2007 邮件中传递的情绪线索对邮件接受者和发送者的情绪影响

Effects of emotional cues transmitted ine-mail communication on the emotionsexperienced by senders and receiversYuuki Kato *,Shogo Kato,Kanji AkahoriGraduate School of Decision Science and Technology,Tokyo Institute of Technology,Department of Human System Science,2-12-1Ookayama,Meguro-ku,Tokyo 152-8552,JapanAvailable online 24January 2006AbstractThis paper focuses on communication by e-mail.An experiment was conducted to investigate the influence the degree of emotional cues transmitted during e-mail communication has on the emotions experienced by the senders and receivers.Twenty-two participants of this experiment were divided into two groups based on the degrees of emotional cues transmitted:a High group and a Low group.The emotions experienced in the e-mail communication by the High group were then compared to that of the Low group.The results of this experiment showed a tendency for unpleasant emotions such as anger and anxiety to increase when emotional cues transmitted are low (i.e.,the Low group).The findings suggest that low degrees of emotional cues transmitted between senders and receivers in e-mail communication tend to cause some misunderstanding.Ó2005Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved.Keywords:Computer-mediated communication;E-mail;Emotional cues transmission1.IntroductionMuch research has been conducted on computer-mediated communication,commonly referred to as CMC (Kiesler,Siegel,&McGuire,1984),and a lot of literature has been 0747-5632/$-see front matter Ó2005Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.chb.2005.11.005*Corresponding author.Tel.:+81357343233.E-mail addresses:yuuki@ak.cradle.titech.ac.jp (Y.Kato),shougo@ak.cradle.titech.ac.jp (S.Kato),akahori @ak.cradle.titech.ac.jp (K.Akahori).Computers in Human Behavior 23(2007)1894–1905Computers inHuman Behavior/locate/comphumbehY.Kato et al./Computers in Human Behavior23(2007)1894–19051895 written on the subject since it appeared several decades ago.Recently,the use of CMC has become increasingly common in distance education settings(e.g.,Garrison&Anderson, 2003;Gunawardena&Zittle,1997).As a result,there are many studies on CMC which give suggestions for its educational use.Most of the studies focused on the technical or cognitive aspects of CMC(e.g.,Sannomiya&Kawaguchi,1999),which are important for learning.However,it is also important to focus on the emotional aspect of CMC (e.g.,Ben-Ami&Mioduser,2004),since CMC is a medium in which misunderstandings or misinterpretations of emotions occur frequently(e.g.,Siegel,Dubrovsky,Kiesler,& McGuire,1986).Furthermore,some studies in thefield of cognitive psychology suggest that emotion affects memory,thinking,and learning(e.g.,Bower,1981;Forgas,1991). In addition,the importance of social presence(Short,Williams,&Christie,1976)has also been emphasized in recent researches on distance education(e.g.,Gunawardena,1995). Prior researches have also suggested that the emotional dimension of communications contributes to the degree of social presence(Garrison&Anderson,2003).As mentioned above,this paper examines the emotional aspect of CMC.1.1.Interpersonal behaviors in CMCThe primary advantage of CMC is that it lacks of a temporal or spatial constraint (Kiesler,1997;Kiesler et al.,1984;Kiesler&Sproull,1992).CMC is synonymous to visual anonymity and text-based communication,and both characteristics have been implicated in a variety of interpersonal behaviors.Previous studies have pointed out the positive and negative aspects of CMC based on the above characteristics of CMC(Dietz-Uhler& Bishop-Clark,2001).On the positive side,when compared to face-to-face communication, commonly referred to as F2FC,CMC is often more impersonal and free(Kiesler et al., 1984),more uninhibited(Siegel et al.,1986;Sproull&Kiesler,1986,1991),contains more disclosures of personal information(Joinson,1998,2001;Kiesler&Sproull,1992),more equal-member participation(Sproull&Kiesler,1993),and more task-oriented interactions (Connolly,Jessup,&Valacich,1990).As a result,CMC often allows people to feel more comfortable and confident in their discussions(Sato&Akahori,2004).However,on the negative side,CMC can contain more‘‘flaming’’(e.g.,hostile comments,insults)(Dyer, Green,Pitts,&Millward,1995;McGuire,Kiesler,&Siegel,1987),can be uninhibited and depersonalized(Garton&Wellman,1995;Walther,Anderson,&Park,1994),and encourages decision shift(Siegel et al.,1986).In particular,despite initial beliefs that CMC would encourage reasonable communication,it was found that CMC encouraged emotional communication,such as‘‘flaming’’,instead(Nojima&Gill,1997).Some mod-els to explain the mechanism of suchflaming were therefore proposed;for example,the Reduce Social Cues Model(Sproull&Kiesler,1991)and the Social Identity and De-indi-viduation(SIDE)Model(Lea,1992).Most of these models,however,have mostly focused on the sender of the slanderous message.However,there is little research on the relation-ships between the receivers and senders in CMC.1.2.Judgment of emotions and emotional cue transmissionsWithout