Whether it’s a friendly emoji or a cheeky wink, many of us regularly include emojis in our work emails.
But if you want to be taken seriously in the office, a new study suggests you should rein in emoji.
Researchers from Tel Aviv University found that people who include images and emojis in their emails are considered less influential than those who use words.
“Today we are all used to communicating through pictures, and social networks make it both easy and fun,” the researchers say.
“Our results, however, are troubling: in some situations, especially in work or business environments, this practice can be costly as it signals low power.
“Our advice: think twice before sending an image or emoji to people in your organization or in any other context in which you want to be perceived as an influencer.”
Tel Aviv University researchers found that people who include images and emojis in their emails are considered less influential than those who use words (archived image).
Power poses help women feel more powerful at work
Previous research has shown that power poses can change the hormones women release to help them feel more dominant in the workplace.
Standing with legs apart, hands on hips, and chin lift for two minutes has been reported to increase testosterone levels in women by 20% and cortisol levels to decrease by about 25%.
Some social psychologists believe that managing these hormones responsible for confidence and anxiety, respectively, could be the key to narrowing the gender gap in executive bodies across the country.
In the course of the study, the researchers set out to understand whether the use of images in emails affects people’s perceptions at work.
The team ran a series of experiments in which hundreds of participants were presented with various daily scenarios.
In one experiment, participants were asked to imagine themselves shopping in a supermarket and seeing another customer wearing a Red Sox T-shirt.
Half of the participants were shown a T-shirt with a verbal RED SOX logo, and the other half were shown the logo in the form of an image.
The results showed that participants who saw the slogan T-shirt rated the wearer as more powerful than those who saw the graphic logo.
Meanwhile, in another experiment, participants were asked to imagine attending a retreat for a fictitious company called Lotus.
Half were told that the employee had chosen a T-shirt with the word LOTUS logo, while the other half were told that she had chosen a T-shirt with the company’s logo, a minimalist image of a lotus flower.
As in the first experiment, the participants said the woman had more power when they were told she chose the T-shirt with the word logo.
Finally, in the third experiment, participants joined a Zoom meeting with two other participants – one introduced himself with a graphic profile, and the other introduced himself with a verbal profile.
In one experiment, participants were asked to imagine shopping in a supermarket and seeing another customer wearing a Red Sox T-shirt. Half of the participants were shown a RED SOX verbal T-shirt (left) and the other half were shown a graphic logo (right).
The participants were then asked to choose one of the co-participants to represent them in a competitive game suitable for people with high social power.
The results showed that 62 percent of the participants selected the participant who introduced themselves using the verbal profile.
Dr Elinor Amit, co-author of the study, said: “Why do images signal that the sender is low-powered? Research shows that visual messages are often interpreted as a signal of a desire for social intimacy.
“A separate study shows that less powerful people want social closeness more than powerful people.
In another experiment, participants were asked to imagine that they were attending a repeat event for a fictitious company called Lotus. Half were told that the employee chose a T-shirt with the word LOTUS logo (left), and the other half were told that she chose a T-shirt with the company’s logo, a minimalist image of a lotus flower (right). )
“Hence, by signaling that you need social intimacy by using images, you are essentially signaling that you are less influential.
“It should be noted that such signals usually do not matter in close relationships, for example, in communication between family members.
“However, in many areas of our lives, especially at work or in business, power relationships predominate, and we must be aware of the impression our messages make on recipients.
“Our results are raising a red flag: if you want to signal strength, think twice before sending an emoji or picture.”
EMOJI DISRUPT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE?
Emoticons can be a fun form of communication, but they’re ruining the English language, a recent Google study found.
Emoticons, love hearts, thumbs up and other cartoon characters – not words – are the preferred communication method of teens, who are considered the worst offenders in regards to grammar and punctuation deterioration.
According to a study commissioned by Google-owned website YouTube, more than a third of British adults believe that emojis are the cause of the decline in correct language use.
Emoticons were first used by Japanese mobile phone companies in the late 1990s to express an emotion, concept or message in a simple graphic way. Now Twitter feeds, text messages and Facebook posts are full of them.
Of the 2,000 adults aged 16 to 65 who were asked for their opinion, 94% thought the English language was in decline, and 80% called young people the most aggressive.
The most common mistakes made by British people are spelling mistakes (21%), followed by apostrophe (16%) and misuse of a comma (16%).
The study also found that more than half of British adults are not confident in their knowledge of spelling and grammar.
In addition, about three-quarters of adults rely on emoji for communication, in addition to relying on predictive text input and spell checking.
The use of emoji has permeated our culture to such an extent that Oxford Dictionary’s 2015 Word of the Year was actually not a word at all, but a “Face with Tears” emoji that shows just how influential small graphics were. images of steel.
They were first used by Japanese mobile phone companies in the late 1990s to express an emotion, concept, or message in a simple graphic way.