According to a new study, people are less likely to believe information if it comes from a person whose name is difficult for them to pronounce.
The study was conducted with college undergrads in New Zealand and Canada. The students were first asked to rank the "pronounceability" of real names from 18 different languages. Then, the students were given a list of possibly real, possibly fake facts attributed to people with a range of invented names. The students were much more likely to believe that "Putali Angami" was truthful than "Yevgeni Dzherzhinsky," because, according to the study's participants, "Putali Angami" was easier to pronounce.
The study authors said the results show the way that our own subconscious opinions can affect not only who we believe, but who we hire for a job and who we decide to buy things from.
In the United States, these subconscious beliefs about names sometimes seep into the workplace. A separate study conducted over several years in the United States, and published in 2013, showed that immigrants who "Americanized" their names were more likely to get jobs than ones who opted not to. They also ended up making more money.
There are major race and gender-related implications in deciding whose name is perceived to be more pronounceable. Some names fall in and out of fashion, and a celebrity with an uncommon name can make their moniker go mainstream — after all, a lot more Americans can pronounce "Schwarzenegger" or "Ejiofor" now than they could two decades ago.
Are we really that subconsciously ridiculous?
