A single emoji added to a workplace message shifted how 243 study participants rated a sender’s professional skills, and the matching rule researchers uncovered turns out to be more exacting than most people working in digital offices ever imagined

Positive emojis do not soften bad news or critical feedback; instead, they may create a sense of dishonesty and insincerity when used in a negative message. The matching rule: the hidden system inside every chat windowBoth sentence and emoji valence significantly influenced perceptions of sender competence and appropriateness in professional communications. Positive emojis enhanced competence perceptions when paired with positive or neutral sentences, but had no effect with negative sentences. Positive emojis may work in neutral or upbeat exchanges, but they do not automatically make you seem more appropriate. Negative emojis appear to carry the biggest downside and are generally best avoided.