ku et al., 2015). Moreover, PT is expected to foster empathy, which involves a greater understanding of and sensitivity toward others (Parker & Axtell, 2001), and promote interpersonal understanding, perceived similarity, and understanding behavior, which are important facilitators of trust development (Williams, 2001). Given the positive influences that PT has on trust processes, we suggest that when people actively engage in PT, they will show higher levels of trust toward an individual. Specifically, we expect that people will trust a job candidate to a greater extent when they engage in PT compared to when they do not. Likewise, the influence of PT on trust processes should result in more positive perceptions of the job candidate’s trustworthiness.

Hypothesis 2

(H2): People who engage in perspective taking (vs. those who do not) will rate a job candidate higher on (a) trust, (b) ability, (c) benevolence, and (d) integrity.

More importantly, people’s explicit attempt to consider NNESs’ viewpoints may mitigate the effect of language-based stigma. To test this effect, we examined PT as a critical moderator for the relation between nonnative accent and trust perceptions. The potential of PT as a mitigator of stigma can be explained by prior research findings suggesting that PT reduces stereotyping and prejudice by improving intergroup attitudes (Ku et al., 2015). Similarly, Parker et al. (2008) showed that PT is likely to reduce potential attribution errors. Given that people tend to make internal attributions when interpreting others’ behavior (Ross, 1977), engaging in PT may weaken this tendency. In the context of this study, PT is expected to effectively reduce people’s perceptual errors (Todd et al., 2012; Vescio et al., 2003), meaning that PT will prevent people from making internal attributions based on negative stereotypes about NNESs. As a result, the difference in trust perceptions between nonnative and native English-speaking job applicants will be significant when there is no PT and negligible when there is PT.

Hypothesis 3

(H3): Perspective taking will mitigate the difference in ratings of a job candidate with a Mandarin Chinese accent (i.e., NNES) and those of a job candidate with no accent (i.e., native English speaker) on (a) trust, (b) ability, (c) benevolence, and (d) integrity, as engaging in perspective taking (vs. no perspective taking) contributes to improving people’s ratings of a NNES.

Method/Results

We used experimental vignette methodology (EVM) to test the hypotheses. We solicited nominations of working adults interested in participating in the online experiment from business school students in exchange for extra credit. The final sample used for hypothesis testing included 179 adults working in the United States (M_age = 31.9 years) who were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: (1) accent—PT, (2) accent—no PT, (3) no accent—PT, and (4) no accent— no PT. Participants were given a vignette¹ (adapted from Kim et al. 2004, 2006) and instructed to imagine themselves as a manager in charge of hiring and supervising a tax accountant. After reading the scenario, they listened to a voicemail left by a job candidate who was described in the scenario. Participants assigned to the accent condition listened to a voicemail of a middle-aged woman with Mandarin Chinese as a first language and English learned as a second language. Those assigned to a no accent condition listened to a voicemail of a middle-aged woman whose native language is English. For the two PT conditions, we used two distinct instructions adapted from Baston (2009). Participants in the PT condition were instructed to consider the perspective of the job candidate, whereas those in the no PT condition were instructed to take an objective perspective of the job candidate. After listening to the voice message, participants were asked to complete a questionnaire asking about their trust-related perceptions of the candidate. Trust was measured with three items used in Mayer and colleagues’ work (e.g., Mayer & Gavin, 2005), and the three dimensions of trustworthiness were assessed using Mayer & Davis’s (1999) 17 items. Scales were adapted to reflect the context of this study as recommended (Heggestad et al., 2019).

The results in Figure 1 show that people rated a job candidate with an accent (vs. no accent) lower on trust and the ability dimension of trustworthiness. A significant difference was not found in ratings between a job candidate with an accent and a job candidate with no accent for benevolence and integrity. Thus, H1a and H1b were supported, but H1c and H1d were not supported. Figure 2 displays that regardless of the existence of an accent, people engaging in PT (vs. no PT) rated a job candidate higher on ability, but not trust, benevolence, or integrity. Thus, H2b was supported, but H2a, H2c, and H2d were not supported. Last, Figure 3 and Figure 4 show that the difference in ratings on trust and ability between a job candidate with an accent and a job candidate with no accent became negligibly small when people were asked to engage in PT (vs. no PT). Thus, H3a and H3b were supported. No support was found for benevolence (H3c) and integrity (H3d).

Figure 1.

Effect of nonnative accent on trust and the three dimensions of trustworthiness. Note: Ratings reflect a range of 1 (low degree of trust and trustworthiness) to 7 (high degree of trust and trustworthiness). N = 179. * = p < .05. ns = not significant.

Figure 2.

Effect of perspective taking on trust and the three dimensions of trustworthiness. Note: Ratings reflect a range of 1 (low degree of trust and trustworthiness) to 7 (high degree of trust and trustworthiness). N = 179. * = p < .05. ns = not significant.

Figure 3.

