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Vol. 6, Issue 1, 2019
Does the Frequency of Using Emoticons in Computer-
Mediated Communication Signal Creativity?*
A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T
Keywords:
Emoticons
Creativity
Computer-mediated communication
Nowadays many human interactions take place in the virtual
environment. To express emotions and attitudes in computer
-mediated communication (CMC) individuals use emoticons -
graphic representations of emotions and ideas. Contempo-
rary applications serving computer-mediated communication
(CMC) are provided with a broad spectrum of emoticons
which may be used in communication. Variety of emoticons
gives users of CMC an opportunity to create unique messag-
es and express emotions in a creative manner. This study
involved 275 online respondents and aimed to verify whether
the frequency of emoticons use may be predicted by the
three characteristics of creativity (creative abilities, open-
ness, independence). Bayesian regression analysis showed
that creativity does not predict frequency of emoticons use in
CMC. No correspondence between creativity and frequency
of emoticons use may be explained by pragmatic function of
emoticons as they are used to communicate efficiently with
an emphasis on the sender-recipient shared understanding
of the emoticons meaning. What is more, robust popularity of
communication applications leads to widespread employ-
ment of emoticons by CMC users. Therefore, with growing
number of emoticons users’ creative individuals may seek
less common means of expressing own creativity.
Article history:
Received 20 June 2019
Received in revised form 08 July 2019
Accepted 09 July 2019
ISSN: 2354-0036
DOI: 10.1515/ctra-2019-0004
Theories – Research – Applications
Agata Niezabitowska
University of Wroclaw, Poland
E-mail: agata.niezabitowska@gmail.com
Michał Pieniak
University of Wroclaw, Poland
E-mail: michal.m.pieniak@gmail.com
Anna Oleszkiewicz
University of Wroclaw, Poland
Technische Universitat Dresden, Germany
E-mail: anna.oleszkiewicz@uwr.edu.pl
* This work was supported by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education scholarship for years 2018–2020
(#626/STYP/12/2017) awarded to AO.
67
INTRODUCTION
Emoticons are defined as the graphic representations of facial expressions (Dresner
& Herring, 2010; Walther & D’Addario, 2001) and nowadays are well-known cues used in
computer-mediated communication (CMC) whereas emojis represent a set of pictographs
used to reflect ideas and concepts, are called a new generation of emoticons (Novak,
Smailović, Sluban, & Mozetič, 2015; Prada et al., 2018). Interestingly, emoji seems to re-
place the use of emoticons in CMC - an increased number of emojis included in the social
media communication leads to a simultaneous decline in the usage of emoticons
(Pavalanathan & Eisenstein, 2016).
In virtual environment, emoticons are seen to have the same function as using actual
nonverbal communication (Derks, Bos, & Von Grumbkow, 2008b; Lo, 2008; Preece
& Ghozati, 2001). They reliably transmit attitudes and intents of a message, allow to re-
ciprocate emotions and facilitate social connectedness (Fabri, Moore, & Hobbs, 2005;
Hsieh, & Tseng, 2017; Huang, Yen, & Zhang, 2008; Lo, 2008). Emoticons are mostly
used in communication with friends in informal conversations rather than in communica-
tion with strangers during the formal writing (Derks et al., 2008b; Rosen, Chang, Erwin,
Carrier, & Cheever, 2010). The sentiment conveyed by emoticons dominates over the
textual cues (Hogenboom et al., 2013). A message with a smiling emoticon is interpreted
more positively than a message devoid any graphical content. Similarly, a frown emoticon
strengthens the intensity of a negative message (Derks et al., 2008a). In contrary, some
studies argue that no substitutes are available for real, face-to-face communication
(Carter, 2003) and linguistic part plays a more important role in the evaluation of a mes-
sage (Walther & D’Addario, 2001).
The number of emoticons’ and emojis’ usage is predicted mainly by gender and age
of the users rather than by personality traits. Studies show that women are more likely to
use emoticons (Baron, 2004; Oleszkiewicz et al., 2017b; Rosen et al., 2010; Wolf, 2000)
and emojis (Prada et al., 2018) in their online activity. On the other hand, gender differ-
ences in the pattern of emoticon use seem to diminish in a mixed-gender newsgroup.
