Bulletin ofThe Faculty of Psychological & Physical Science, No. 11 , 57- 66, 2015

Irony and the Sender ラs Overconfidence:

Effects of Contextual Factors and Emoticons in E-mail

Shinichiro OKAMOTO

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the sender's overconfidence in the communication ofirony.

The sender-participants produced messages of irony in simulated E-mail communication situations and subseｭ

quently speculated whether the receiver would interpret them as irony or sincere praise. Receiver-participants

were asked to infer the real intention of the senders. Experiment 1 (N= 154) revealed that the overconfidence

was reduced when the sender was informed of the receiver's ignorance after but not before producing a mesｭ

sage. Experiment 2 (N=68) showed that the availability of emoticons did not change the magni印de of overconｭ

fidence because it heightened not only the receiver's real accuracy but also the sender's expectation about the

receiver's accuracy. Some implications ofthe experiments were discussed.

Keywords: irony, overconfidence, the ilusion oftransparency, E-mail

Daily communication is not always success孔.t1. What the

sender has intended to transmit may not be understood by

the receiver as it was intended. Furthermore, it is sometimes

the case that the sender does not notice his/her failure in

communication and believes that his/her meaning or emoｭ

tion has been understood well by the receiver. The existence

of such phenomena, which 1 refer to as “ the sender's overｭ

confidence" here, has been repOlied by several researchers

(Keysar, 1994; Keysar & Henly, 2002; Kruger Epley, Parkｭ

er, & Ng, 2005). ln this paper 1 repoli two experiments which investigated

some factors inf1uencing the sender's overconfidence. ln

these experiments, 1 was concerned with the communicaｭ

tion of irony in quasi E-mail situations. ln Experiment 1, 1

examined the effects of the sender's expectation about the

receiver's contexts. ln Experiment 2, 1 addressed myself to

the roles of emoticons in messages. Through these experiｭ

ments, 1 intended to clarify some possible mechanisms unｭ

derlying the overconfidence phenomenon.

Previous studies demonstrating overconfidence phenom-

ena

The sender's overconfidence has been demonstrated in

several experiments. ln Keysar and Henly (2002), a speakｭ

er-participant read an ambiguous sentence (e.g. , Angela

killed the man with the gun) to a hearer-participant; alｭ

though the disambiguating context was shown to the speak-

er only, the speaker estimated that the hearer would il1fer

the meaning of the sentence more accurately than the hearer

achmlly did.

The emergence of overconfidence is not confined to the

communication of sentence meaning. Keysar (1994) found

this phenomenon in remarks of irony (sarcasm). ln his exｭ

periments, participants were presented with a scenario in

which the information about the target of evaluation (the

restaurant was bad or good) and the sender's positive reｭ

mark (e.g. , [the restaurant was] “ well marvellous, just marｭ

vellous") were shown. Although the receiver in this scenario

was placed in the standpoint unable to know about the inｭ

f0I111ation of the target, the participants judged that the 1・e­

ceiver would take the remark as sarcastic when the situation

was negative compared with when it was positive.

Causes of overconfidence

Why does the sender's overconfidence emerge? As a maｭ

jor cause of overconfidence, Kruger et al. (2005) pointed

out the egocentricity of the sender, that is, the difficulty for

the sender to infer how stimuli are evaluated by others who

do 110t c0I1U11and the sender's privileged viewpoint (p. 926).

Let's assume Ken sends a message to Naomi. In order to

communicate his own intention successfully, Ken must

compose a message by taking into consideration Naomi's

contexts or viewpoint including her knowledge and asｭ

sumptions. However a person tends to have an illusion that

ホDepartment of Psychology, Faculty of Psychological and Physical Science, Aichi Gakuin University, E-mail: okal1loto@dpc.agu.ac.jp

-57-

Shinichiro OKAMOTO

his/her own inner states are known to others, more so than

they ac印ally are (the illusion of transparency: Gilovich,

Savitsky & Medvec, 1998). Such an illusion might inf1uｭ

ence Ken's judgement about the communality of his and

Naomi's contextual knowledge and as a result, he might

formulate a message from his egocentric viewpoint (Kruger

et al., 2005). The matter is discussed further as fol1ows (Epｭ

ley, Keysar, Van Boven, & Gilovich, 2004; Keysar & BaIT,

2002): in order to speculate on another's viewpoint, the

sender first employs his/her own viewpoint as an anchor,

and endeavours to fill the gap between the sender him/herｭ

self and the receiver gradually (the anchoring and adjustｭ

men川1t heu山111βS坑凶tic (Tve白I

S乱uにch adjus坑tment臼s a創re repea剖ted until the sende白r thinks the

gap has been eliminated, they are often insufficient, resultｭing in the sender's egocentric bias.

Irony and overconfidence

In this paper, 1 focused on irony. Although there are var・1-

ous variants in verbal irony (see, Gibbs, 2000; AUTHOR,

2007) , typical remarks of irony contain the reversal of emoｭ

tion. In these remarks, the sender expresses positively in orｭ

der to transmit the receiver his/her negative emotion about

some target (a person, a group, an institution, and so on).

