How Charisma Is Perceived from Speech: A Multidimensional Approach

A leader's charisma is conveyed by various multiple aspects of his perceivable behavior among which the acoustic-prosodic characteristics of speech. We present here a study on the perception of charisma in political speech that aims to investigate the notion of charisma and to validate a theoretical framework on a multidimensional scale of charisma perception. The study points out that a multidimensional approach of charisma allows to better analyze which factors are related to specific aspects of speech. We finally clustered the charismatic voice of an Italian political leader in three factors: Proactive-Attracting, Benevolent-Competent and Authoritarian.