If you have the habit of including a smiley face emoji in your e-mails to your boss to create a positive impression, think twice. According to a study, the practice may undermine your prowess as well as the information you are sharing.
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According to a study:
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- The results demonstrated that in contrast to face-to-face smiles which
increase both competence and warmth. - The smileys in an e-mail had no effect on the perception of warmth.
- In fact, it had a negative effect and the sender was perceived as less
competent. - The smiley also did not influence the evaluation of the sender’s friendliness.
Experts said:
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- Our findings provide evidence that contrary to actual smiles.
- In addition,smileys do not increase perceptions of warmth and actually
decrease perceptions of competence. - “In formal business e-mails, a smiley is not a smile.
Experiments:
- Researchers conducted a series of experiments with a total of 549
participants from 29 different countries. - In an experiment, the participants were asked to read a work-related e-mail
from an unknown person. - And then evaluate both competence and warmth of that person. Some
included smileys while others did not. - E-mails that did not include a smiley were found to be more detailed and
included more content-related information. - Researchers said, “We found that the perceptions of low competence if a
smiley is included in turn undermined information sharing”. - In addition, when the gender of the e-mail writer was unknown.
- Recipients were more likely to assume that the e-mail was sent by a women if it included a smiley.
- However, this attribution did not influence the evaluation of competence
or friendliness, the researchers said. - People tend to assume that a smiley is a virtual smile.
- But the study showed that in the case of the workplace, at least as far as
initial ‘encounters’ are concerned, this is incorrect.