How do Emoticons and Capitalisation Affect Perception of Email?
Compared with face-to-face communication, nonverbal cues in email are lacking. But humans are fabulous at generating meaning even when cues are sparse. Psychologists have theorised our motivation for generating meaning is reducing levels of uncertainty and helping predict other people's behaviour. This might explain how, in emails, even two simple things like capitalisation and emoticons can have important effects on reader's perceptions. People want to predict our behaviour, and we theirs.
Personality, emoticons and capitalisation in email
The research on nonverbal behaviour in emails is not as simple as emoticons are good while capitalisation is bad. It seems both capitalisation and emoticons can evoke polarised responses. Perhaps less polarised for capitalisation which is normally considered a no-no in emails. Although capitalisation can also communicate excitement and not just senseless shouting.
For emoticons, there is some research finding they can take the sting out of a flame (a message with negative content), while others find it doesn't. Perhaps some of this variability in the perception of capitalisation and emoticons comes down to personality?
The study
Byron and Baldridge (2007) researched this by asking college students to fill in a personality questionnaire and then read emails from an unknown person. These were simple requests for copies of academic papers or information about the university. Each student was randomly assigned to read two of four differently presented emails. Some of the emails were all capitalised, others included emoticons and the rest neither, so the researchers could compare responses. The students then rated the sender's likeability.
They found that, sure enough, using correct capitalisation and emoticons tended to make a better impression on readers. The reader's personality also influenced how emoticons and capitalisation were perceived. Readers high in both extroversion and emotional stability were likely to rate sender's emails as more likeable if they had correct capitalisation. As for emoticons, readers higher in emotional stability were likely to rate sender's emails more likeable if they used emoticons.
The opposite was also true. This meant that for the introverted and emotionally unstable, correct capitalisation tended not to affect the sender's likeability, perhaps even lowering it. Similarly, emoticons had little effect on the emotionally unstable.
More questions than answers
These results are interesting but they also raise loads more questions. Emoticons may make the sender appear more likeable, but do they also make them seem less professional? Can emoticons really take the sting out of a flame? In this study, they only used a smiley face :-) but what about all the other emoticons? And what if you're using emoticons other people don't understand?
These questions are multiplied if more advanced ways of communicating emotion in email become a reality. Researchers are currently working on electronic mail systems which involve expressive typography, graphical components as well as old fashioned words to convey emotion. Whether this will provide a significant and useable step forward in email over punctuation, italicisation and capitalisation, we shall have to wait and see. Until then, WE'VE GOT QUITE ENOUGH QUESTIONS TO ANSWER ABOUT EMAIL JUST AS IT IS :-)
Sorry.
» This post is part of a series on nonverbal behaviour.
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very interesting stuff.
one thing i was curious about is my style of writing, using no capitalization at all.
i learnt it from one of my linguistic professors and just adore it. (i use caps only for abbreviations like grade A).
i was wondering whether any of the studies mentioned this. (but then, very few people that i know of write like this)
~ganesh
Hi Ganesh, it's not mentioned in this study no. I doubt it would be in any others as this type of research is pretty new.
My guesss is it doesn't make too much difference to the way people's perception. I know one or two people who write emails without any capitalisation and it certainly doesn't bother me.
Two things do come to mind though.
The first is that I generally associate no capitalisation with younger people as it looks more like text-speak. The other is the poetry of e e cummings.
Take from that what you will!
Hi Jeremy,
This is my first comment on your blog, so I'd like to start out with this: thanks!
I'm starting work on my PsyD (clinical psychology doctorate similar to PhD) in the fall and I will most certainly be referring to your website to keep things fresh and interesting.
As far as this article is concerned: how do you think the research (though preliminary) will affect our notions of what makes a "proper" email? I ask because I believe that proper use of capitalization (sorry for my American spelling!) indicates (or at least suggests) better understanding of English grammar and its correct use. Do you think as the texting generation comes of age we will start to care less about such "pedantic" distinctions? I wouldn't evaluate the change in a negative way, but it seems that as technology strips us of the limitations of physical boundaries, so too does it make arbitrary differences much less clear.
Am I too wordy? Sorry about that. I'm just curious to hear what you think.
Thanks again!
Not to be a nitpicker, but I think it would be helpful if you distibguished between capitalization and all caps. I began reading the post thinking, perhaps like Ganesh, that you were talking about capitalization versus all lower case. It became clear as I read that you were refering to the use of all caps, but your rss blurb is a little misleading without the distiction.
Love the blog, btw!
;-) Kiki
Kiki, good point, thanks for letting me know. Glad you like the blog.
This is interesting. Did you see the NYT article about emoticons? It also talks about the history of how emoticon use started:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/fashion/29emoticon.html?ex=1343534400&en=2967e0686dca297d&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Great blog! :)
(Oh, I use emoticons all the time - excessively, some might even say)
I've noticed people starting to leave 'signatures' off the end of emails now - the "best regards, alan" recently, and I think it and lack of capitalisation arise from:
* don't need to signoff because the recipient already knows who the sender is;
* the extra keystrokes needed to capitalise in SMS and IM.
so, next... i can haz study on uzin lolcatz speek? ;-)
...sorry, meant to say, i blogged my take on it here.