Overview
Exclamation mark usage has increased significantly over the past several years, a trend observed by both academics (Beck, 2018) and the press (e.g., The New York Times and Washington Post). Linguistic scholars like Professor Deborah Tannen at Georgetown University have likened it to a form of "linguistic inflation." But opinions differ on its appropriateness, particularly in workplace communications like email.
Supporters argue that exclamation marks in emails demonstrate emotional intelligence and express emotion in otherwise mundane text; however, critics argue that they just make you look emotional (Fernandez, 2018). It’s an important duality, considering that a major reason for exclamation inflation is image management—we want our colleagues to like us. And yet, the jury is still out on whether exclamations actually help or harm our likability.
Likability in the workplace is influenced by many social and emotional factors, including perceptions of our “warmth” and “competence,” or how friendly and smart we seem (Festinger, 1954; Fiske, et al., 2002). If exclamations make us seem more emotional, do they make us seem warmer, but less competent? And what is their net effect on likability?
Further muddying the debate is the influence of gender and age. Prior studies show that women use exclamation marks in professional settings more than men (Waseleski, 2006), as do younger people, who also tend to use emoticons or "emojis." These findings raise the intriguing possibility that perceptions of exclamation mark users may differ based on the gender or age of the email sender or recipient. And yet, research on such perceptions is sparse.
So, do exclamation marks convey emotion? Or do they just make you look emotional? And do gender or age play a role in these perceptions? We put it to the test with a novel experiment.
Exclamation mark usage has increased significantly over the past several years, a trend observed by both academics (Beck, 2018) and the press (e.g., The New York Times and Washington Post). Linguistic scholars like Professor Deborah Tannen at Georgetown University have likened it to a form of "linguistic inflation." But opinions differ on its appropriateness, particularly in workplace communications like email.
Supporters argue that exclamation marks in emails demonstrate emotional intelligence and express emotion in otherwise mundane text; however, critics argue that they just make you look emotional (Fernandez, 2018). It’s an important duality, considering that a major reason for exclamation inflation is image management—we want our colleagues to like us. And yet, the jury is still out on whether exclamations actually help or harm our likability.
Likability in the workplace is influenced by many social and emotional factors, including perceptions of our “warmth” and “competence,” or how friendly and smart we seem (Festinger, 1954; Fiske, et al., 2002). If exclamations make us seem more emotional, do they make us seem warmer, but less competent? And what is their net effect on likability?
Further muddying the debate is the influence of gender and age. Prior studies show that women use exclamation marks in professional settings more than men (Waseleski, 2006), as do younger people, who also tend to use emoticons or "emojis." These findings raise the intriguing possibility that perceptions of exclamation mark users may differ based on the gender or age of the email sender or recipient. And yet, research on such perceptions is sparse.
So, do exclamation marks convey emotion? Or do they just make you look emotional? And do gender or age play a role in these perceptions? We put it to the test with a novel experiment.
The Experiment
To test how exclamation mark usage in emails affects readers' perceptions of the sender, we designed a preregistered psychology experiment with 401 people from Amazon MTurk involving an email that either did or did not contain exclamation marks, followed by a series of psychology scales measuring perceptions of the email sender, specifically warmth, competence, and overall likability.
Participants were shown an email from a hypothetical colleague requesting ideas for a company's new website. The email contained either three exclamation marks or just commas and periods (randomly assigned). We also randomized whether the email sender was a man or a woman to test whether sender gender matters.
The email used in the study was as follows, with opposing conditions in [brackets]:
From: Jon [Jen] Wilson
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 2:12 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Website
Hi everyone, [!]
In two weeks we will begin creating a new company website. This is your chance to share any ideas you may have. [!] If you have any ideas let me know.
Thank you, [!]
Jon [Jen]
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 2:12 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Website
Hi everyone, [!]
In two weeks we will begin creating a new company website. This is your chance to share any ideas you may have. [!] If you have any ideas let me know.
Thank you, [!]
Jon [Jen]
After reading the email, readers were instructed to write a brief reply and then answer a few survey questions to measure their perceptions of the email sender, specifically his or her likability and how warm (i.e., nice) and competent (i.e., smart) our email sender seemed. Participants were asked, "To what extent do you think you'd like Jon [Jen] if you met in real life?" with answer options on a 1-5 scale. Warmth and competence were measured similarly.
Results
We actually found very few differences in likability, warmth, and competence between our emails with and without exclamation marks. Readers rated exclamation mark users just as likable (p = 0.635) and competent (p = 0.105) as non-users, and exclamation users were rated as only 3.7% warmer (p = 0.039).
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We also tested whether readers' perceptions of exclamation mark usage was affected by the gender of the sender or the recipient. There were no such differences. Neither our randomly assigned sender (Jon vs. Jen) nor the recipient's own gender had any effect on the results.
However, an interesting finding emerged regarding age. Gen Z participants aged 25 or less viewed the email senders who used exclamation marks as 22% more likable (p = 0.002) and about 16% warmer and more competent. While further research is necessary to confirm this finding due to the modest sample size of Gen Z participants (n = 57), it suggests that younger individuals raised in an era of emojis, gifs, and videos may prefer more expressive punctuation in their emails.
Conclusion
Whether you pepper your emails with exclamation marks or avoid them entirely, it really doesn't seem to matter all that much to readers. On average, email recipients don't seem to perceive the sender any differently in terms of likability, warmth, or competence when exclamation marks are present or absent.
However, if your email recipients are mostly to the Gen Z age group, adding a few exclamation marks may be in your favor. Doing so just might boost how likable, nice, and smart you seem to younger email recipients.
References
Fernandez, Cory. “Are You Overusing Exclamation Marks In Work Emails?” Fast Company. May 7, 2018.
Beck, Julie. “Read this Article!!! How many exclamation points do you need to seem genuinely enthusiastic?” The Atlantic. June 27, 2018.
Festinger, L. (1954). A Theory of Social Comparison Processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140.
Fiske, Susan T.; Cuddy, Amy J. C.; Glick, Peter; Xu, Jun (2002). "A Model of (Often Mixed) Stereotype Content: Competence and Warmth Respectively Follow From Perceived Status and Competition". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 82(6): 878–902.
Waseleski, Carol. (2006). Gender and the Use of Exclamation Points in Computer-Mediated Communication: An Analysis of Exclamations Posted to Two Electronic Discussion Lists, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 11(4): 1012-1024.
Methods Note
Two-sample t-tests were used to test for significant differences in likability, warmth, and competence between the exclamation mark and period/comma conditions. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analyses with interaction terms were used to evaluate potential demographic differences and interactions (e.g., gender, age). Our statistical significance threshold was a p-value below 0.05.
Additional details are available on our methodology page. Data and survey materials are available upon request.