A new study from the University of Chicago shows that a foreign accent undermines a person’s credibility in ways that the speaker and the listener don’t consciously realize.
“The results have important implications for how people perceive non-native speakers of a language, particularly as mobility increases in the modern world, leading millions of people to be non-native speakers of the language they use daily,” said Boaz Keysar, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago and an expert on communication.
“Accent might reduce the credibility of non-native job seekers, eyewitnesses, reporters or people taking calls in foreign call centers,” said Shiri Lev-Ari, lead author of “Why Don’t We Believe Non-native Speakers? The Influence of Accent on Credibility,” written with Keysar and published in the current issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
But on the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised if there might be countries where foreign accents can make speakers seem more truthful to listeners. I can think of a few countries where being a foreigner is a plus, that is, a European or North American foreigner! One has to take into account cultural beliefs and brainwashing propaganda against or pro all things foreign. It is interesting and very telling of how much can slip our conscious awareness. I am also reminded of the following study from Blink by Malcolm Gladwell:
Blink in Black and White
Over the past few years, a number of psychologists have begun to look more closely at the role these kinds of unconscious—or, as they like to call them, implicit—associations play in our beliefs and behavior, and much of their work has focused on a very fascinating tool called the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The IAT was devised by Anthony G. Greenwald, Mahzarin Banaji, and Brian Nosek, and it is based on a seemingly obvious—but nonetheless quite profound—observation. We make connections much more quickly between pairs of ideas that are already related in our minds than we do between pairs of ideas that are unfamiliar to us. What does that mean? Let me give you an example. Below is a list of words. Take a pencil or pen and assign each name to the category to which it belongs by putting a check mark either to the left or to the right of the word. You can also do it by tapping your finger in the appropriate column. Do it as quickly as you can. Don’t skip over words. And don’t worry if you make any mistakes.
I walked into a bookstore of a small Canadian town in 2005 and asked for a true crime story where a doctor was involved. I thought that perhaps it would help me to understand better pathological personalities and how insidious they are in our society, including the medical community. A few seconds later the guy brought me, 
by Elaine Aron was published nearly 10 years ago and it has changed the life of thousands of readers. Just imagine, a highly sensitive person (HSP) may think of herself or himself as an inborn introvert, neurotic or shy person, or as if she or he has some sort of problem and when a non-HSP psychologist or even when the average non-HSP person describes sensitive individuals according how they “look like”, they usually describe them wrongly as introverts, shy people, timid, neurotics, etc. But this is not necessarily true for the HSP and actually, some non-HSP can be described that way too.