The most and least attractive British regional accents have been ranked in a new survey. After quizzing 2,000 Brits, the Scottish accent was found to be the most attractive, with 15 per cent voting for it.
Other findings from the survey, carried out by TollFreeForwarding, saw the Queen’s English coming in second with 13 per cent of the votes, followed by the Geordie accent.
The top five most attractive UK accents are:
1. Scottish – 15%
2. Queen’s English – 13%
3. Geordie - 13%
4. Northern Irish – 11%
5. Welsh – 10%
The survey also found which accents that Brits believe to be least inviting, with Mancunian, Brummie, and East Anglian with the lowest votes. The five least attractive UK accents include:
1. Mancunian – 2%
2. Brummie – 2%
3. East Anglian – 2%
4. Cockney – 3%
5. Scouse – 3%
The majority of people quizzed also admitted that a salesperson’s accent affects whether they will speak with them on the phone, with 57 per cent of Brits saying they are more likely to speak to a salesperson with their preferred accent.
This is due to stereotypical associations of certain accents with a person’s status or competence, explained business psychologist Kim Stephenson, such as Queen’s English being associated with a higher status than other regional dialects.
Professor Ze Wang, at the University of Central Florida, said, “Accents can trigger social categorisation in a prompt, automatic, and occasionally unconscious manner,” meaning people may not even realise their biases against certain accents."
These unconscious biases can unfairly affect certain professions, like sales, which require good first impressions, explained sales director Ryan O’Hara: “The metric that we typically look for in an inside sales team is talk time. We’ve found that the higher an agent’s talk time, the greater the likelihood they met or exceeded a quota.”
