¯\_(ツ)_/¯: Smiley face emoticons in work emails can make you seem incompetent, study finds

A smile is not the same as a :), at least in a formal workplace setting, according to a new academic study.

Researchers from the University of Haifa and Amsterdam University, who studied the use of emoticons and emojis in the workplace, published their findings in the academic journal “Social Psychological and Personality Science” this week.

The academics conducted experiments on more than 500 participants from nearly 30 countries. In one experiment, they showed participants anonymous emails with similar messages. Some of the emails contained smiley faces, while some did not. In another, participants were asked to compare pictures of people smiling with smiley face emoticons.

One of the study’s co-authors, Ella Glikson, told CNN that the researchers initially thought that the increased popularity of emojis would result in positive associations with smiley faces. But at least when it comes to the workplace, this was not the case.

“I was very optimistic about the positive power of emoticons. But our initial results surprised me. So we focused on the specific effect of smileys on first impression in work context, and our results were very consistent across different experiments,” Glikson told CNN.

In the experiment with emails, participants overwhelmingly said that people who used smiley faces were incompetent. What’s more, participants also said the senders who used emoticons were no warmer than those who did not, despite the fact that many senders use smiley faces to convey warmth, according to the New York Daily News.

Furthermore, when asked to respond to the anonymous emails, participants were judged to include more sensitive information when responding to the emails without smiley faces, according to the study.

Researchers also found that participants were more likely to think emails with emoticons and smiley faces were sent by women. That perception is backed by studies that have shown that more women admit to using emojis than men, but other studies have found that men are actually more likely than women to believe that using emojis in a workplace setting is “always appropriate.”

In the experiment where participants were asked to judge between pictures of actual smiles and emoticons, researchers found that humans who smile were still judged to be more friendly and competent.

The study’s co-authors suggested that findings are perhaps most relevant for millennials, who use emojis frequently. Four in 10 millennials say they prefer using pictures and images to words when it comes to expressing themselves, per the New York Times.

But other studies have shown that even many older workers like using emojis, or are at least willing to tolerate them, even in the workplace. Per CNBC, workers over the age of 65 are more likely than any other age group to think it is “always appropriate” to send emojis to peers, direct managers and subordinates, though they are also the group most likely to disapprove of emoji use overall.

However, Glikson stressed to the Daily News that the study’s findings only encompass initial interactions, and that once a professional and personal relationship has been established, emojis may be just fine.

“For now, at least, a smiley (emoji) can only replace a smile when you already know the other person,” Glikson told the Daily News. “In initial interactions, it is better to avoid using smileys.”

This story was originally published August 19, 2017 at 5:19 PM with the headline "¯\_(ツ)_/¯: Smiley face emoticons in work emails can make you seem incompetent, study finds."