Think twice before replying to a message with just an emoticon | “You can’t just assume that others interpret them the same way you do”

Interpretations of emoticons vary by gender, age and culture, with women and younger individuals showing greater alignment with intended meanings, cautioning against making assumptions in communication.
In a study led by scientists from the University of Nottingham, 253 Chinese and 270 British participants aged 18 to 84 were surveyed to investigate whether factors such as gender influence the interpretation of emoticons in messages.

Participants, who were given 24 emoticons representing six emotions, assigned them the corresponding feelings. Women are more likely to interpret emoticons closer to their intended meaning than men, suggesting a potential link between women’s ability to recognize facial expressions and their emoticon interpretation skills.

Younger participants outperformed older ones, possibly due to increased use of emoticons. In addition, British participants interpreted emoticons better than their Chinese counterparts, hinting at cultural variations in their use.

The results of the study are published in the journal PLoS ONE.

Ruth Filik, who leads the aforementioned scientific team in the research, emphasizes the need to be careful when assuming a common interpretation of emoticons in messages.

When you send someone a message with an emoticon, you can’t just assume they’re seeing it the same way you are, warns Filik.
Isabelle Boutet of the University of Ottawa, who was not involved in the research, notes the challenge of assigning specific emotional labels to emoticons, citing unexpected allusions to the eggplant emoticon in certain communities.

For example, we would never use the eggplant as an insinuation of something, if that meaning had not been developed in certain communities, Boutet explains.