A new study found that people with a higher level of empathy and the ability to recognize emotions include emoticons more often in their messages. The explanation is quite simple. The most emotionally intelligent partners feel more confident about their ability to read the messages sent by their spouse and accurately convey their own, so they engage in such communication. This is especially true for women because they want to be more emotionally expressive. True, such communication mostly takes place only with family members and close friends, but not in formal correspondence.
Indiana University researchers found that study participants most often used emoticons to enhance a message and give it the necessary intonation and mood, reports the journal PLOS One. For example, small icons are heavily used to show that the post contains jokes and thus avoid possible misunderstandings. Interestingly, people with lower emotional intelligence even emphasize that they avoid emoticons and use written sentences precisely to reduce the risk of misunderstandings.
Source: www.diena.lv
