If you want to show power think twice before sending an emoji

Emoji use in professional contexts was associated with having a lower level of authority, according to a recent Tel Aviv University study.

The study, which was published in February in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, conducted a series of tests in which hundreds of Americans were presented with various daily life and work.

In one experiment, half of the participants were shown a T-shirt with the word “RED SOX” emblem of the Boston Red Sox professional baseball team, while the other half were shown the picture logo.

Those who saw the picture emblem on the T-shirt thought the wearer was less strong than those who saw the textual logo.

Another experiment asked participants to envision themselves attending a Lotus retreat. Half of the participants were told that a female employee had selected a T-shirt with the verbal “LOTUS” logo, whereas the other half were told that she had selected the visual logo (a minimalistic picture of the lotus flower). Again, respondents gave greater authority to the person who selected the verbal logo.

More trials were undertaken, including some on post-pandemic office staples like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Participants in the video call chat experiment were invited to select one of two co-participants to represent them in a competitive game designed for persons with high social power. One participant claimed to have chosen a picture profile, while the other claimed to have picked a verbal profile. The verbal participant was chosen by 62 percent of the participants.

“Research shows that visual messages are often interpreted as a signal for the desire for social proximity. A separate body of research shows that less powerful people desire social proximity more than powerful people do,” says the study’s co-author Dr. Elinor Amit.

“Consequently, signaling that you’d like social proximity by using pictures is essentially signaling you’re less powerful,” she adds.

“It must be noted that such signaling is usually irrelevant in close relationships, as in communications between family members. However, in many areas of our lives, especially at work or in business, power relations prevail, and we should be aware of the impression our messages make on their recipients,” Amit notes.

“Our findings raise a red flag: when you want to signal power think twice before sending an emoji or a picture.”

Source: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2022.104132

Image Credit: Getty

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