Katharina Buczek
Additionally, display rules have a larger impact on negative emotions, which are typically considered more inappropriate to express in social situations. There are differences here in terms of closeness and gender, too.
People often find it more acceptable to express true emotions to those they are closer to. At the same time, it can be deemed more acceptable for one gender to express emotions as opposed to another.
“With online socializing becoming ever more prevalent, it is important to consider whether it is causing us to become detached from our true emotions,” Liu said.
“Do people require a ‘shelter’ to express their genuine emotions, and is it possible to break free from pretense and share our true selves in online settings?”
Liu set out to investigate these discrepancies and collected demographic data from all of the participants. They also answered subjective questions about well-being and rated how frequently they use emojis.
Then, the participants were provided with messages for various social contexts. They were instructed to respond to the messages as they typically would before rating the intensity of their emotional expression.
This exercise confirmed that people opt to express more emotions using emojis in private situations or with close friends.
On the flip side, the participants expressed the least amount of emotion toward individuals of perceived higher status.
When the participants expressed intense emotions, the emoji used matched– except for when certain participants felt inclined to mask their real emotions. In these cases, a smiling emoji may have been used to hide a negative emotion.
So, emojis with negative connotations were not used frequently– only being sent when negative emotions were felt very strongly.
Finally, in terms of mental health, Liu learned that participants who reported higher subjective well-being tended to express emotions with emojis as compared to those who masked their emotions.