For example, Ken says to Naomi when Taro has sung poorｭ

ly, Taro is a splendid singer.

In the present experiments , as this example, 1 employed

situations in which a sender communicates a remark of iroｭ

ny to a receiver about a target person.

In remarks of irony, due to the reversal of emotion, it will

be 1 ikely that, while N aomi has interpreted the message as

being literal praise, Ken considers that Naomi has successｭ

向lly understood his intention of irony, i.e. , he exhibits a

sender's overconfidence. Verbal features , such as exaggeraｭ

tions and overpoIiteness , as well as nonverbal features such

as mmatural vocal tones or unnahlral facial expressions can

be used to express the insincerity of the communication

(AUTHOR, 2007; Utsumi, 2000) , heightening the nuances

of irony. However, these feahlres might not be sufficient in

preventing Naomi 's misunderstanding and Ken might not

able to notice that his elaboration of the message-in order

to signal irony-was unsuccessful (i.e. , the sender's overｭ

confidence ).

The emergence of overconfidence will be inf1uenced by

the degree of agreement of contextual information about the

target person possessed by both Ken and Naomi; furtherｭ

more, when their contexts are not shared, whether or not

and when Ken acknowledges the difference will be a crucial

factor. Depending on how Ken assesses Naomi's context,

he might use insincere expressions to signal his ironic in-

tention differently and his estimation of the communicabiliｭ

ty of the messages wiI1 be also different.

E-mail and overconfidence

In the present experiments, the sender-participants themｭ

selves made ironic remarks in E-mail situations. Exchanges

of information by E-mail, especially with mobile phones,

have prevailed among young people in Japan; they very

frequently send various messages induding those concernｭ

ing trif1ing ma仕ers. In addition, Kruger et al., (2005) found

that compared with face-to-face or voice-only communicaｭ

tion, the senders of E-mails tend to be overconfident in their

success. They demonstrated this in the remarks of irony

(sarcasm) , as well as sadness, anger, and so on. So research

on E-mail communication should have a significance of its

own.

The experiments in this paper were motivated by Kruger

et al. (2005). However, 1 have added considerable modificaｭ

tions to the procedures of Kruger et al. While the pa1iiciｭ

pants in Kruger et al. 's experiments were allowed to make

ironic remarks freely, participants in this paper experiments

were asked to make remarks for the material given by the

experimenter. These procedures made it possible to examine

strictly the effects of the contextual information owned by

the sender and the receiver.

Furthennore, in Kruger et al. (2005)'s experiments, sendｭ

er-participants were instructed not to use emoticons. Kruger

et al. l11aintain that overcon日dence el11erged in their followｭ

up experiment in which the use of el11oticons was allowed.

However, they did not report any specific data. In Experiｭ

ment 1 of this paper, participants were allowed to use

emoticons if they wish. In Experiment 2, the effects of

availability of emoticons were examined.

Experiment 1

Experiment 1 investigated the inf1uences of the sender's

assumption about the receiver's contexts. As a starting point

for the research, 1 purported to confirm the existence of the

overconfidence phenomenon in remarks of irony. The hyｭ

pothesis is as follows:

1-1. In general , the sender will expect that the receiver

can estimate the sender's intention more accurately than the

receiver's 印刷al perforl11ance (the sender's overconfiｭ

dence).

For its main purpose, Experiment 1 introduced four conｭ

ditions: in the three of them (non-shared), it is only the

sender that is given the information about the target people.

These conditions were different from each other regarding

how the sender was inform

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Irony and Sender's Overconfdence

Table 1 Informational state of the sender and the receiver (Experiment 1)

Sender's expectation about the receiver's Receiver's actual

knowledge about context

Before completion

Correct Non-shared

Modified Shared

Incorrect Shared

Shared Shared

In the conect information condition, the sender was corｭ

rectly infonned about the receiver's contexts from the beｭ

ginning (i .e. , the receiver would be ignorant about the target

people 's situations).

In the incorrect-information condition, the sender was

misinfol111ed throughout the experiment that the receiver

would be given the same infonnation about the target peoｭ

ple's situations as the sender. In the modified-information

condition, the sender was fir計 misinformed about the reｭ

celver・ 's context as in the incolTect condition and was ‘de­

briefed' about the receiver's ignorance only after he/she had

completed the messages

Finally, as a control condition, the shared-context condiｭ

tion was established. In this condition, the receiver was givｭ

en the same information as the sender about the target's

ability and the sender was notified correctly that the receiv-

er would be given such information.

Ta油l巾ble 1 s乱印umma訂rises the sende白r'ヲ、s and r印ec印elve町rγ，、s e侃xpe民ct阻a­

tion about infoαrm

be the degree of overconf白idence in each of the conditions?