discounting the merits of asynchronous communication,it can be said that a lot of our daily interactions either take place face-to-face or synchronously.Therefore,it does not come as a surprise that within such contexts,we are highly effective at judging people’s1896Y.Kato et al./Computers in Human Behavior23(2007)1894–1905 characteristics,such as familiarity,gender,emotion or temperament(e.g.,Cheng,O’Toole, &Abdi,2001).Judgement of other’s psychological states is a significant aspect of human interpersonal communication.It refers to the interpersonal process by which people employ all available information and make general judgments.Recent F2FC research(e.g.,Krauss &Fussell,1996;Kraut,1978)has consistently indicated that both nonverbal and verbal cues jointly affect the process of judgment(Patterson,1994).Technology now mediates much communication.Phone,e-mail or video-conference:in each case,people must make do with limited cues to help them estimate other people’s emotional states,dispositions and personalities.This is especially so when CMC users cannot see each other and the CMC environment is restricted in terms of nonverbal cues(Sproull&Kiesler,1991).This has resulted in studies conducted to investigate judgment in CMC contexts(e.g., Gill&Oberlander,2003;Kato&Akahori,2004a,2004b;Kato,Sugimura,&Akahori, 2001;Markey&Wells,2002;Nass,Moon,Fogg,&Reeves,1995).In particular,Kato et al.(2001)have focused on judgment of other’s emotional states in e-mail communica-tions,and found gaps between the sender’s self-report of emotional states and the recei-ver’s judgment of the sender’s emotional states.In addition,Kato and Akahori(2004a, 2004b)have compared the accuracy of judgment of one’s partner’s emotions during e-mail communication to F2FC.Theirfindings have shown that judgment of emotions in e-mail communication lacks accuracy,and there is a tendency to misjudge the partners’negative emotions as hostile emotions in e-mail communication.However,there is little research on the relationships between emotions experienced by senders and receivers with the degrees of emotional cues transmitted during communication.1.3.The need for this studyEarlier this year,an unfortunate incident occurred at an elementary school in Japan in which the misunderstanding between classmates over the Internet developed into homi-cide.While such incidents are not necessarily caused only by the Interne,when the spread of the Internet to schools is taken into consideration,there is a pressing need to examine the emotional aspects of CMC.In CMC,it is often said that others’emotions cannot be judged correctly(Kato&Akahori,2004a,2004b),because of the lack of nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions(e.g.,Sproull&Kiesler,1991).The errors in judging others’emotions can lead to misunderstanding or quarrel in the process of communication. Therefore,examining the emotional cues transmitted between receivers and senders in CMC is essential.However,there is no experimental research that verifies the influence the degrees of emotional cues transmitted between a sender and a receiver has on the emo-tions they experienced in CMC.2.RationaleThe present study focuses on e-mail,one of the most common medium of communica-tion in CMC.In addition,the present study concentrates on the aspect of emotions of both senders and receivers in e-mail communication.An experiment was conducted to investigate the influence the degree of emotional cues transmitted between the sender and receiver has on the emotions which they experienced in e-mail communication.Specifically,the experiment and its analysis were performed as follows.We measured expected emotions;emotions the sender assumed would be induced by his/her sent e-mail,Y.Kato et al./Computers in Human Behavior23(2007)1894–19051897 and perceived emotions,the receiver’s interpretations of the sender’s emotions based on the received e-mail.By emotional cues transmitted,we are referring to the relationships between each of these pairs of expected and perceived emotions experienced by partners in this study.In addition,the actual emotions of both senders and receivers(emotional states at sending and emotional states at receiving,respectively)were also measured.The participants of this experiment were divided into a High group and a Low group by degrees of emotional cues transmitted based on the correlations between the expected emo-tions and the emotional states at receiving reported by their partners during dispatch of e-mail and the correlations between the perceived emotions and the emotional states at sending reported by their partners during receipt of e-mail.The present study compared the High group to the Low group by focusing on the emotions experienced in e-mail com-munication to examine the influence of emotional cue transmissions on those emotions.3.Method3.1.ParticipantsThe participants consisted of22university students(20men and2women)enrolled in a faculty of engineering system in Japan.The participants were between the ages of19and 31years old(mean age of22.4years).All participants reported using personal computers almost every day.Moreover,21participants reported using e-mail with a personal com-puter every day or several times per week.3.2.Experimental taskThe participants were randomly paired and asked to communicate in their pairs using e-mail.The participants were not informed as to whom their partners were,and each par-ticipant was given an anonymous e-mail username.In order to standardize the number of e-mails exchanged in all pairs,each participant was instructed to send exactly three e-mails to her/his partner in turns.The experimenter decided who sent thefirst e-mail,and a total of six e-mails were sent out per pair.