Sex differences in familiarity and valence were found for 70 iOS smiley emojis; women reported greater overall use of emojis and had higher familiarity ratings, & rated the negative emojis as more negative than did the men

Sex differences in emoji use, familiarity, and valence. Lara L. Jones et al. Computers in Human Behavior, February 20 2020, 106305. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106305

Highlights
•    Sex differences in familiarity and valence were found for 70 iOS smiley emojis.
•    Women reported greater overall use of emojis and had higher familiarity ratings.
•    Women rated the negative emojis as more negative than did the men.
•    No sex differences in valence judgments were found for the positive emojis.

Abstract: Emojis (particularly smiley emojis, ☺) are increasingly used in computer-mediated communication as well as in applied domains within marketing, healthcare, and psychology. The emotional negativity bias in the facial emotion processing literature posits that women are more sensitive to negative facial emotion than are men. Given the similarity in neural processing between human faces and smiley emojis, women may likewise view negative smiley emojis as more negative than do men. Moreover, the familiarity of the emoji and the participants' overall emoji use may increase the positivity of the emoji. To investigate these potential influences of sex, familiarity, and emoji use on the valence of smiley emojis, we assessed the familiarity and the perceived valence for 70 iOS facial emojis in a large sample (N = 299; 163 women) of United States college students (Mage = 19.66, SDage = 2.72). Results indicated higher emoji usage and familiarity ratings for women than for men. In assessing valence we found higher overall positive ratings for men than for women. Consistent with the emotional negativity bias, this sex difference was limited to the negative smiley emojis with no sex difference in valence for the positive emojis. The obtained sex differences in smiley emojis’ use, familiarity, and valence are an important consideration in the selection of such stimuli in future studies.