Katherine Kinzler on the ‘Hidden Bias’ Toward How People Speak

We often turn to social identities, such as race, gender, and socioeconomic status, to better understand inequality across groups. But what if we’ve overlooked an identity hiding in plain sight? The way we speak, including our language and accent, shapes how others judge us, sometimes without them even realizing it. Our guest today has contributed foundational research on when language bias first develops and how it can lead to discrimination in seemingly innocuous ways. Her work suggests that speech may be an underrecognized contributor to unequal outcomes.

Katherine Kinzler is a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago. She is the author of How You Say It: Why We Judge Others by the Way They Talk―and the Costs of This Hidden Bias. In this conversation with host Geoff Wodtke and guest host Ariel Kalil, she discusses what her developmental research reveals about speech-related biases, how deeply embedded they are in everyday life, and how stereotypes about particular accents may play out in the age of AI.