It may be tempting to end your work email with a smiley face or two, but a new study suggests these emoticons may not leave the best impression.
The study, which was recently published in the Social Psychological and Personality Science journal, found emails with emojis reflected a perception of low competence and left a negative impression of the sender.
“Our findings provide first-time evidence that, contrary to actual smiles, smileys do not increase perceptions of warmth and actually decrease perceptions of competence. Perceptions of low competence, in turn, undermined information sharing, corresponding author Ella Glikson of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel said in a statement. “These results indicate that a smiley is not a smile.”
Glikson and her team conducted a set of experiments with 549 participants from 29 different countries. According to PsychCentral, in one experiment participants were asked to read an email from an unknown sender, and were asked to note the warmth and competence of the email.
READ MORE: Do people need e-mail etiquette lessons?
“The study also found that when the participants were asked to respond to emails on formal matters, their answers were more detailed and they included more content-related information when the email did not include a smiley,” Glikson continued.
Should we be using emojis?
Pat Stonehouse, founder and president Advancing With Style based in Toronto, says emojis should be saved for text messages.
“We have to keep in mind this is a business email and it should be professional and business-like,” she tells Global News. “No happy faces or emojis of any kind. Now having said that, sometimes you’ve known someone for so long and you develop a rapport with them, I don’t think there’s any problem there.”
READ MORE: What you should know about sending an e-mail at work
Since her job deals with business etiquette in general, Stonehouse says she gets plenty of requests from businesses to show their employees how to write an email.
Crafting a business email
Stonehouse does have some dos and don’ts when it comes to writing perfect work email.
Shortening words
Stonehouse advises against shortening words or using text slang in business emails. If you want to abbreviate something, make sure you spell out the full word within brackets the first time you use an abbreviation.
How to address someone
When you’re writing to someone over email for the first time, Stonehouse suggests using “dear,” followed by their first name. And if you are responding to an email, see how they address you to figure out the tone. “Keep it formal the first time and then adjust it.”
READ MORE: What’s your go-to emoji?
Writing the email
Get to the point or describe exactly what you want from the receiver, Stonehouse says. “This makes it easier for someone to reply to you.”
There should also be a pleasant tone to the email, she adds. Thank them, say “good morning,” or ask how they are doing.
Ending an email
“Again this depends on how well you know the person,” Stonehouse says. To be safe, end your email with thanking them or wishing them well.
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