[anarchist23]

[Ter]

Using Smiley Faces In Work Emails Portrays Low Competence, Study Finds

Smiling emoticons in work related e-mails portray low competence, according to a new study.

The paper published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science on July 31 also suggested such emojis could undermine information sharing and may not create a positive reaction regarding the communication.

The study was conducted by researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), Beer-Sheva, Israel; University of Haifa, Israel; and Amsterdam University, The Netherlands.

They conducted a series of experiments with 549 participants from 29 countries.

According to the study, while smiling during face-to-face communication was perceived as warm and indicated more competence with regards to the first impressions created, a text-based representation of a smile in computer-mediated communication did not have the same effect.

"Our findings provide first-time evidence that, contrary to actual smiles, smileys do not increase perceptions of warmth and actually decrease perceptions of competence," said Ella Glikson, a post-doctorate fellow at the BGU Department of Management, Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management, according to a news release.

"In formal business e-mails, a smiley is not a smile."

In one of the three experiments conducted, participants were asked to read a work-related email and then assess the competence and warmth of the person. While the messages remained similar for all participants, some e-mails included smileys. The researchers found that unlike face-to-face communication, smileys did not have any effect on the perception of warmth, and in fact had a negative effect regarding perception of competence.

"The study also found that when the participants were asked to respond to e-mails on formal matters, their answers were more detailed and they included more content-related information when the e-mail did not include a smiley," said Glikson. "We found that the perceptions of low competence if a smiley is included in turn undermined information sharing."

“When you meet somebody for the first time, face to face, smiling is normal. Is a smiley or smile by email considered equivalent? No. Really no. It does not create that perception of warmth, of friendliness. It does not achieve that, whatever we might expect,” said Arik Cheshin of the University of Haifa’s Department of Human Services, a co-author of the study, according to a report by Haaretz.

Another experiment saw the use of a smiley compared to a smiling or neutral photograph in a work-related email. This experiment found that the smiling sender was perceived as more competent and friendly than the neutral sender.

The study also contributed to the discussion of the role of gender with regards to use and interpretation of emoticons. When the gender of the sender was unknown, participants were more likely to assume the sender was a woman if it included a smiley. According to the news release, however, this had no influence on assessing competence and friendliness.

"People tend to assume that a smiley is a virtual smile, but the findings of this study show that in the case of the workplace, at least as far as initial 'encounters' are concerned, this is incorrect," Glikson concluded. "For now, at least, a smiley can only replace a smile when you already know the other person. In initial interactions, it is better to avoid using smileys, regardless of age or gender."

http://www.ibtimes.com/using-smiley-fac ... ds-2578080

I think it is appropriate to mention this in this thread.
Some Pofo posters might be interested !

[One Degree]

She is right on. You are not doing them any favors by attributing some 'goodness ' or other stereotype to their dark skin. They are just people.

[anarchist23]

Apple introduced its new racially diverse emoji, allowing users to cycle through various shades of white and brown to customize their emoji’s skin colors. Some rejoiced, with choruses of “We made it” flanked by newly black praise-hand emoji filling Instagram and Twitter. Some even professed to cry tears of joy over this sign of racial inclusion. But already, Apple’s well-intentioned gesture to human diversity has taken a turn for the worse. The emoji are being used to make racist comments on social media and insert questions of race in texts and tweets where it may never have arisen before. Instead of correcting its mistake — excluding people of color from emoji — Apple has, in some ways, made the situation worse.

Apple has allowed for further racial segregation with these new emoji. Because I’m black, should I now feel compelled to use the “appropriate” brown-skinned nail-painting emoji? Why would I use the white one? Now in simple text messages and tweets, I have to identify myself racially. I’ll now question other people’s emoji use when they’re speaking to me: Why is he sending me the black angel emoji specifically? Why is she sending me the black-girl emoji instead of the white one? What Apple has done is introduce race into everyday conversations where it doesn’t necessarily need to be. Clorox already has felt the weight of that reality, when in response to the new emoji, the brand tweeted “where’s the bleach?” The barrage of criticism that followed the face-palm moment pressured the company to tweet an apology, noting that it never meant the comment as a reference to race.

But predictably, many people are using the multicultural emoji to refer to race, and in the worst ways possible:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/postever ... f108ba24d9

[mikema63]

I'm not sure Google is responsible for how racists use thing like emojis they provide. It is rather difficult for them to have both multiethnic emojis and prevent people from using them in ways they don't intend without reading every message that goes through their platforms which has other problems.

There is a critical error in blaming Google for a problem they cannot address ie systemic racism.

[One Degree]

Our emojis have no racial connotation, why can't Google just go back to the neutral?

[Igor Antunov]

Whatever, but white emojis would just blend into the background of most sites and be invisible. That's racist.

[Rugoz]

I don't get it, aren't emojis supposed to be yellow?

[Heisenberg]

I'm still not sure why people stopped calling them "emoticons" and started calling them "emojis".

[SolarCross]

I'm still not sure why people stopped calling them "emoticons" and started calling them "emojis". :?:

Aesthetics is my guess, "emoticons" sounds like something the borg do in between assimilating biological and technological distinctiveness. It's a nerd word.

Emoji sounds kind of cuddly and warm, like a kitten picture.

The transition from one word to the next coincides with the mass migration of normies to the nerd planet Internet.

[Pants-of-dog]

Emoji seems to be a word that was made up by Japanese people.

I was right. https://english.stackexchange.com/quest ... first-used

[Heisenberg]

Yet another case of the Japanese Imperial Clan getting their grubby hands on the rest of us. Cherry will be horrified.

[Ter]

We always knew they were Japanese because of the yellow colour they had.
I surmise that is why they now gave it other colours but it is too late, the cat is out of the bag, they can not make us un-know it.
Better to refrain from using them at all because it is a form of cultural appropriation.
Sayonara harigato sim sala bim.

[ness31]

I'm still not sure why people stopped calling them "emoticons" and started calling them "emojis". :?:

YES. YES. YES. I've resented the encroachment.