‘‘Juvenile crime’’was selected as the communication theme.This theme was adopted because many participants had selected it as an interesting topic in the preliminary inquiry and it is also a serious social issue which has been increas-ing recently in Japan.3.3.MeasurementThe participants were asked to complete the following four kinds of questionnaires dur-ing the e-mail communication(see Tables1–4for examples).These four questionnaires asked about12kinds of emotions based on Izard,Libero,Putnam,and Haynes(1993) (Interest,Joy,Surprise,Sadness,Anger,Disgust,Contempt,Anxiety,Guilt,Shyness, Inward Hostility,and Willingness)(Kato et al.,2001,Kato,Sugimura,&Akahori, Table1Example of a content item in the perceived emotions questionnairePerceived emotionsI perceive the my partner had interest when he/she composed this e-mail1898Y.Kato et al./Computers in Human Behavior23(2007)1894–1905Table2Example of a content item in the emotional states at receiving questionnaireEmotional states at receivingI felt interest when I read the e-mail from my partnerTable3Example of a content item in the expected emotions questionnaireExpected emotionsI expect my partner will feel interest when he/she reads this e-mailTable4Example of a content item in the emotional states at sending questionnaireEmotional states at sendingI felt interest when I composed and sent the e-mail to my partner2002).Two of these questionnaires(perceived emotions and emotional states at receiving) measure the emotional aspects on the side of the e-mail receivers.The other two question-naires(expected emotions and emotional states at sending)measure the emotional aspects on the side of the e-mail senders.The questionnaires consisted of twelve items,one item for each of the twelve emotions.3.3.1.Measurement of perceived emotionsDuring the e-mail communication,whenever the participants received an e-mail from their partners,they rated what they perceive as their partner’s emotional states when the e-mails were composed,using the perceived emotions questionnaire.The likelihood of each perceived emotions was rated using afive-point scale(1=not at all true,5=very true).This was used as the index of perceived emotions to examine how each participant interpreted their partners’emotions using the received e-mails.The example below shows the questionnaire item on the likelihood of‘interest’on the sender’s side when the e-mail was being composed.3.3.2.Measurement of emotional states at receivingWhenever the participants received an e-mail from their partners,they also had to rate their own emotional states as they read the e-mails using the emotional states at receiving questionnaire,based on afive-point scale(1=not at all true,5=very true).This was used as the index of emotional states at receiving to examine how each participant felt at the time of reading the received e-mail.The example below shows the questionnaire item on the availability of‘interest’on the receiver’s side when the e-mail was being read. 3.3.3.Measurement of expected emotionsWhenever the participants sent an e-mail to their partners,they rated the probable emo-tions the e-mails would induce in their partners in the expected emotions questionnaire. The likelihood of each expected emotions was rated using afive-point scale(1=not at all true,5=very true).This was used as the index of expected emotions to examine the kinds of emotions the sender expected their e-mails would induce in their partners.TheY.Kato et al./Computers in Human Behavior23(2007)1894–19051899 example below shows the questionnaire item on the likelihood of‘interest’on the receiver’s side when the e-mail was being read.3.3.4.Measurement of emotional states at sendingWhenever the participants sent an e-mail to their partners,they also had to rate their own emotional states as they composed and sent the e-mails using the emotional states at sending questionnaire,based on afive-point scale(1=not at all true,5=very true). This was use as the index of emotional states at sending to examine how each participant felt while composing and sending the e-mails.The example below shows of the question-naire item on the availability of‘interest’on the sender’s side when the e-mail was being composed and sent.3.4.ProcedureUpon starting the experiment,the participants were randomly paired,and given the instruction explaining the procedure of the experiment.They were also instructed to write their opinions and responses on the topic sof‘Juvenile