Impact of Authority on Stuttering 1

To study the effect of role demand, 32 adult stutterers read matched passages to authority listeners and to peer listeners. Authority listeners were PhD faculty members introduced by title, and peer listeners were fellow college students introduced by 1st name. The authority listeners elicited a significantly greater frequency of stuttering, and adaptation to authority figures was more difficult. Results were interpreted in terms of a "status gap" hypothesis, and stuttering is viewed as a species of self-role conflict. The findings are in accordance with predictions from role theory.