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The impact of gender and attractiveness on observer perceptions of stutterers
Author(s) -
NYE CHAND
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
international journal of language and communication disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.101
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1460-6984
pISSN - 1368-2822
DOI - 10.1111/j.1460-6984.1995.tb01742.x
Subject(s) - psychology , stuttering , attractiveness , fluency , rating scale , personality , likert scale , perception , developmental psychology , physical attractiveness , plural , social psychology , mathematics education , neuroscience , psychoanalysis , linguistics , philosophy
The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of physical attractiveness and personality, intellectual and social characteristics in observer perceptions of stutterers. A total of 140 observers representing four groups: professional business men (PM) (N=28); professional business women (PW) (N=27); blue collar (BC) (N=17, 5M, 12F); and students (ST) (N=68, 5M, 63F). Attractiveness was determined by asking 45 judges (24F, 21M) to rank order photographs of four male and four female young adults. The attractive and unattractive males were ranked first and last by 93.33% of the judges, whereas the attractive and unattractive females were ranked first and last by 100% of those surveyed. The four individuals identified above were trained to imitate a variety of fluency patterns and secondary characteristics of stuttering during a video recorded reading of the ‘Grandfather’ passage. Each speaker received an overall score of 31–36 severity rating, based on the Stuttering Severity Instrument: For Children and Adults (Riley, 1980). By use of a format as as Likert Scale questionnaire, each observer rated each speaker on a seven‐point scale. All observers viewed and rated videotaped presentations of attractive and unattractive male and female stutterers for personality, intellectual, physical and social characteristics. The data revealed no significant differences with respect to the individual group ratings for the unattractive stutterers. However, a significant omnibus F was obtained for the group ratings for the attractive subjects. Additional data will be presented regarding the nature of observer ratings based on the gender of the stutterer.