Crime’unreservedly,based on their own discretions and advised to utilize the emoticons as they would when writing e-mails, to support what they feel.Then,they commenced to communicate by e-mail in their pairs. During the e-mail communication,whenever they received an e-mail from their partners, they answered two questionnaires–perceived emotions and emotional states at receiving. After composing and sending an e-mail,they answered the other two questionnaires–expected emotions and emotional states at sending(see Fig.1).The entire experiment took up about50min,and the length of intervals between sending and receiving e-mails was approximately4and a half minute on the average.During the intervals,participants just sat in front of their PCs as they wait for the e-mail from their partners.While waiting,they were instructed not to speak to other participants.3.5.Experimental systemAn e-mail system was developed by the authors to be used in this experiment.Fig.2 shows the experimental system.This system is an improved version of the system used by Kato et al.(2002).The questionnaires for the receiver are displayed below the contents of the e-mail message in this system.After composing and sending the reply,the system automatically displays the page with the questionnaires for the sender.Therefore,all com-munication which involved receiving an e-mail,answering the questionnaires of perceived emotions and the emotional states at receiving,and sending the reply e-mail,plus answeringthe questionnaires of expected emotions and the emotional states at sending ,can be per-formed on this system.In addition,this system is implemented on the Web and it is able to transmit e-mails over the Internet like ordinary mailers.4.Results and discussion4.1.Degrees of emotional cues transmittedThe participants completed the four kinds of questionnaires in the e-mail communica-tion.Although all the questionnaires are on emotional aspects,they have the following two attributes:intention (sending and receiving)and whose emotions (own and partner’s).The expected emotions at the time of sending refer to the sender’s assumption of what the partner’s emotional states at receiving .Meanwhile the perceived emotions at the time of receiving are the interpretation of the partner’s emotional states at sending .Therefore,two correlation coefficients as shown in Fig.3were calculated for every pair,and these correlation coefficients were used to analyze the degrees of emotional cues transmitted.In this study,the degrees of emotional cue transmission of each participant were deter-mined based on the two kinds of correlation coefficients.4.2.Classifications of the participantsIn this experiment,all the participants were instructed to send three e-mails to their partners,which means a total of six e-mails exchanged in each pair.Correlation coeffi-cients were computed based on the expected emotions and perceived emotions for each e-mail sent and received by each participant.Based on these correlation coefficients,the participants were classified into two groups;High and Low groups,using thefollowingFig.2.Experimental system.1900Y.Kato et al./Computers in Human Behavior 23(2007)1894–1905Y.Kato et al./Computers in Human Behavior23(2007)1894–19051901procedure(see Fig.4).The division of groups was done twice,once based on dispatch and the other based on receipt of e-mails.In thefirst division,for emotional cues transmitted based on expected emotions,participants with all three correlation coefficients of at least 0.70were assigned into the High group.In addition,participants whose correlation coef-ficients increased gradually and exceeded0.70by the third time were also assigned to the High group.The rest of the participants were then assigned to the Low group.In the sec-ond division,for emotional cues transmitted based on perceived emotions,participants with all three correlation coefficients of at least0.60and others whose correlation coeffi-cients became increases gradually and exceeded0.60by the third time were assigned into the High group,leaving the other participants assigned to the Low group.parison of emotions experienced by the participants in the High and Low groupsIn order to investigate the influence the degrees of emotional cues transmitted has on the emotions produced within the process of e-mail communication,the values in the emo-tional states at receiving questionnaire were compared.This comparison looked at the degree of emotional cues transmitted based on expected emotions and interpreted emotions, respectively.Based on the result of a factor analysis by Kato et al.