Males are more likely to adopt the females' pattern of emoticon use rather than females
tend to mute their emotional expression (Wolf, 2000). Research shows that the number of
emoticons users decreases with age - younger participants have higher ratings of emoti-
cons use (Oleszkiewicz et al., 2017b; Prada et al., 2018; Settanni & Marengo, 2015).
Emoticons are intuitive and their emotional content is accurately recognized from an early
age. Even children aged 4-8 years are able to identify emotions reflected by emoticons,
especially those expressing happiness or sadness (Oleszkiewicz et al., 2017a).
Niezabitowska, A., Pieniak, M., Oleszkiewicz, A. Does the Frequency of Using Emoticons ...
68
Still little is known about the role of creativity in using this powerful communication
supplement. Studies show that creativity is related to the positive mood, especially to high
-activation positive-emotion states connected with motivational processes (i.e. excite-
ment, enthusiasm). Individuals who reported feeling active and happy are more likely to
be taking creative actions. In contrary, medium- and low-activation positive-emotion
states (i.e. relaxation), as well as negative-emotion states (i.e. fear, anxiety), are not as-
sociated with creativity (Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2008; Conner & Silvia, 2015; Silvia et
al., 2014). An analogous relationship for emotional states was observed in patterns of us-
ing emoticons: people use emoticons or emoji especially in order to strengthen the posi-
tive context. Strong negative emotions like guilt or anger lead to a decrease in the num-
ber of emoticons used in utterances (Kato, Kato, & Scott, 2009; Novak et al., 2015).
Emoticons can be generated by choosing a desired emoticon from a palette menu or
through the act of creatively repurposing and combining letters and characters. This typo-
graphical, simple sign, further changes into a more complex cartoon icon. The main goal
of emoticon transformation to indicate something new, unavailable in written language or
to say something in a more efficient way through symbols (Garrison et al., 2011; Taiwo,
2010; Thompson & Filik, 2016). Luor, Lu, Wu, and Tao (2010) characterize emoticons as
“a creative and visually salient way to add expression to an otherwise strictly text-based
form”. Synchronous chats (such as Whats’App, Snapchat, Facebook, etc.) seem to foster
creativity because of its informal and familiar context as well as ephemerality and the lib-
erating effect of masking identity in the online environment (Carter, 2002; Daisley 1994;
Danet et al.,1997; del-Teso-Craviotto 2006). Nowadays, modern instant communicators
and their functions such as multimedia messages or the possibility of using the emotional
icons at a pinch, allow users to feel the presence of each other and customize their com-
munication. This, in turn, leads to greater enjoyment from communication and a high level
of engagement in online interactions (Li et al., 2005; Zaman et al., 2010). To verify the
hypothesis of emoticons being a mean of creative expression, we performed a study to
investigate the possible role of creativity as a predictor of the frequency of emoticons and
emoji use in CMC.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Participants
We recruited 275 online respondents (180 women and 95 men) aged from 15 to 37 (M =
20.9 years; SD = 3.5 years). Mean age for women was 20.4 years (SD = 3.2 years) and
for men 21.9 years (SD = 3.84 years). Participants were contacted via social media in or-
der to improve the ecological validity of the research and were not compensated for their
Creativity. Theories – Research – Applications 6(1) 2019
69
participation. They were instructed that they can withdraw from participation at any mo-
ment without giving reason and that their data will be treated confidentially. After partici-
pants provided informed consent to the inclusion in the study, they were asked to com-
plete an online questionnaire.
Procedure
Respondents were asked if they use following applications for computer-mediated com-
munication: Whats’App, Google Hangouts, Snapchat, Twitter, SMS/MMS, Facebook. For
those application the participants confirmed to use, they were further asked to estimate
the total amount of messages sent over the last 7 days and the total number of emoticons
and emoji’s used within these messages. On this basis a frequency of emoticons use for
the last 7 days was calculated by dividing the number of emoticons and emojis by the to-
tal amount of messages sent over this period.