In Figure 1, for the illustration, predicted values of the deｭ

gree of the receiver's accuracy (grey bars) and the sender's

estimation (dark bars) are shown, as well as the difference

between these two values, or in other words , the predicted

degree ofthe sender's overconfidence (white bars).

It is possible that Ken, the sender, is trapped in his overｭconfidence at two stages of communication: when he proｭ

duces and elaborates a message (the production stage) and

when he evaluates the success of communication after comｭ

pleting a message (the evaluation stage). We can assess, in

each of the experimental conditions , to what extent the

overconfidence can be reduced (or not) in these two stages.

For the three conditions in which the context is not

shared, Naomi has some difficulty making accurate inferｭ

ences. In the correct information condition, Ken recognises

Naomi's context from the beginning; he has opportunities

to prevent the overconfidence in both of the production and

evaluation stages. In the former stage, he can heighten Naoｭ

mi 's accuracy by the elaboration of a message using verbal

the context

After completion

Non-shared Non-shared

Non-shared Non-shared

Shared Non-shared

Shared Shared

59

• Sender

>J Receiver

口 Overconfidence

Correct Modified Incorrect Shared

Figure 1 Predictions of the results (Experiment 1)

signals and other marks such as emoticons (Kumon-Nakaｭ

mura et al. , 1995; AUTHOR, 2007; Utsumi , 2000). In the

latter stage, he can make a cautious judgement about her

ability to recognise his intention. Although various difficulｭ

ties might exist in these two stages, the oppor・札ll1 ities to

prevent his overconfidence are considered to be largest

among the three non-shared conditions.

In the incorrect-information condition, Ken would expect Naomi's high accuracy. He has no opportunity to improve

his message in the production stage nor to downgrade his

optimistic expectation about her in the evaluation stage.

In the modified-infonnation condition, Ken in the proｭ

duction stage is ignorant of N aomi 's ignorance; so he canｭ

not accommodate his words or other signals for N aomi.

Therefore the improvement of the latter's accuracy cannot

be expected. On the other hand, in the evaluation stage, the

magnitude of Ken's overconfidence will decrease if he apｭ

propriately can lower the estimation of Naomi's success by

assessing the difficulty of the message in the light of her

lack of contextual knowledge.

Finally, in the shared-context condition, the prediction is

simple. Naomi knows the target person's ability to the same

extent as Ken and he knows this fact. Therefore Naomi's

inference wilI be accurate and Ken's estimation about her

accuracy would be also accurate. As a result, his overconfiｭ

dence wiU be at minimum.

The hypotheses were stated as follows:

Shinichiro OKAMOTO

1-2-2. The sender's estimation of the receiver's accuracy

wiU be highest in the sha1'ed-context condition and in the

incorrect-information condition; it will be lowest in the

modified同information condition.

1-2-2. The receiver's achlal accuracy wiU be highest in

the shared-context condition. It will be lowest in the incorｭ

rect condition and in the modified-information condition.

1-2-3. As a 1'esult, the sende1'冶 overconfidence will inｭ

crease in the following order: the shared-context condition,

the correct information condition, the modified-infOlmation

condition, and the incorrect-information condition.

Method

Participants. One hundred and fifty four undergraduates

(64 males and 90 females) at Aichi Gakuin University parｭ

ticipated in the experiment. All were native speakers of Japｭ

anese. Their ages ranged from 18 to 25 (m= 18.61). Besides

these participants, the data of 13 sender-participants were excluded from the analysis because they could not be alloｭ

cated to sender-receiver pairs or they did not follow the exｭ

perimental procedures.

Design. The independent variables were the 1'ole of the

communicator (sender vs. l'印.右ec印elve口1')， and the contexts (いC∞Oωr­

r児.右ecはt-info印rτ.'m

tion叱1しラ and sha剖red-cont旬ext). The contexts were manipulated

between participant pairs.

Stimulus. Sixteen story frames were created. 1n each of

these frames , a target person's performance or knowledge

was described as being poo1' (e.g. Yumi is igno1'ant of Japa目

nese histo1'Y) , togethe1' with an example of a (superficially)

positive comment on Yumi 's performance (Yumi is, as

might have been expected a shldent majoring histo1'Y, very

knowledgeable about Japanese histo1'y. I have found she is

quite familiar with the history of the Heian Period) (See

Appendix). Corresponding to each of the St01γframes ， the

sihlation in which the target ヲ s perfOlmance was depicted as

being good (e.g. , Yumi is knowledgeable about Japanese

history) was also established; in such a si印ation ， the sender

l11ade rema1'ks of sincere praise.

The sixteen stories were divided into two groups of eight

stories. Each of the questionnaires consisted of one of the

sto1'y groups; for each of irony and p1'aise, four stories we1'e

assigned in four counterbalanced ways. The stories were

ordered in two counterbalanced l11anners.

The praise sihlations were included f1'om the nature of

this expe1'iment that the participants were 1'equi1'ed to judge

whether rema1'ks a1'e felt to be irony or since1'e praise. It

would be possible to t1'eat irony vs. p1'aise as another indeｭ

pendent variable. However, fo1' the 1'el11a1'ks of sincere of

praise the degrees of overconfidence were ve1'y low in all

conditions. So I excluded it f1'om the analyses.

