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1. Digitally saving face: An experimental investigation of cross- cultural differences in the use of emoticons and emoji

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.09.016  

   Togans, J.; Holtgraves, T.; Kwon, G.; Zelaya, T. M. (December 2021, Journal of pragmatics)

   Across three experiments we examined cross-cultural differences in the use of emoticons (Experiment 1) and emoji (Experiments 2 and 3) when sending text messages. In all ex- periments, participants wrote text messages to another person based on different hypo- thetical situations (varying in valence or face-threat). We assume that digital CMC cues can serve a face-management function. Hence, based on the assumption that East Asians, relative to Americans, tend to be more concerned with face-management, we expected East Asians to use more emoji and emoticons than Americans, especially in threatening situations. Our results supported our hypotheses: East Asians used significantly more CMC cues overall, and displayed greater situational sensitivity (i.e., used more situationally- congruent CMC cues). Moreover, there were significant, positive correlations between emoji use and scores on collectivism and interdependent self-construal. The preference for emoji use by East Asians does not appear to be a function of poorer English language proficiency; in Experiment 3 there was a significant positive correlation between ESL proficiency and emoji use. We discuss these findings in the context of past cross-cultural communication research as well as politeness theory and face-negotiation theory. 

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2. Intergroup cooperation in the United States and Japan: Revisiting Yuki's (2003) theory on the cultural difference in the conceptualization of group boundaries

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cresp.2024.100200  

   Imada, Hirotaka; Tsudaka, Gen; Mifune, Nobuhiro; Mizuno, Keiko; Schug, Joanna; Kusano, Kodai (July 2024, Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology)

   Social identity theory posits that individuals perceive the in-group as a homogenous entity comprised of depersonalized individuals, and this theory has provided a foundation to understand intergroup processes for many years. Cross-cultural research has suggested social identity theory may not apply to East Asians, who conceptualize their in-groups differently than those in from Western cultures. Specifically, Yuki and colleagues contend that East Asians perceive in-groups as networks wherein each individual is connected through personal ties, rather than homogenous entity comprised of depersonalized individuals. Furthermore, prior research has shown that East Asians are more likely to trust out-group members with potential personal connections, similarly to how they trust actual in-group members. This reflects their group boundary perception based on personal linkages rather than categorical membership. Conversely, individuals from Western cultures tend to trust in-group members more than out-group members, regardless of potential personal connections. Our preregistered study (N = 332 Japanese and 345 American university students) aimed to conceptually replicate key findings that support Yuki's account and expand upon the theory in the context of intergroup cooperation. Overall, we failed to find evidence for the network-based and category-based cooperation and trust among Japanese and Americans, respectively. Consequently, our results highlight the need for further experimental investigation and validation of Yuki and colleagues' theoretical framework. 

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3. Emojis predict dropouts of remote workers: An empirical study of emoji usage on GitHub

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261262  

   Lu, Xuan; Ai, Wei; Chen, Zhenpeng; Cao, Yanbin; Mei, Qiaozhu (January 2022, PLOS ONE)

   Danforth, Christopher M. (Ed.)

   Emotions at work have long been identified as critical signals of work motivations, status, and attitudes, and as predictors of various work-related outcomes. When more and more employees work remotely, these emotional signals of workers become harder to observe through daily, face-to-face communications. The use of online platforms to communicate and collaborate at work provides an alternative channel to monitor the emotions of workers. This paper studies how emojis, as non-verbal cues in online communications, can be used for such purposes and how the emotional signals in emoji usage can be used to predict future behavior of workers. In particular, we present how the developers on GitHub use emojis in their work-related activities. We show that developers have diverse patterns of emoji usage, which can be related to their working status including activity levels, types of work, types of communications, time management, and other behavioral patterns. Developers who use emojis in their posts are significantly less likely to dropout from the online work platform. Surprisingly, solely using emoji usage as features, standard machine learning models can predict future dropouts of developers at a satisfactory accuracy. Features related to the general use and the emotions of emojis appear to be important factors, while they do not rule out paths through other purposes of emoji use. 

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4. Gender Identity-, Race-, And Ethnicity-Based Discrimination in Access to Mental Health Care: Evidence from an Audit Correspondence Field Experiment

   https://doi.org/10.1086/728931  

   Fumarco, Luca; Harrell, Benjamin; Button, Patrick; Schwegman, David J; Dils, E (April 2024, American Journal of Health Economics)

   Transgender people, African Americans, and Hispanics face mental health disparities. While mental health care can help, minoritized groups could face discriminatory barriers in accessing it. Discrimination may be particularly pronounced in mental health care because providers have more discretion over accepting patients. Research documents discrimination broadly, including in access to health care, but there is limited empirical research on discrimination in access to mental health care. We provide the first experimental evidence, from a correspondence audit field experiment (“simulated patients” study), of the extent to which transgender and non-binary people, African Americans, and Hispanics face discrimination in access to mental health-care appointments. We find significant discrimination against transgender or non-binary African Americans and Hispanics. We do not find evidence of discrimination against White transgender and non-binary prospective patients. We are mostly inconclusive as to whether cisgender African Americans or Hispanics face discrimination, except we find evidence of discrimination against cisgender African American women. 

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5. Emoji, Speech Acts, and Perceived Communicative Success

   https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X231200450  

   Holtgraves, Thomas (September 2023, Journal of Language and Social Psychology)

   Unlike prior research examining how emoji communicate emotions and modify intended meanings, the present research examined whether emoji can perform specific speech acts (remind, etc.), and how well users are able to accurately assess their ability to do so. In four experiments senders were asked to assume that they would send a specific emoji to perform a certain speech act, or to choose which emoji they would use to perform that speech act. Senders and receivers indicated their judgments of communicative success (i.e., that the receiver would recognize the speech act being performed). In two studies, receivers also made judgments regarding the intended meaning of the emoji. Participants judged receivers to be likely to recognize the intended meaning conveyed with an emoji, and there was some evidence of communicative success. However, participants significantly overestimated communicative success, and in all studies, receivers were more optimistic about communicative success than were senders. 

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