People with simple names enjoy quicker career advancement because hard-to-pronounce names inspire negative reactions from superiors,a study has found.
Researchers found that a'name pronunciation effect'played a major role in how people were perceived by colleagues and friends.
The team of American and Australian scientists concluded that the easier a person's name was to say,the better their success was in the workplace and the quicker they were promoted.
Their study,published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,also found a simple name improved people's ability to make new friends.
Dr Simon Laham,from Melbourne University, who led the study,said people with simple names were generally judged more positively.
“The effect is not due merely to the length of a name or how foreign-sounding or unusual it is,but rather how easy it is to pronounce.”he said.
Dr Adam Alter, a co-author from New York University's Stern School of Business,added: “People simply aren't aware of the subtle impact that names can have on their judgments.”
In their study,mainly conducted in the field, the team investigated the way names can influence a person's impressions and decision making.
They looked at dozens of surnames from different nationalities of about 500 university student volunteers from Anglo, Asian, and European backgrounds and a field of 500 lawyers in America.
The team found that people with more'pronounceable'names were more likely to win political office. Meanwhile, they found that American lawyers with easier sounding names were promoted faster within their law firms.
The findings add weight to previous research which suggested that company stocks with simpler names outperformed more complex business names immediately after they appear on the market.
一項研究表明，名字簡單的人更容易得到升職，因為難讀的名字會令上級反感。
研究人員發現，“讀名效應”在同事和朋友對你的印象中起著重大作用。
美澳兩國的科學研究小組得出結論稱，一個人的名字越容易讀，就越容易在職場取得成功，也更容易得到晉升。
他們的研究發表在《實驗社會心理學雜志》上，研究結果還表明，簡單的名字可以提高人們交到新朋友的能力。
研究負責人、墨爾本大學的西蒙·拉罕博士說，人們對名字簡單的人普遍持更正面的看法。
他說：“這種效應不僅是由于名字的長短、聽著像不像外國人名，或者多么少見，而是容不容易讀出來。”
紐約大學斯特恩商學院的報告合著者之一亞當·奧特補充說：“人們一般不會意識到人名對他們對其他人的判斷所產生的微妙影響。”
該研究主要在實地進行，研究小組還調查了人名影響人們的印象和決斷的方式。
他們查看了500名大學生志愿者和500名美國律師的幾十個姓氏，大學生受訪者國籍不同，有的來自英國，有的來自亞洲，還有些來自歐洲。
研究小組發現，名字“更容易讀”的人更容易走上政治道路，名字更容易讀的美國律師在事務所里升職更快。
此前一項研究表明，名字易讀的公司股票在上世后，比名字復雜難讀的股票表現更好。這項研究進一步證明了這一點。