Creativity was measured by Types of Creativity Questionnaire (TCQ; Jankowska,
Omelańczuk, Czerwonka, & Karwowski, 2019). TCQ is based on typological model of
creativity (Karwowski & Jankowska, 2016) which treats creativity as an interaction be-
tween three characteristics: creative abilities (cognitive aspect of creativity which includes
divergent thinking, creative imagination and originality of generated solutions), openness,
and independence (personal trait connected with nonconformity). Relations between
these three characteristics determine to which type of creativity an individual may be clas-
sified. This method is based on self-reports and consist of 28 questions. The answers are
given on 5-point Likert-type scale (1 - strongly disagree, 5 - strongly agree). Recent study
showed that reliability of TCQ scales is acceptable (Cronbach’s alphas: creative abilities
= .86, openness = .64, independence = .77; Jankowska et al., 2019).
RESULTS
Data was analyzed with Jamovi software (version 1.0.2 for Mac). The frequency of emoti-
cons use was significantly skewed (M = .89, SD = 1.59, min = 0, max = 26.67, skewness =
11), therefore it was log-transformed for further analysis. The transformation yielded
a more normal distribution of this variable (M = -.25, SD = .44, skewness = −.84). The raw
and log-transformed variables were robustly correlated (r = .59; p < .001). Descriptive sta-
tistics for the three characteristics of creativity can be found in Table 1.
Niezabitowska, A., Pieniak, M., Oleszkiewicz, A. Does the Frequency of Using Emoticons ...
70
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics for the Three Characteristics of Creativity
We performed Bayesian regression analysis to estimate the predictive value of the
three characteristics of creativity: creative abilities, openness and independence on the
frequency of emoticons and emoji use over the last 7 days. Data provides no evidence for
the predictive role of creativity in the frequency of emoticons use in CMC (all BFs10<.21)
Regression coefficients can be found in Table 2.
Table 2
Bayesian Regression Coefficients for the Model Testing Predictive Value of Crea-
tivity Characteristics: creative abilities, openness and independence on the fre-
quency of emoticons use (values in comparison to the best model)
DISCUSSION
The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between self-reported creativity and
the frequency of emoticons and emoji use in a wide spectrum of applications designed for
computer-mediated communication. We found that the three characteristics of creativity
are not associated with the frequency of emoticons used in on-line communicators.
The common use of emoticons indicates that their understanding is shared by the
Internet users (Boldea & Norley, 2008; Rezabeck & Cochenour, 1995). Therefore, emoti-
cons may lack innovative, transgressive expression. Thus, the null result of this study
might be attributed to the onset of the study. Perhaps if the study was conducted two dec-
Creativity. Theories – Research – Applications 6(1) 2019
Creative abilities Openness Independence
M 3.72 3.85 3.73
Mdn 3.70 3.89 3.78
Minimum 1.80 1.44 1.50
Maximum 5.00 5.00 5.00
Skewness -.345 -.603 -.441
Std. error skewness .147 .147 .147
Cronbach’s α .90 .68 .71
Models P(M) P(M|data) BFM BF10 R²
Null model .125 .5992 10.4655 1.0000 .00000
Creative abilities .125 .1256 1.0058 .2097 .00354
Openness .125 .0913 .7034 .1524 .00105
Independence .125 .0798 .6072 .1332 1.34e-7
Creative abilities + Independence .125 .0459 .3368 .0766 .00825
Creative abilities + Openness .125 .0273 .1964 .0455 .00412
Openness + Independence .125 .0187 .1332 .0312 .00110
Creative abilities + Openness + Independence .125 .0122 .0862 .0203 .00879
71
ades ago when emoticons were only developed, we would have a chance to observe re-
lationship between emoticons use and creativity. Back in time, when emoticons were de-
signed and implemented, their use could have been a more creative process (Boldea
& Norley, 2008), while now the use of emoticons became conventional leaving less space
for creativity. The relationship between creativity and language play has often been noted
(Murdock & Ganim, 1993; Vygotsky 2004; Weisfeld, 2006), hence using of graphical sym-
bols of emotions could have contributed to the development of a language play between
chat users (North, 2007).
