The effects of various kinds of receiver's emotions on sender's use of Emoticons

Abstract

This research investigated the effects of various kinds of receiver's emotions on (1) incompatibility when people attached emoticons to cellular phone email messages, (2) the kind of emoticon, and (3) the relationship between the sender's message and the kind of emoticon utilized. Forty-two Japanese university students (27 female, 15 male) sent messages with an emoticon to an imaginary friend who felt an emotion (happy, sad, anxiety, anger). Results suggested that receivers attached an emoticon to an email when they felt anxious. When receivers felt anxiety, senders tended to attach a smiley emoticon. This suggests that an emoticon was not just used as an expressive message, but was also sent to manipulate a receiver's emotion.