Abstract

How well does the smiley emoji inserted in the text message reflect the sender’s real expression? This study conducted experiment to answer this question through the psychological factor, Social Status Perception(SSP). Participants were divided into a group with low SSP and a group with high SSP. Then, when they received a text message with a smiley emoji from an acquaintance in a neutral(everyday) vs. negative(failure) vs. positive(success) emotion situation, they inferred the similarity between the emoji and the person’s actual facial expression(facial expression similarity, FES). After experiment, participant described why they reasoned that way(post-questionnaire). As a result, the group with low SSP inferred FES low in negative situation, high in positive situation, and inferred not to know in neutral situation. However, the group with high SSP reasoned that they did not know in all emotional situations and responded that they inserted a smiley emoji to soften the atmosphere. Through this study, it was confirmed that those with low SSP are more sensitive to the facial expressions of others than those with high SSP.