Interpretation of emoticons depends on the context (Spinuzzi, 1992). The basic role
of emoticons is to communicate pragmatic meaning and facilitate the understanding of
the utterance with the intention of the sender (Dresner & Herring, 2010; Thompson
& Filik, 2016; Walther & D’Addario, 2001), hence the most commonly used emoticons are
those that are generally best understood. Symbols that have intrinsically no meaning are
rarely used. Ambiguous emoticons are usually provided with verbal explanations because
they are difficult to interpret (Rezabeck & Cochenour, 1995). Therefore, the patterns of
emoticons use can be driven by the superior goal of ensuring clear intention of the send-
er, leaving less space for creative expression. According to the results of the study con-
ducted on a sample of 86 702 Facebook users (Oleszkiewicz et al., 2017b), 99.6% of all
emoticons posted on Facebook were determined by only 15 from the total number of 136.
Thus, it seems that certain emoticons have a high level of agreement on how they should
be used (Walther & D’Addario, 2001) and, in fact, they indicate conventional rather than
creative approach. Further studies could focus on tracking the use of rare, ambiguous
emoticons and determine whether they are used by creative individuals.
A comprehensive description of a creative person demands consideration of cogni-
tive as well as personality characteristics. In other words, individuals’ creative potential
not only is defined through certain abilities or intelligence (Dziedziewicz & Karwowski,
2015; Voss & Means, 1989) but also through personality traits, especially openness and
independence (Feist, 1998; Karwowski, 2017; Karwowski & Lebuda, 2016). Previous
studies suggest that emoticons and emoji use is predicted mainly by age, sex or social
factors, whereas personality traits have little or no impact on CMC process, including
emoticon use (Oleszkiewicz et al., 2017b; Oum & Han, 2011; Prada et al., 2018; Tossell
et al., 2012; Wolf, 2000). Patterns of use also depend on the context – more emoticons
and emoji are used in public posts than in private messages (Tossell et al., 2012) and in
communication with friends, compared with strangers (Derks et al., 2008b). Therefore,
future studies should take into consideration the situational context as a moderating fac-
tor between personality traits (such as creativity) and emoticon use.
Niezabitowska, A., Pieniak, M., Oleszkiewicz, A. Does the Frequency of Using Emoticons ...
72
The present study has some limitations that should be discussed. First, all the varia-
bles were assessed with the declarative self-report methods. Creativity measured by
TCQ is a subjective, personality-related trait. It would be valuable to employ objective
measures of creativity connected with cognitive functioning, like The Test for Creative
Thinking – Drawing Production (TCT-DP; Urban, 2005) or Test of Creative Imagery Abili-
ties (TCIA; Jankowska & Karwowski, 2015). Furthermore, in this study participants esti-
mated their emoticons use within last 7 days. Collected data could be less burdened with
recall bias if subjects were asked daily (or even hourly) about their CMC behaviors. More-
over, brief daily reports might include current emotional state and creative performance
what would broaden understanding of correspondence between emoticons use and sub-
ject characteristics.
We did not control for the communication context (formal vs. informal) that can influ-
ence the frequency of emoticons use. Synchronous chats foster playful types of interac-
tions (Daisley, 1994), but these types may vary depending on the relation between the
sender and the recipient of the message. Moreover, we did not control in what way re-
spondents generated their emoticons - by choosing them from a palette menu or through
the act of combining letters and characters. It is possible that the act of creatively repur-
posing letters and characters may be related to the creativity more, contrary to the picking
out ready-made graphic symbols.
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Creativity. Theories – Research – Applications 6(1) 2019
Corresponding author at: Agata Niezabitowska; Uniwersity of Wroclaw, 1 Dawida St.,
50-527 Wroclaw, Poland
E-mail: agata.niezabitowska@gmail.com
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