The Science of Mating

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Voice notes enhance connections by conveying information such as regional accent and other vocal features.

The richness of the communication media employed helps in reducing uncertainty.

Women are more attracted to men with deeper voices, especially for short-term sexual encounters.

Many dating apps now offer users the possibility of using voice notes for either sending messages to potential matches or as a prompt on their dating profiles. Voice notes may enhance connection with others by conveying information such as regional accent or any other vocal features, which might give your potential date more detail of who you are. But is leaving the sound of your voice the best strategy for attracting a potential date compared to messaging by text? Does it actually facilitate greater initial intimacy with prospective dates compared to using simple text messaging?

Before we consider these questions, we need to remember that dating apps merely facilitate an initial contact with potential dates with a view to progressing to the next step of meeting face-to-face. Your first message is therefore one of the first impressions your potential date will have of you, and so is an impression created via a voice note an effective one? Hold that thought while we consider the research.

Media richness and uncertainty reduction

Firstly, remember that online dating endeavours may be more successful if potential matches feel less uncertain. That is, communication that is more honest, detailed, and candid will inspire more confidence. This notion aligns with the principle of media richness proposed by Richard Daft and Robert Lengel in 1986, which suggests that the richness of the communication media employed in terms of providing audio and visual cues helps in reducing uncertainty about the person delivering the message (Daft & Lengel, 1986). This being the case, the uncertainty reduction created by voice notes might well improve online dating chances.

The sound of your voice

Whether or not voice notes increase online dating success may also depend on how a voice sounds. Many different emotions are conveyed through our voice, such as affection, anger, boredom, cheerfulness, impatience, joy, sadness, or satisfaction. In addition to this, our voices can vary in pitch, rhythm, and pace, which can convey a variety of emotions or indications about behaviour. For example, maybe someone who uses too many vocal fillers (e.g., ums and ahs) might convey a lack of confidence or a lower degree of credibility.

Furthermore, we also need to be mindful of the fact that what we think we sound like in our heads is often very different from how we sound when a recording of our voice is played back to us. Therefore, how we think our voice sounds may be rather different from how we actually sound to others.

Sex differences and voice attractiveness

There are differences between men and women in terms of what is found attractive in a voice. For example, Puts (2006) points out that women are more attracted to men with deeper voices, especially for short-term sexual encounters, and also when ovulating. Indeed, body symmetry (indicating that men can withstand disease and injury—i.e., they are stronger) is associated with having a deeper voice. Deeper voices in men are also associated with dominance, which is also perceived as attractive. Interestingly, Italian researchers Luigi Anolli and Rita Ciceri found that men who were more successful at securing a second date with women adapted their voices very carefully when talking to women, presenting a higher-pitched "exhibition" voice at first, then presenting a lower and warmer "self-disclosure" voice (Anolli & Ciceri, 2002).

The types of voices men find attractive in women tend to be higher in pitch, which indicates health and fertility. Such voices are associated with higher oestrogen levels, which facilitate ovulation, making women appear more attractive.

Maybe voice notes are not for everyone because, often, we need time to carefully construct a message, which we can do by text, or maybe we feel bolder sending a text-based message, rather than speaking. Research also tells us that there are very definite sex differences in the types of text-based messages men and women send on online dating. Typically, the length of a first-contact Tinder message for a man is around 12 characters, compared with 120 characters for a woman (Tyson et al., 2016). Furthermore, men flirt more via text compared to women (Punyanunt-Carter & Wagner, 2018). These differences reflect differences in mating strategies used by men and women, with men predominantly making sexual overperception biases, basically meaning that they perceive situations as more sexually charged compared to women.

The Science of Mating

Take our Are You a Good First Date?

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So, whether or not voice notes are effective depends in part on how confident you feel about recording your voice and also the sound of your voice. An old friend told me that before they met face-to-face, his girlfriend-to-be spoke with him on the telephone and said she thought he had a very attractive voice, but on meeting, she told him that she was initially "very disappointed" in how he looked. The happy end of the story is that they are now married. He obviously made a good first impression.

Anolli, L., & Ciceri, R. (2002). Analysis of the vocal profiles of male seduction: From exhibition to self-disclosure. Journal of General Psychology, 129(2), 149–169.

Daft, R.L. and Lengel, R.H. (1986) Organizational Information Requirements, Media Richness and Structural Design. Management Science, 32, 554–571.

Punyanunt-Carter, N. M & Wagner, T. R. (2018) Interpersonal Communication Motives for Flirting Face to Face and Through Texting. Cyberpsychology, Behaviour and Social Networking, 21, (4), 229–233.

Puts D. A., Gaulin, S. J. C. & Verdolini, K. (2006) Dominance and the evolution of Sexual Dimorphism in Human Voice Pitch. Evolution and Human Behaviour, 27, 283–296.

Tyson, G, Perta, V, Haddadi, H, & Seto, M. (2016) ‘A First Look at User Activity on Tinder’ 8th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining.

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