(2001),the twelve emo-tions in the emotional states at receiving questionnaire were classified into the following three categories:Positive emotions (Interest,Joy,Surprise,Willingness),Hostile emotions (Anger,Disgust,Contempt)and Negative emotions (Sadness,Anxiety,Guilt,Shyness,Inward Hostility).Although it may seem that Hostile emotions are actually a subset of Negative emotions,it is important to note that Hostile emotions are aggressive emotions that would usually leads to trouble.Hence,in the interest of this research,the authors feel that it is important to create a distinction between the two categories.The emotions expe-rienced by the High and Low groups were then compared using the average values of the emotional states at receiving applicable to these categories.4.3.1.The degree of emotional cues transmitted from the perspective of expected emotions Using the data obtained from the emotional states at receiving questionnaire,emotions experienced in the e-mail communication by the High group (n =11)were compared to that of the Low group (n =11).This comparison was conducted using a t test and based on the expected emotions .The mean for each of the groups and the results of the t test are presented in Fig.5.The main results were as follows.The participants in the Low group experienced significantly more Hostile emotions and Negative emotions (Hostile emotions,t (64)=3.79,p <0.01;Negative emotions,t (64)=4.28,p <0.01).4.3.2.The degree of emotional cues transmitted from the perspective of perceived emotions Using the data obtained from the emotional states at sending questionnaire,emotions experienced in the e-mail communication of the High group (n =13)were compared to that of the Low group (n =9).This comparison was conducted using the t test and based on the perceived emotions .The mean for each of the groups and the results of the t test are presented in Fig.6.The main results were as follows.The participants in the Low group experienced significantly more Hostile emotions and Negative emotions (Hostile emotions,t (61)=3.73,p <0.01;Negative emotions,t (61)=3.86,p <0.01).In addition,they also experienced a significantly less Positive emotions (t (61)=2.15,p <0.05).4.4.General discussionIn this study on e-mail communication,expected emotions were regarded as emotional cues transmitted from the side of the sender while perceived emotions were regardedas 1902Y.Kato et al./Computers in Human Behavior 23(2007)1894–1905emotional cues transmitted from the side of the receiver.In a comparison which focused on these two emotional cue transmissions,one reason for their similarity is that the groups in both classifications consisted of mostly the same participants.However,the level of transmission assigned to a participant does not necessarily depend on that participant alone,as it is a factor of both participants in a pair.For example,when participant A’s capability to interpret emotions is low,or when participant B’s capability to express emo-tions is low,the degree of emotional cues transmitted between the A–B pair falls.As future work,the logs of e-mails exchanged within each pair will be analyzed,the relationships between the contents of the exchanged e-mails,such as the usage of emoticons and length of e-mail messages,and the emotional cues transmitted will be discussed based on the results obtained by this qualitative analysis.5.ImplicationsIn this study,an experiment was conducted to investigate the influence emotional cues transmitted between senders and receivers have on the emotions they experienced in e-mail communication.The participants were divided into the High and Low emotional cues transmission groups based on two correlations.The first involved the dispatch of e-mails and showed the correlation between the expected emotions and the emotional states at receiving.The second involved the receipt of e-mails and showed the correlations between the perceived emotions and the emotional states at sending .The emotions experienced in communication between the High and Low groups were then compared.The results showed that there is a tendency for unpleasant emotions such as anger and anxiety to increase when emotional cue transmission is low.Low emotional cue transmissions appeared to create frustration in the Low group’s participants.These results suggest that low emotional cues transmissions tend to cause some misunderstanding because such emo-tions are closely connected with interpersonal problems.Although some previous researches have shown the tendency to misjudge one’partner’s emotions in e-mail commu-nication,there is no empirical research to verify the influence of emotional cues transmit-ted on arising emotions.While the initial results of this experiment look promising,the findings in this experimental study are exploratory,and further studies in CMC environ-ments with a different and a bigger number of samples need to be conducted to examine whether demography and cultural differences have any implication on theresults.Y.Kato et al./Computers in Human Behavior 23(2007)1894–190519031904Y.Kato et al./Computers in Human Behavior23(2007)1894–1905 AcknowledgmentsThanks are due to Dr.Yousuke Morimoto for his valuable advice about the experimen-tal system.Andfinally we would like to express our sincere thanks to Ms.Safiza Mark-hayu Yusof for her assistance.ReferencesBen-Ami,O.&Mioduser,D.(2004).The affective aspect of moderator’s role conception and enactment by teachers in a-synchronous learning discussion groups.In:Proceedings of ED-MEDIA2004(pp.2831–2837). 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