Man伊ulation 0.1 the contexts. In the correct-inforl11ation,

incorrect-infonnation, and modified-inforl11ation conditions,

the receive1'-participants were not given any information

about each of the target people's performance; within these

conditions , the infonnation about the receiver's context

given to the sender-participants was manipulated. In the

correct-information condition, the sender-participants were

infOlmed that the receiver would have no knowledge about

each target pe1'son's ability. ln the incorrect-information and

modified-info1'mation conditions, befo1'e they produced

messages, they we1'e told that the 1'eceiver would know each

target person三 real ability; however, only in the modifiedｭ

information condition, after they completed messages and

before they began ratingラ they were told that the receiver

achlally would not be info1'med about anything regarding

each of the target persons. (After the experiment, it was exｭ

plained to the participants in the incorrect-information conｭ

dition that their messages had actually been shown to reｭ

ceiver-participants who were not knowledgeable about the

target persons' ability.)

In the shared-context conditionラ each of the receiver-parｭ

ticipants was given the same type of infonnation about each

of the target persons as was given to the sender-participant

paired with him/her. The sender田participants in this condiｭ

tion were infol111ed that the receive1' would be told about

each target pe1'son's real ability. (see Table 1)

Procedure. The sende1やarticipants were asked to rewrite

by hand the example as irony or as since1'e praise assuming

to be E目mail messages to thei1' friends; they were allowed to

include emoticons in their messages if they wished. Then

the participants rated their judgements on how the receivers

would interpret their remarks. They indicated their estimaｭ

tions on scales ranging 白・om “(the receiver will) probably

recognise it to be irony (1)" to “probably recognise it to be

sincere praise (6)."

The 1'eceiver-pa1'ticipants were shown messages w1'itten

by one of the pa1'ticipants1) (and, in the sha1'ed-context conｭ

dition, the inf01111ation about the target people's ability); they we1'e asked to assume that the messages had come

from their f1'iends as E-mails. Then the participants rated

thei1' judgements of the sende1"s intention fo1' each of the

l11essages. Each 1'eceive1やa1'ticipant was asked to rate each

sende1' 's messages on a scale ranging from “ (I feel it) is

probably irony (1)"to "p1'obably since1'e praise (6)."

Results

The following two measures were calculated in order to

assess the degree ofthe sender's overconfidence.

First, if the 凶i時 value of a remark was three or less (i.e. ,

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Irony and Sender's Overconfdence

Tab!e 2 The means of correct answers ofthe sender and the receiver in each ofthe conditions

(Experiment 1)

Correct Modified IncolTect Shared

Sender 3.53 2.58 3.76 3.78

(.70*) (1.26) (.54) (.55)

Receiver 2.32 2.26 2.38 3.72

(1.25) (1.15) ( 1.24) (.67)

中The numbers in the parentheses indicate SDs

1ess than the midpoint), it was judged that the sender in- 4.00

fe1'1'ed that the receive1' would feel the remark to be irony; 3.50

for the sende1' (for the ratings ofthe sende1'-participants), or 3.00

the receiver felt the remark to be i1'ony (for the 1'atings of

the 1'eceiver-pa1'ticipants). We refer to this as “ a conect anｭ

swer" for convenience. The numbers of the correct answers

were counted for each of the senders or receivers and we1'e

compared across the conditions. The value can be ranged

自'om zero to four as regards each participant.

The second measure was the degree of accuracy. F or this

purpose, the distance from the midpoint ofthe sca1e (3.5-x)

was calculated. These values were summed fo1' four situaｭ

tions. Thus, the degree of accuracy can range 白"01TI -10 to

+10.

For each of the two measures, a ro1e x context ANOVA

was conducted.2)

Correct answers. The average numbers for each of the

conditions a1'e shown in Table 2 and Figure 2.

When we compare the numbers of correct answers

among the conditions, fo1' the sender, it is lower in the modｭ

ified-information condition than in the other conditions; for

the receiver, it is higher in the sha1'ed-context condition than

in the other conditions.3)

Role x context ANOVAs were conducted. The main efｭ

fects of role (F1(1 ,73)=32.31 , MSE=.65; F2(1 ,15)=3 1.67 ,

MSE=.036; ps<.OOl) and context (F1(3 ,73)=8.89 ,

MSE=1.25; F2 (1, 15)=19.53 , MSE=.031; ps<.OOl) and the

role by context interaction (F1(3 ,73)=6.30 , MSE=.65 ,

p=.OOl; F2(1, 15)= 10.13 , MSE=.019, p<.OOl) were a11 sig-

111白cant.

