According to a new study, higher emotional intelligence is linked to increased emoji use with friends, while avoidant attachment is linked to decreased emoji use with friends, dates, and romantic partners.
The frequency of emoji usage varies by gender and type of relationship. Image credit: Pete Linforth.
Emoji are characters that depict emotions, objects, animals, etc.
Sending alone or with text via computer or smartphone can create more complex meanings during virtual communication.
Assessing how emoji use varies as a function of communication and interpersonal skills provides insight into who uses emoji and the psychological mechanisms underlying computer-mediated communication.
Despite the widespread use of emojis in our daily social lives, little is known about who uses them, apart from evidence of differences related to gender and personality traits.
To fill this knowledge gap, Dr. Simon Dube of the Kinsey Institute and his colleagues surveyed a sample of 320 adults to determine their emotional intelligence across emoji usage, attachment style, and gender and relationship type.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to process and manage your own and others’ emotions. Attachment style refers to the pattern of how an individual interacts with others in intimate relationships, influenced by early interactions with primary caregivers.
These styles are divided into three main types: anxious, avoidant, and secure attachment.
Both anxious and avoidant attachment styles indicate that a child does not feel secure with their primary caregiver.
In contrast, children with a secure attachment style tend to be enthusiastic when reunited with their caregivers after a short period of separation.
The results revealed that people with higher emotional intelligence and secure attachment may use emojis more frequently.
For women, higher levels of attachment avoidance were associated with lower frequency of sending and receiving emojis with friends, partners, and romantic partners.
For men, higher levels of attachment avoidance were associated with sending fewer emojis to such partners.
Additionally, women used more emojis than men, but this difference was specific to interactions with friends and family.
One limitation of this study is that most of the participants were white, educated, married, English-speaking, heterosexual, living in the United States at the time.
However, the authors say the study opens up new research avenues at the intersection of psychology, computer-mediated communication, and the study of attachment and emotional intelligence.
The researchers state, “How we interact during virtual communication may reveal something more about ourselves.”
“It’s more than just a smiley face or a heart emoji. It’s a way to convey meaning and communicate more effectively, and how you use it can tell us something about you.”
a paper Survey results will be published in a magazine PLoS ONE.
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S. Dube others. 2024. Beyond words: The relationship between emoji use, attachment style, and emotional intelligence. PLoS ONE 19 (12): e0308880;doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0308880
Source: www.sci.news
