Communicating Emotion Effectively in a Virtual World
Keeping close ties at work is increasingly important — and difficult. But research shows it’s possible even in a virtual workplace.
Based on the research of Andrew Brodsky
Chatting over donuts in the break room is just a fond memory for many Americans now working from home in the time of the new coronavirus. Almost overnight, workplace relationships have become much more dependent on technology, even as tensions surrounding health, the economy, and racial discrimination make staying emotionally connected imperative. But how?
Andrew Brodsky, assistant professor of management at Texas McCombs, has some suggestions. In a pair of new papers, Brodsky examines how our communication medium can represent — or misrepresent — our emotions.
What’s being lost as we move more workplace communication online?
There’s research that shows that via chat or email, people tend to schmooze less, so a lot of small talk is just lost virtually, which is a problem because a lot of the way relationships are built is through that small talk.
Your latest research looks at emotional labor. Can you explain what that is?
My first job was as a video store clerk, and I learned that even if someone was returning a DVD they clearly broke, we still needed to smile and apologize for the issue. As part of any job, we’re expected to display certain emotions — to be kind, caring, and supportive with customers and colleagues, even if you’re not feeling the underlying emotions. So, sometimes you need to be inauthentic, but it’s not always a bad thing — it’s good to smile for customers even though you’re stressed. But it’s also very difficult to keep those underlying emotions from leaking through in your communication, and the literature shows that customers and co-workers will punish you if they perceive that you’re being inauthentic, even if it’s for a good reason.
You compared face-to-face interaction, telephone, and email communication. What’s the best choice?
My key finding is that when you’re conflicted in your emotions and you know some of that conflict might leak through if you meet in person, it’s better to use the telephone. When your emotions are authentic, it’s better to meet in person. Then regardless of if you’re authentic or inauthentic, email tends to be perceived as inauthentic. Most people default to email — but I’d be very careful about that. Even though it seems easy, it can hurt interpersonal outcomes where emotions are involved.
Many businesses no longer even have dedicated telephone lines, so employees may be forced into situations where they’re perceived as emotionally inauthentic. It’s wise to allow employees a breadth of means through which to interact so they can choose the best technology to fit the task.
Many of us use email without much thought. What did your research reveal about typos?
If there’s emotion in an email — for example, we studied anger and joy — typos will amplify it, because it looks like the messenger is so emotional that he’s not thinking clearly.
On the other hand, if there’s a typo but there’s no emotion being expressed in the email, the reader just assumes the person is either careless or unintelligent. So, we’re given somewhat more latitude to make mistakes in emotional emails than we would otherwise.
Normally when we write an email, we assume the other person is going to interpret it the way we have in our mind. But other people are working from a different set of assumptions, so it’s important to be mindful of their perception.
In the virtual workplace, many of us are relying on new tools like Zoom, but not always happily.
I have some early-stage data that shows that people experience anxiety when a communication medium is new, and they also often will perceive that it’s worse just because it’s different — and that anxiety can cause us to undermine ourselves unknowingly. Then there’s also this learning and adjustment process, where we’re shifting all our habits, and that too can be really disruptive. Also, notably Zoom has been in the press because it had some stumbles, and this is true for any company who had this kind of exponential growth, but now we’ve seen improvement.
We’re seeing a lot of efforts to go above and beyond email gaining prominence. I’m doing some separate studies about video emailing, where you record personalized videos and insert them into your email. There’s a company called BombBomb, and it was designed for real estate agents and sales professionals, because they wanted to offer a very rich-touch experience to their customers without constantly having to arrange meetings.
With the impact of the coronavirus and recent protests, what have we learned that can be applied at work?
These changes have drawn attention to things that people took for granted previously. People are becoming much more focused on being kind to co-workers or customers who might be dealing with difficulties in their life. There have been complications, but now people’s attentions are drawn to the need to be emotionally supportive at work, and they’re seeking ways to be more mindful about how to do that.
“Virtual Surface Acting in Workplace Interactions: Choosing the Best Technology to Fit the Task” is forthcoming online in advance in The Journal of Applied Psychology, and “Beyond the Emoticon: Are There Unintentional Cues of Emotion in Email?” is forthcoming online in advance in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Story by Judie Kinonen