When we see the 1'esults for each of the conditions sepa-

2.50

2.00

1.50

1.00

0.50

0.00

Correct Modified Incorrect Shared

• Sender Receiver

ロ Overconfidence

Figure 2 The numbers of correct answers (Experiment 1)

rately, in the correct-information and incorrect-information

conditions , the sende1"s overconfidence emerged nearly to

the same extent. On the other hand, in the shared-context

and modified-information conditions, the sender's overconｭ

fidence did not appear, although the cause for i江t was d出if百fe町r­

ent仁: while the fo白rm

C句y 0ぱf infel白r芯百e白nce， the latter was brought about by the

accuracy in the sender's estimation ofthe receiver's low acｭ

curacy.

Statistically, the effects of role were significant in the corｭ

rect-information and incorrect-information conditions (Corｭ

rect-information: F J (1 , 18)= 15 .11 , MSE=. 92 , p<.OO 1;

F2 (1, 15)=66.3 7, MSE=.O 11 ,p<.OO 1; Modified-information:

F 1 (1 ,18)= 1.42, MSE=.67 , ns; F2( 1,15)= 1.72, MSE=.044, ns; Incorrect-information: F 1(1 ,20)=25.87 , MSE=.77 , p<.OOI;

F2( 1, 15)=29.53 , MSE=.031 , p<.OO 1; Shared-context:

F1 (1, 17)<1,MSE=.20 ,ns; F2(1, 15)<1,MSE=.009,ns) .4)

Degreω of accuracy. The results of the degrees of accuraｭ

cy are shown in Table 3. The patterns ofthe resuJts were sim-

Table 3 The means ofaccuracy ofthe sender and the receiver in each ofthe conditions (Experiment 1)

Correct Modified IncolTect Shared

Sender 3.89 1.26 4.81 4.44

(2.08* (2.86) (2.02) (2.75)

Receiver 1.05 1.11 1.71 7.06

(5.04) (3.78) (5.02) (3.15)

*The l1umbers in the parentheses indicate SDs

-61-

Shinichiro OKAMOTO

ilar to those of correct answers. The main effects of context

(Fl(3 ,73)=9.51 , MSE=14.31; F2(3 ,45)=26.94, MSE=.28;

ps<.OOI), and the role by context interaction (Fl(3 ,73)=6.33 ,

MSE=10.67 , p=.OOI; F2(3 ,45)=13 .33 , MSE=.25, p<.OOI)

were significant.

Discussion

We can evaluate the hypotheses comparing Figure 1,

with Figure 2. Supporting Hypothesis 1-1 , the sender's

overconfidence emerσed in two ofthe conditions. b

1 would like to take a closer look at Hypotheses 1-2-1 ,

1-2-2 , and 1-2-3. The results of the shared-context condiｭ

tion were as expected: the receiver's inference was accurate

and the sender's overconfidence did not appear. 1n the inｭ

cOITect-infonnation condition, because the sender was misｭinformed that the receiver was knowledgeable about the

target person's ability, there should be no surprise that we

confirmed the emergence of the sender 's overconfidence.

As regards the other two conditions , the results were unｭ

expected. Contrary to the hypotheses , in the cOITect-inforｭ

mation condition , the sender's expectation was not signifiｭ

cantly lower and the receiver's success was not significantly

higher compared with the incolTect-inf0l�11ation condition;

therefore the level of overconfidence did not differ between

the two conditions.

1n the modified-infol111ation condition, the sender's exｭ

pectation about the receiver's success was low. Although

this was in the p1'edicted direction , the degree of decrease

was very la1'ge and, as a result, the magnitude of ove1'confiｭ

dence he1'e almost disappea1'ed. These results in the COITectｭ

and modified-infonnation conditions are noteworthy.

The following facto1's could have been involved as causes

of unexpected results in the COITect-and modified-informaｭ

tion conditions. First , in the present results , we can see the sende1"s st1'ong tendency to produce a message and evaluate

its communicative success f1'om his/her own viewpoint only

(Kruger et al. , 2005).

1n the cOITect-information condition, the overconfidence

emerged to a simila1' extent in the incorrect-information

condition whe1'e the sender had not recognised the receivｭ

er's ignorance. Judging from the receive1"s level of accuraｭ

cy, the quality of the messages has sca1'cely imp1'oved 丘om

the incor1'ect-information to the conect-information condiｭ

tion in the production stage. Furthennore , the sender 's high

score in the cOlTect-info1'mation condition suggests that it

has been difficult fo1' him/he1' to acknowledge the low qual-

ity of the message in the evaluation stage.

Whileラ in the correct-infonnation condition, the sender has a realisation that he/she himself produced a message

with the knowledge of contexts, in the modified-inf0l�11a-

- 62

tion condition, he/she lacks it. The large differences of the

overconfidence between the two conditions suggest that the

sender's actual feeling that he/she has produced a message

taking into consideration the 1'eceiver's contexts might be

an important factor fo1' his/her overconfidence to emerge.

