Accent Attitudes: A Review Through Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive Perspectives

Interacting with speakers of different accents is a prevalent global phenomenon. Given the considerable influence of accents in daily life, it is important to conduct a comprehensive review of listeners' accent attitudes. This paper provides an integrative summary of research on accent attitudes, drawing from the Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive (ABC) perspectives. We begin by outlining the social meaning of accents and laying out the theoretical foundations of the ABC approach. Then, we organize and integrate existing research findings using the ABC framework. Next, we illustrate how the perspectives intersect by discussing pertinent research findings. Drawing from various sociocultural contexts over many years, this review underscores the significant impact of accents on people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The review concludes by discussing limitations, proposing future directions, highlighting real-world relevance, and suggesting areas for research expansion.

Preventing Cross-Cultural Bias in Deception Judgments

The expectancy violation model proposes that people infer deception when the communicator violates social norms without obvious cause. However, social norms are culture specific. Therefore, discrepant norms between a communicator and an observer in a cross-cultural interaction might increase the likelihood of inferring deception and thus result in bias. The present study investigated whether informing people about cultural differences in nonverbal behavior could counteract cross-cultural bias in deception judgments. Sixty-nine Australian students were randomly assigned to receive no information, general information, or specific information about culture-specific behavioral norms prior to making credibility judgments of 10 video clips (5 norm consistent and 5 norm inconsistent). The results suggest that cross-cultural biases in deception judgments can occur but may also be prevented by providing appropriate information. These findings require further investigation but have potentially significant implications in law enforcement, customs, immigration, and broader societal interactions.