Effect of perspective taking and nonnative accent on trust ratings. Note: Rating reflects a range of 1 (low degree of trust) to 7 (high degree of trust). N = 179. * = p < .05. ns = not significant.

Figure 4.

Effect of perspective taking and nonnative accent on ability ratings. Note: Rating reflects a range of 1 (low degree of ability) to 7 (high degree of ability). N = 179. * = p < .05. ns = not significant.

Taken together, our study supports past research showing that nonnative accents lead to negative trust perceptions of NNESs. Importantly, we further elucidate the relation by highlighting that the potential cause of the link may be nonnative accents’ damaging effect on perceived competence, but not goodwill or ethicality. Our findings also suggest that active PT may play a significant role in altering people’s negative perceptions of NNESs’ competence and credibility. Additional details on both the methods and the results of this study are available in the online appendix, including bias checks of random assignment, vignette and script of the voicemail recording, measures, factor analyses, and all study results including descriptive statistics and both significant and nonsignificant findings.

Discussion

Language is a fundamental part of many peoples' identities (Krauss & Chiu, 1998). Based on our findings, we offer several recommendations for managers and organizations. First, the results of this study provide evidence suggesting that a nonnative accent significantly damages people’s perceptions of trust and ability, but not benevolence or integrity. This finding is essential as it elucidates why nonnative accents hurt perceived trust, which can have a significant influence on high-stakes HR decisions. Indeed, managers should be mindful that a nonnative accent may influence their judgments on the competence and credibility of NNESs, leading to inaccurate and unfair decision-making. Decision-makers should also understand that language is a communication tool to deliver an individual’s message, which does not necessarily reflect the person’s level of expertise. Moreover, managers who have no experience of learning a second language should understand that language is a type of tacit knowledge that requires a significant amount of time and cultural experience to be obtained (Jiang, 2000). Relatedly, our results indicate that ability may be more subject to bias than other aspects of an individual’s character. Considering this, managers are encouraged to consider the extent to which language-based stigma may result in missing out on highly capable nonnative English-speaking job candidates.

We also provide evidence indicating that engaging in PT significantly buffers the negative effect of a nonnative accent on perceptions of trust and ability, suggesting PT to be an effective cognitive tool in reducing biases against NNESs. Indeed, our results suggest that simply asking someone (e.g., manager, coworker) to explicitly consider the perspective of NNESs can significantly reduce the effects of bias against NNESs. Relatedly, organizations may need to emphasize the importance of PT as part of their employee training programs. Managers may also need to work on exhibiting inclusive leadership by purposefully considering and seeking out diverse voices and implementing feedback gathered from various viewpoints. Lastly, HR professionals should ensure employee recruiting, screening, and selection criteria are valid and free of bias by actively engaging in PT in the process of developing and executing HR practices.

Limitations/Future Research/Conclusion

This study should be considered in light of its limitations which can be informative for future research. First, most of the study participants were White/Caucasian (92.2%) and native English speakers (93.3%), and intergroup bias (Hewstone et al., 2002) might have influenced the results. Second, our sample size is relatively small and future studies may want to validate our findings with a larger sample (see online appendix for the post-hoc power analysis). Third, the context of a performance-based error may have had a uniquely strong influence on participants’ judgments of ability relative to benevolence and integrity. In the future, researchers may want to consider isolating and manipulating ability, benevolence, and integrity individually to further triangulate the effects of nonnative accents and PT on interpersonal trust. Fourth, the NNES who recorded the scenario has a Mandarin Chinese accent, and people may have different attitudes toward different foreign accents (Hansen & Dovidio, 2016). Relatedly, female voices were used in the recording. Thus, we did not assess the potential differential effects of a male voice.

In conclusion, more research on nonnative accents and language-based stigma seems warranted. Indeed, there is a growing trajectory of immigration, international business, and telework in which nonnative speakers are becoming increasingly prevalent in work contexts. The need to understand the potential implications of this trend is a timely issue for organizations and employees alike. We hope that our study prompts more research on this topic and our evidence-based insights can help managers and organizations design strategies contributing to NNESs feeling respected and valued for their competence.

Footnotes

Author’s Note

An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting which took place July 29 – August 4, 2021. Correspondence regarding this manuscript should be sent to Mingang K. Geiger, Department of Management, Duquesne University, 600 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15282. Electronic mail may be sent to geigerm2@duq.edu.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Mingang K. Geiger

Mark Geiger

Note

Author Biographies

Mingang K. Geiger is an Assistant Professor of Management at Duquesne University. Her research explores implicit biases that disadvantage marginalized groups in the workplace. Min is particularly interested in employees speaking English as their second language.

Luke A. Langlinais is an Assistant Professor of Management in the Jack C. Massey College of Business at Belmont University. His primary research interests involve organizational behavior topics related to social influence in organizations, with an emphasis on how individuals rebuild trust in workplace relationships.

Mark Geiger is an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Duquesne University. His general areas of research include meta-analysis, quantitative methods, and topics at the intersection of entrepreneurship and organizational behavior.

Associate Editor: Stacey Kessler

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