The Secret Cause of Flame Wars

Mz6 writes "According to recent research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, I've only a 50-50 chance of ascertaining the tone of any e-mail message. The study also shows that people think they've correctly interpreted the tone of e-mails they receive 90 percent of the time. "That's how flame wars get started," says psychologist Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago, who conducted the research with Justin Kruger of New York University. "People in our study were convinced they've accurately understood the tone of an e-mail message when in fact their odds are no better than chance," says Epley. The researchers took 30 pairs of undergraduate students and gave each one a list of 20 statements about topics like campus food or the weather. Assuming either a serious or sarcastic tone, one member of each pair e-mailed the statements to his or her partner. The partners then guessed the intended tone and indicated how confident they were in their answers. Those who sent the messages predicted that nearly 80 percent of the time their partners would correctly interpret the tone. In fact the recipients got it right just over 50 percent of the time."

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[Peregr1n]

Of course, they didn't mention that most flame wars are started by a) Thirteen year old boys who are new to the whole testosterone thing, or b) Borderline Asperger's Syndrome types who cannot understand emotions anyway.

After all, women are naturally better at communicating and understanding emotion, and without wishing to generalise, in most cases seem to communicate fine over the web without misunderstandings.