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Article published In:
Interaction Studies
Vol. 24:3 (2023) ► pp.422–436

Texting!!!

Attributions of gender and friendliness to texters who use exclamation marks

ORCID logo | University of British Columbia
| University of Alberta
| University of Alberta
Previous research shows that females use more exclamation marks than males, often to establish rapport. The purpose of the present studies was to test whether people associate texters’ use of exclamation marks with friendliness and femaleness. If this association is due to normative expectations, we hypothesized that females would appear less friendly if they did not use an exclamation mark in texting. In Study 1, participants rated a texter using an exclamation mark to be highly female and highly friendly. The gender results disappeared when friendliness was controlled for. In Study 2, we tested whether friendliness ratings decreased if texters violated gender-associated punctuation. Participants rated a texter with a gendered name on friendliness. Regardless of gender, participants inferred greater friendliness to texters using an exclamation mark. That is, there was no evidence of a cost for violating this gender expectation. We conclude that people predict that a texter using an exclamation mark is likely to be female, but do not penalize females for not using an exclamation mark.
Keywords: friendliness, gender differences, punctuation, exclamation marks, exclamation points, texting
Article outline
  • Study 1
    • Method
      • Materials
      • Procedure
    • Results
    • Discussion of Study 1
  • Study 2
    • Method
      • Materials
      • Procedure
    • Results
    • Discussion of Study 2
  • General discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 15 February 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/is.22054.nic
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