2008 Volume 31 Issue 4 Pages 403-414
This research aims to examine the affective aspect of text-based communication. The subjects are 42 university students, who were randomly paired and asked to participate in a series of e-mail communication. Right after each e-mail communication, those who received e-mails were asked to answer the questions that concern how they felt (their affective states) and how they interpreted the message senders' affective states (affective interpretation). The subjects were divided into 3 groups in terms of their inherent affective traits determined by the established questionnaire, Discrete Emotions Scale IV ('Negative-affection oriented group', 'Positive-affection oriented group', and 'Hostility-affection oriented group'). Then, the correlation between the message receivers' interpretation of the message senders' affective states and the message receivers' affective states, together with the correlation between the message senders' affective states and the message receivers' interpretation of the message senders' affective states was compared among the three groups. The results showed that the two relationships were influenced by message receivers' inherent affective traits, based on which the causes of the affective problems faced in text-based communication were discussed.