This is consistent with the results shown by some previous

experiments that a bystander given the same information as

the sender is less likely to be trapped into overconfidence

than the sender him/he1'self (Gilovich et al., 1998; Keysar &

Henly, 2002).5)

Another possible factor is the inf1uence of people's eveｭ

ryday expe1'iences. 1n everyday communication, except for the cases when there is direct feedback from the receiver, it is not uncommon that the sender 1'ecognises the 1'eceive1"、S

t f白ailu山lre 111 U山111吋de白r司and出ing only when the sende白r notices t出ha剖

the recei竹vぽ明e白r'、s contexts ar閃ed出if百fe白rent f企旨凶omwha剖t he or she has

imagined during the production stage, as in the 1110difiedｭinfo1'mation condition of this experiment. People, as sendｭers, may have been imp1'essed rather keenly by expe1'iences

like this in their own miscommunication. 1n situations in

which they do not notice the mis1'ecognition of the context, it will be often the case they end up considering that they

have succeeded in the com111unication, even if they actually have failed in it, as the correct-infonnation condition. So as

far as they know the receiver's context, they may become confident in the success of c0111munication. People ヲ s daily

experiences like this may have also played a role for the

differences between correct-and modified-information conｭ

ditions.

Experiment 2

Effects of emoticons

Experiment 2 approached the ove1'confidence phenomeｭ

non in the light of the effects of emoticons in E-mail mesｭ

sages. 1 manipulated experimentally the sender's availabiliｭ

ty of emoticons

The results of the correct-infonnation condition in Exｭ

periment 1 suggest that, even when the sender acknowledgｭes that the receiver's context is diffe1'ent from the sender's,

the sender has difficulty in taking this into conside1'ation.

Does this mean that, in such a si印ation， various 111easures

to elaborate a message are totally useless for the prevention

of overconfidence? 1n E-mail messages by mobile phones, people, especially a younger generation, use a variety of

emoticons (face 111a1'ks and so fo1'ce) which are not used in

t1'aditional w1'itten communication. It has been pointed out

that these emoticons are, as supplements to verbal expresｭsions, utilised to t1'ansmit the sender's emotion, like facial expressions, ges印1'es ， or vocal tones in face-to-face interac-

Irony and Sender's Overconfdence

tions (Miyake, 2005; Nakamam, 2005); in irony, these

emoticons are expected to play a role to signal the sender's

ironic inten1. Are these emoticons ineffective for the deｭ

crease of overconfidence?

1n Experiment 1 of this paper, 1 allowed the participants

to use emoticons 凸'ee1y and confirmed the overconfidence

phenomena. Kmger et al. (2005) also maintain that overｭ

confidence emerged in their follow-up experiment in which

the use of emoticons was allowed. A1though these results

may show that emoticons are not powerful for the prevenｭ

tion of overconfidence, an unsettled question still remains.

It is possible that the magniれlde of the sender 's expectation

of the receiver's success , the receiver's actual success , and

the magnitude of overestimation might be different when

emoticons are availab1e than when they are no1. Experiment

2 addressed this issue by directly manipulating the avai1aｭ

bi1ity of emoticons.

How will the overconfidence of the sender change due to

the use of emoticons? The degree of the overconfidence

when emoticon is availab1e is dependent on how the sendｭ

er's expectation about the receiver's accuracy will be. If the

sender's expectation in the emoticon condition compared

with the non-emoticon condition does not increase in proｭ

portion with the receiver's rea1 accuracy, the overconfiｭ

dence, even if it emerges, will be smaller in the former than

in the latter condition. On the other hand, if the increase of

the sender's expectation exceeds the receiver's rea1 accuraｭ

cy, the overconfidence will be 1arger in the fonner condi-tlOn.

Here we have two opposing hypotheses:

2a. The availability of emoticons will restrain the sendｭ

er's overconfidence.

2b. The availability of emoticons will inflate the sender's

overconfidence.

Experiment 2 investigated which hypothesis would be

appropnate.

Method

Participants. Sixty-eight undergraduates (14 males and

54 females) at Aichi Gakuin University participated in the

experimen1. All were native speakers of Japanese; their ages

ranged 合om 20 to 23 (m=21.17) Besides these participants,

one undergraduate's data were exc1uded from the analysis

because of failure to follow instructions.

Design. The independent variables were the role of the

communicator (sender vs. receiver) and the availability of

emoticons (el110ticon vs. non-el110ticon). The latter variable

was l11anipulated within the participant pairs.

Stimulus. Twe1ve stories were created. The frames of the

stories were sil11ilar to those in Experiment 1. Each of the

questionnaires was consisted of these twelve stories; to

each of the emoticon conditions, three stories for irony and

three for sincere praise were assigned.

Eight cOl11binations of the stories with emoticon condiｭ

tions and irony-praise sﾏtuations were established. For each

of the cOl11binations, four orders of the stories were estab-

lished in counterba1anced l11anners.

Procedure. Similar procedures to those in Experiment 1

were emp10yed with minor changes shown below.

As is in the cOITect-information condition in Experiment

1, the sender was told that the receiver had no information

about the ability ofthe target people. 1n the emoticon condiｭ

tion the participants were allowed to freely use emoticons if

they wished; in the non-emoticon condition the senders

were asked to write remarks without using emoticons. Then

the participants rated their judgements on how the receivers

would interpret their remarks.

