Psychology and More

PsyBlog has a couple interesting posts on email. In my syllabi, I wanr my students that email is notorious for miscommunicating intention, emotion, and motivation — even intelligence! PsyBlog looked at a study of email communication’s effects on the receiver. It aligns well with our discussion of individual differences (personality traits) in class this week:

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.

Link to this article in PsyBlog.

Technorati Tags: emotion, personality, psychology