February 23, 2006 4:36 PM

Reading between the (email) lines
Posted by at 4:36 PM

Following on from Doug Eisenhart's entry about the perils of email communication, particularly as it relates to the job search, this article from abcnews.com makes the point that we're not as adept at reading emotions in electronic communications as we think.

In reality most people are often sending and receiving mixed signals in their electronic communications, according to new research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

"We've known for a long time that when we design our speech, we do so egocentrically," said Justin Kruger, one of the paper's authors and an associate professor at NYU. "We imagine how our utterances will sound from the vantage point, essentially, of ourselves.

"We assume that if we understand what we're saying, the person on the other end of our communication will as well."

But studies show that's not always the case.

Though text-based communication has been around for millenia, e-mail and instant message are still evolving, so be warned that there may be a few bruised egos and unnecessary tiffs to deal with along the way.