The receiver-participants rated their inference about the

sender's intention as in Experiment 1. They were not given

any information about the target peoples' ability.

Results

The numbers of correct answers were calculated as in

Experiment 1. They were based on the ratings for each of

the by emoticon conditions, in a possible range 白・omzero to

three. The results are shown in Table 4. First of all , as can be seen, the sender's expectation of correctness was higher

than the receiver's actual correctness, demonstrating the sender's overconfidence. Then the participants rated their

judgements on how the receivers would interpret their reｭ

marks. While the availability of emoticons raised the reｭ

ceiver・ 's performance, it also raised the sender's expecta-

Table 4 The means of correct answers in each of the conditions (Experiment 2)

Sender

ReceiveI・

Emoti

2.73

(.52*)

1.88

(l.54)

*The numbers in the parentheses indicate SDs.

63

Non-emoti

2.12

(l.05)

l.24

(l.03)

Shinichiro OKAMOTO

tions in similar degrees; so, on balance, emoticons were

ineffective for the curtailment of the sender's overconfiｭ

dence.

A role x emoticon ANOVA was conducted.6) Both indeｭ

pendent variables were regarded as repeated measures. The

main effects of role (FJ (1, 32)=26 .14, MSE=.94;

F2(1 ,11)=96.09 , MSE=.Oll; ps<.OOl) and emoticon

(FJ(1 ,32)=18.51 , MSE=.69 , p<.OOl; F2(l, 11)=17.39,

MSE=.029 , p=.OI) were significant. The role by emoticon

interaction was not significant (FJ (l,32)>1, MSE=.52;

F2 (1, 11)>1, MSE=.027; ns).

As for the degrees of accuracy calculated as Experiment 1,

the pattem of the results was exactly the same as that of

conect answers

Discussion

The sender's overconfidence was con自rmed in Experiｭ

l11ent 2, as wel1. What was more important was the inf1uｭ

ence of the availability of emoticons. It heightened not only

the receiver's accuracy but also the sender's expectation of

the accuracy to a similar extent, leaving the overconfidence

unchanged. Thus either Hypothesis 2a or 2b was not fully

supported.

In this experiment, the sender-participants in the emotiｭ

con condition were allowed to use emoticons, but not obliｭgated to do so. ln some cases, sender-participants did not

rely on the use of emoticons.7) If we confine the discussion

to the remarks in which el110ticons were actually used, how

effective were theyつ

Figure 3 shows the proportions of correct answers for reｭ

marks with emoticons and those without emoticons in both

of the emoticon and non-emoticon conditions. We can see

that although the sender's overconfidence decreases by the

use of emoticons, it does not seem to have been extinｭ

guished completely. 1 conducted ANOVA, t仕r了ea剖ting each r印.e

mark as a case町;111t出hi臼sANOVA， 印刷al use (vs. non-use) of

ハUハリ

Receiver

0.75

.Send巴1・

0.50

0.25

Emotion Non-Emotion

Figure 3 The proportions of COITect answers for remarks with

and without emoticons (Experiment 2)

emoticons , as well as role were regarded as independent

variables; the dependent variable was correctness or incorｭ

rectness of the inference. Besides the effects of actual use

(F(1, 196)=24.27 , MSE=.23 , p<.OOl), the effects of role

were significant (F(1 ,196)=28.51 , MSE= .1 6, p<.OO l ),

showing the sender's overconfidence; however, the actual

use by role interaction did not reach the level of signifiｭ

cance (F(1, 196)=3 .49, MSE=.16 ,p>.05).

We may conclude that, although emoticons and other

marks might be effective to some extent for the reduction of

the sender's overconfidence, they are not sufficient to reｭ

move it completely. Fu山rt出he町rmo印re久， we mus坑t keep in mind

that this advantage of emoticons is useless for some senders

who are reluctant to use thel11 fu 11 y, as the main result of

this experiment has shown.

It is speculated that, for some emoticons, the degree of consensus as to their nuances has not been achieved yet,

due to the fact that sending E-mail via mobile phones is a

relatively new means of conU1lL1nication; if so, i抗t mi屯ght be

expected t出ha叫t the c∞onsensus will be fo白rm

札印lre ， resulting in the extinction of overconfidence by the

use of emoticons.

However, in contemporary Japan, varieties of emoticons

(and other signals) available in mobile phones are expected

to increase further. This can be an obstacle to the achieveｭ

ment of a consensus, and as a result, an obstacle to the deｭ

crease in the sender's overconfidence. Follow-up studies on

this issue will be required.

