The effects of footstep sounds on impression formation and persuasion

Abstract

Although walking is ubiquitous and regularly produces footstep sounds, little is known about how such sounds impact (1) observer impressions of walkers, and (2) walker influence over observers. The current research addresses these issues in three retailing scenario-based experiments. The presence of service employees' footstep sounds is found to increase their perceived status in the eyes of the shoppers, which increases the service employees' persuasiveness. Moreover, we rule-out several potential alternative explanations (niceness, attractiveness, and honesty) while identifying a boundary condition of both theoretical and practical significance, shoppers' political ideology: service employees’ footstep sounds affect conservative shoppers far more than liberal shoppers.