Egocentrism Over E-Mail: Can We Communicate as Well as We Think?
Kruger, Epley, Parker & Ng (2005) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(6)
Relied on in 2 places across the academy · 2 stated limits
What it found
Across five experiments, people overestimated how reliably their tone — sarcasm, seriousness, humour — would be understood over email, and were confident of being read correctly far more often than they were.
What it does not show
Email in 2005 rather than messaging apps. What carries over is the mechanism: you hear your own tone and assume it travelled.
Email in 2005 rather than messaging apps. What carries over is the mechanism, not the exact figures.
Where we rely on it
2 places in the academy. If this paper turned out to be wrong, this is the list that would have to change.
In the curriculum · 1
Cited alongside it
Papers that sit under the same topics and films. Not a claim that they agree with each other — only that the same exercises lean on both.
If You Need Help, Just Ask: Underestimating Compliance With Direct Requests for Help
Flynn & Lake (2008)The Humanizing Voice: Speech Reveals, and Text Conceals, a More Thoughtful Mind in the Midst of Disagreement
Schroeder, Kardas & Epley (2017)Beautiful Mess Effect: Self–Other Differences in Evaluation of Showing Vulnerability
Bruk, Scholl & Bless (2018)It Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Question-Asking Increases Liking
Huang, Yeomans, Brooks, Minson & Gino (2017)Duration Neglect in Retrospective Evaluations of Affective Episodes; When More Pain Is Preferred to Less
Fredrickson & Kahneman (1993); Kahneman, Fredrickson, Schreiber & Redelmeier (1993)Research
A real study. We tell you what it found, how many people were in it, and what it can't prove.
Free to read, link to and quote. If we have carried this paper further than it goes, say so at contact@suaviq.com — corrections to this registry are the most useful mail we get.