Whether it’s about the weather, delays on public transport, or people backing out of plans – we complain daily. Now, researchers investigated if these complaints sound different depending on which culture we grew up in. Investigating two French-speaking cultures, they found that complaints were delivered differently and that Québécois sounded angrier whereas the French sounded sadder. While there may be an universal complaining tone of voice, cultural variations could show learned social conventions, embedded into us by the culture we grew up in, the researchers said.

It has long been established that emotions reflect in our voice – this helps us communicate more purposefully and gives listeners cues as to how they should interpret what we say. But what emotions predominate in complaints – and how do they differ between groups? Researchers in Switzerland and Canada investigated and published their findings in Frontiers in Communication.

“Complaining is differentiated from neutral speech by changes in vocal expression. Complainers tend to change their intonation, pitch, rhythm, and emphasis, making them sound more emotive and expressive,” said first author Dr Maël Mauchand, a neuroscientist at the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences at the University of Geneva. “We show that complaining strategies show specific variations across two francophone cultures, with Québécois sounding more angry or surprised and French speakers sounding sadder.”

Conventions for complaints

Knowing in detail what complaints sound like could help researchers understand how they are perceived and how they elicit empathy in others. For the experiment, the researchers recruited eight speakers (four French and four Québécois) who recorded 84 short sentences in a neutral and a complaining voice – irrespective of linguistic content. Then, 40 people living in Quebec, half of which had grown up in France, assessed the emotions (happy, sad, angry, surprised, fearful, disgusted) in a selection of utterances.

“Complaining strategies seem consistent towards defining a general ‘complaining tone of voice’, with a few specific cultural variations,” Mauchand explained. For example, complaints were delivered with a higher and more variable pitch as well as louder and slower in general. These parameters differed slightly between cultures, for example, the French spoke at a higher pitch. In contrast, Québécois showed greater pitch variability, which indicates more pronounced changes in intonation across their complaint.

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Sad or angry?

Complaints reconstruct emotional states and speakers complain to convey or re-live a negative experience. Accordingly, they convey strong emotions that stress this negativity. On an emotional level, listening participants rated Québécois as sounding angrier, more surprised, and more disgusted than French speakers, whereas French speakers were rated as sounding sadder.

“There may be cultural norms on what a complaint sounds like in France or in Quebec, influenced by their use,” Mauchand explained. “The French are said to complain quite often – if complaining is frequent and ritualized, it makes sense that complainers try to make their voice sound less aggressive, for example by using higher intonation and sounding more sad than angry.”

On the other hand, Québécois are generally more expressive in their speech, which might explain why high-arousal emotions like surprise or anger are more prominent in their complaints.

“There may be social conventions on what a complaint sounds like in a particular culture, which can be learned as we grow up,” Mauchand pointed out. “How we complain is a subtle interplay between emotion, social context, and cultural display rules.”

Beyond words

The researchers pointed out that their sample size, limited in both the number of speakers and cultures represented, could mean their results aren’t generalizable. In addition, complaints may take other forms in longer statements or interactions. Further research could examine if such cultural differences can be found in speakers of the same language who grew up in different cultures. While the trend might be universal, such variations could depend on the cultural importance of complaints: how often a culture complains, why people complain, and how complaints are received by others, the team said.

The work highlights the critical role of the tone of voice in social interactions and the information may be used in studies about communication disorders and in therapy training. “Asan immediate application, it could encourage people to be more attentive,” concluded Mauchand. “Not just to what people say, but how they say it – and what it implies.”

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