In Work Emails, Emoticons Suggest Incompetence, Research Says

A new study suggests that contrary to face-to-face first impressions, a "smile" in formal emails may create a negative first impression.

Published in the short reports journal "Social Psychological and Personality Science" in July, the study was comprised of experiments in which 549 participants from 29 countries. Participants were asked to read a work-related e-mail from an unknown person and evaluate both the competence and warmth of that person based solely on that missive.

Emails that contained a smiley were perceived as less competent though no less warm. When the sender's gender was unknown, the "smiling" senders were more often assumed to be female, though that assumption did not affect the two tested parameters.

The participants were less likely to share information in return with senders they thought incompetent.

The study was conducted by Israeli and Dutch researchers from three universities— Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, the University of Haifa and the University of Amsterdam.

"In formal business emails, a smiley is not a smile," said Dr. Ella Glikson from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in a press release last week.