Influence of Emoticons on Perceived Negative Affect and Professionalism in Work-related Email

Abstract

This study examined the use of emoticons, which are symbols that represent feelings or emotions, and their relationship to perceptions of negative affect in business email communications. Based on Byron’s (2008) propositions on the misperception of emotion in email, this study hypothesized that emails that include emoticons would reduce the effects of sender status and gender on the perceived negativity of the email message. Sender status, gender, and use of emoticon were manipulated in a set of hypothetical email messages using a between-subjects design. Working adults rated the perceived negative affect and perceived professionalism of the sender in an online survey. Email messages that included emoticons were perceived as less negative than messages of identical content without an emoticon. There were also several interactions between emoticon usage, reader gender, and the other email characteristics. Emails with emoticons also were perceived as less professional, but only when controlling for the perceived friendliness of the sender.