title: Egocentrism over e-mail: can we communicate as well as we think?
abstract: Without the benefit of paralinguistic cues such as gesture, emphasis, and intonation, it can be difficult to convey emotion and tone over electronic mail (e-mail). Five experiments suggest that this limitation is often underappreciated, such that people tend to believe that they can communicate over e-mail more effectively than they actually can. Studies 4 and 5 further suggest that this overconfidence is born of egocentrism, the inherent difficulty of detaching oneself from one's own perspective when evaluating the perspective of someone else. Because e-mail communicators "hear" a statement differently depending on whether they intend to be, say, sarcastic or funny, it can be difficult to appreciate that their electronic audience may not.
authors.affiliation: New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, NY 10012, USA. jkruger@stern.nyu.edu
authors.forename: Justin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kruger
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Epley
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Parker
authors.forename: Zhi-Wen
authors.initials: ZW
authors.lastname: Ng
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D003142:Communication; D004532:Ego; D034742:Electronic Mail; D006801:Humans; D009633:Nonverbal Communication; D013850:Thinking