Sounds of Power and Deference: Acoustic Analysis of Macro Social Constraints on Micro Interaction

In Goffman's introduction to Interaction Ritual, he implores sociologists “to identify the countless patterns and natural sequences of behavior occurring whenever persons come into one another's immediate presence.” This article, in addressing Goffman's entreaty, amalgamates a number of sociological theories on interaction ritual from Durkheim and Goffman with others in contemporary literatures in the sociology of emotions and social psychology to describe a set of “patterns and natural sequences of behavior” imbedded in voices of interaction partners. These patterns are shown to establish an element of social structure, and this research describes an objective method of identifying and measuring this element that previously was known on a qualitative basis alone. A social status ordering pattern founded upon interpersonal deference and power relations is identified through analysis of acoustic energy levels in voices of interview partners. Nonverbal measures are performed using a dual-channel Fast Fourier Transform analyzer and results are explained using a carrier spectrum model. This report sets forth an interesting new way of objectively measuring the macro social constraints on micro interaction.