Political Speech: The Influence of Speaker Sex and Verbal Aggression on Message Perception

This study examined political messaging. More specifically, I considered the influence of the sex of the speaker and the use of verbal aggression on overall message perception. One hundred and six college-aged students read eight excerpts of political speech where sex of the speaker (male; female) and level of aggression (aggressive; nonaggressive) were manipulated. Participants then completed measures assessing their agreement with the political message, the speaker’s credibility, the speaker’s communicative appropriateness, and the speaker’s level of verbal aggressiveness. Results indicated that male and female political speakers were evaluated similarly on measures of agreeableness, credibility, and appropriateness. In addition, aggressive messages were evaluated as less agreeable, less credible, and less appropriate than nonaggressive messages. Finally, results identified a significant interaction between the sex of the speaker and level of aggression when predicting agreement with message, speaker credibility, and communicative appropriateness