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Stanford University have put forward a theory that our motivation for generating meaning is to

reduce levels of uncertainty and help predict other people's behavioural patterns. 5.1. _____

Both of these enable the people we are addressing to predict our behaviour, mood and

intentions.

The research on nonverbal behaviour in emails is not as simple as "emoticons are good while

capitalisation is bad". It seems that both writing in capital letters and using emoticons can evoke

utterly different responses, perhaps much less polarised in the case of capitalisation, which is

normally considered a no-no in emails. However, the usage of capital letters can also

communicate excitement and not just senseless shouting. 5.2. _____ Perhaps some of this

variability in the perception of capitalisation and emoticons comes down to personality?

Psychologists researched this by asking college students to fill in a personality questionnaire

and then read emails from an unknown person. These were simple messages such as requests

for copies of academic papers or information about the university. Each participant was

randomly assigned to read two out of several differently presented emails. 5.3. _____

The students were then asked to rate the sender's likeability.

The researchers found that the reader's personality influenced how emoticons and capitalisation

were perceived. Readers high in extroversion and emotional stability were likely to rate

the sender's emails as more likeable if they had correct capitalisation and emoticons.

The opposite was also true. For the introverted and emotionally unstable, correct capitalisation

and emoticons tended not to affect the sender's likeability, perhaps even lowering it. These

results are interesting but they also raise many more questions. Emoticons may make the sender

appear more likeable, but further research is necessary to find out if they also make the sender

seem less professional or whether they can make reading bad news less disturbing. In their

study, the researchers only used a smiley face in the emails. 5.4. _____ These are just some

uncertainties. If more advanced ways of communicating emotion in email become a reality,

surely many more questions will have to be answered.

adapted from www.spring.org.uk

A. Some of them were all written with capital letters, others included emoticons and the rest

neither, so that the researchers would be able to compare responses.

B. Researchers are currently working on electronic mail systems which involve expressive

typography, graphical components as well as old-fashioned words to convey emotion.

C. This might explain how, in online correspondence, even two simple things like

capitalisation and the use of emoticons can have important effects on the reader's

perceptions.

D. We can't be sure whether the impact of other emoticons would be the same. It is also not

clear what would happen if the sender used emoticons which the receiver did not understand.

E. For emoticons, there is a bulk of research which proves they can take the sting out of

a message with a negative content. Other studies find they have no such impact.