Incidentally, Hancock (2004) conducted an experiment

on the communication of irony, cOl11paring Computer l11ediｭ

ated communication (CMC) with face-to-face communicaｭ

tion (Hancock, 2004). In Hancock's CMC condition, emotiｭcons were not often used. On the other hand, in this paper,

except for the non-emoticon condition in Experiment 2, the

sender-participants used emoticons rather frequently. One

possible explanation for these differences is that, while

Hancock's experiment was conducted in a laboratory using

keyboards, most participants in my experiment imagined

that they were using their mobile phones to send the Eｭ

mails. Japanese students very often use emoticons when

communicating by a mobile phone (Miyake, 2005). Some

emoticons are a readymade feature of mobile phones. The

participants in the present experiments, imagining the use of E-mailsbymobilephones.l11ight have simply followed

their daily practice in the use of emoticons.

General Discussion

In this paper, 1 demonstrated the sender's overconfidence

in irony with simulated E-mail c0111l11unication. Although

-64 一一

lrony and Sender's Overconfdence

senders engaging in E-mail communication might be espeｭ

cially prone to overconfidence (Kruger et al.ヲ 2005) ， in other

types of communication, they will not be totally free from

this illusion (Keysar, 1994; Keysar & Henly, 2002). The

findings in this paper will also have implications for disｭ

cussing overconfidence in other communication media such

as face-to-face cOl11munication, telephone conversation, and

the exchange of letters.

While the present paper has focused on irony, the sendｭ

er's overconfidence is expected to emerge in a variety of

verbal communication (Kruger, et a l., 2005 , Takeda & Nuｭ

l11asaki, 2007). Depending on the nature of the verbal acts

exal11ined, overconfidence might emerge in some aspects

other than interpr・etation of intention, too. For instance, in

the case of requests, besides the intention of request, the

sender and the receiver might also diverge for the evaluaｭ

tion of sincerity or politeness expressed in the message.

When the sender intends to communicate an apology, the

discrepancy may arise between the sender and receiver for

the sender's sincerity, the acceptance of the apology, and so on.

The sender's overcon白dence can be an intriguing pheｭ

nomenon 110t only from theoretical but also practical perｭ

spectives. It will be necessary to turn our eyes to various

aspects of overconfidence in the 印刷I・e.

Acknowledgements

The portions of this paper were presented at the 71 st Meeting of

the Japanese Association of Psychology (September, 2007) and at the 21 st Meeting of the Japanese Association of Sociolinguisｭ

tic Sciences (March, 2008) 1 would like to thank Professor Gregory Rohe for his comment

on earlier drafts of this article. 1 would also like to tha叫( for Proｭ

fessor Mika Sasaki for her assistance of the research, as well as her suggestion on the interpretations of the results.

This research was supported by a Grant in Aid for Scienｭ

tific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of

Science, No.19530568 (2007-2009), No. 20330133(2008

2010), and by the Okawa Foundation for Information and

Telecommunications (2006)

References

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[Mobile phones and interpersonal relationships of youngｭ

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Footnotes

1) The messages written by sender-participants were retyped

by the experimenter. (Some emoticons were impossible to

type, so they were handwritten as accurately as possible.) Then the experimenter asked the sender-participants to

check whether the letters, emoticons, and other symbols

were as intended. These procedures were eXplained to both

sender-and receiver-participants before they made ratings.

2) In participants-based analyses (Fl) , Role was treated as reｭpeated measures. In item-based analyses (月)， both varia-

bles were treated as repeated measures.

3) In the situations of sincere praise, the receiver-participants as well as the sender-participants judged accurately. As a

result, the degrees of overconfidence were generally very

-65-

Shinichiro OKAMOTO

low.

4) For the individual comparisons between each ofthe context

conditions, Newman-Keuls tests were employed. 1 report

significant results (p<.05) only

5) 1n Keysar (1994)'s experiments, although the participants did not produce their own message, they showed overconfiｭdence. It is necessary to scrutinise fmiher what factors deｭ

crease the bystander's overconfidence.

6) Both variables were treated as repeated measures.

7) Following the instruction, the participants in the non-emotトcon condition did not use any emoticons at all.

Appendix

Examples of the stories employed in Experiment 1

[Singing]

Midori Yamada loves singing. She often sings in a karaoke s回­

dio. She sings popular music. However, her pitch is not good, nor is her rhythm.

66

1f you made a r右百emark of irony about Midorγ s singing to another .

pe引rson [by E-寸ma泊il円]， what would you say?

Please rewrite the following statement as you see fit.

Midori is good at singing. Her tune and rhythm are excellent

[Knowledge ofthe Japanese history]

Yumi Yamamoto specializes in history. However, she seems not to study so much. She is not so knowledgeable about the history.

When Yumi and you watch a quiz program on TV about Heian

Period, she hardly got any collect answers to the ten questions presented. 1n some cases you knew more than her.

1f you made a remark of irony about Yumi 's knowledge of the

Japanese history to another person [by E-mail] , what would you say?

Please rewrite the following statement as you see fit.

Yumi is , as might have been expected for a s加dent majoring hisｭ

tory, very knowledgeable about Japanese history. 1 have found

she is quitez familiar with the history of the Heian Period.

Final version received, October 7, 2015