By A. Bieri
Have you ever heard of the saying, "it is not what you say, it is how you say it"? This is a phrase that is often used when describing the attitude and tone of voice from someone who says something that usually gets perceived in a wrongfully intended way. For instance, if someone were to ask you to do something by saying, "you need to stop what you are doing and go do this now..," you might be hesitant or restrictive to doing what it is they asked. However, if someone were to ask you the same request but in a different way by saying, "hey, if you don't mind, will you please do this..," you are likely to respond to the second request in a way that is more pleasing and desired. Many people are very sensitive to the tone of voice in others. It makes sense that adolescents, in particular, are very sensitive to inflection because this is a time in a young individual’s life when they are learning about autonomy and gaining a sense of independence for themselves. It is important, especially as parents, to remember this when communicating with adolescents and aiming for a cooperating response that doesn’t have negative effects.
There was a recent study done in individuals ages 14-15 with the goal of learning if a mother’s tone of voice plays any sort of role in the outcome of an adolescent’s decision making. Researchers were interested in learning if being told what to do in a specific tone had any effect on the relationship between the adolescent and the mother. Researchers Weinstein, Vanseenkiste, and Paulmann (2019) gathered adolescents who were all being raised by either their mother only or their mother and father, and had the adolescents listen to audio recordings of commands regarding school activities from someone posing as their mothers. These mothers were asked to speak using three different tones: a controlling tone, a neutral tone, and an autonomy-supportive tone. It was noted in the study that the microphone was positioned in the same spot for each requested tone, signaling that it would not be perceived by the adolescent that the mother was yelling the request. The goal of this experiment was to identify which tone of voices do adolescents respond to best and how does the tone of voice effect a mother and adolescent’s relationship. Upon collection of the results, it was found that, as the researchers expected, an autonomy-supportive tone had the most positive outcome among the adolescents, and there actually was not much difference between the controlling tone verses the neutral tone.
The findings of this experiment is an essential discovery in aiding a change in the relationships between mothers and adolescents. This change could have a direct influence on the efficiency of communicating with individuals in this developmental period. It helps parents identify that adolescents are experiencing conflicting feelings of wanting to be obedient while also feeling a sense of independence and autonomy.
Weinstein, N., Vansteenkiste, M., & Paulmann S. (2019) Listen to your mother: Motivating tones of voice predict adolescents' reaction to mothers. Developmental Psychology. 55(12). 1534-2546. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000827
