The Effect Of Emojis On Online Initial Interpersonal Trust Of College Students And Its Mechanism

With the rapid development of information technology in the 21 st century,online communication has become an indispensable part of daily interpersonal communication,and the ensuing online interpersonal trust problem has gradually become prominent.In the early stage of online social communication,individuals quickly perceive the self-presented information of strangers,thus forming online initial interpersonal trust,which not only affects the completion of key events(interview,sales,etc.),but also lays the foundation for the development of interpersonal relations.At the same time,emojis,as an important supplement to non-verbal cues in internet communication,has become one of the unique attributes of online communication.The use of emojis(such as type,social context,number)has an impact on online initial interpersonal trust.Perceived intimacy,as an important indicator to measure the degree of closeness between individuals,is not only closely related to the use of emojis,but also leads to the change of initial interpersonal trust on the internet,and is influenced by individual factors(gender).Based on this,this study takes the important group of online communication(college students)as the research object,explores the influence of the use of emojis on online initial interpersonal trust of college students through three behavioral experiments,and examines the mediating role of perceived intimacy and the moderating role of gender.Study 1a with a total of 164 subjects,to investigate the effects of the type of emojis and social situation on initial interpersonal trust of college students on the internet,using a 3(Type of Emojis: None,Emoji,Sticker)× 2(Social Situation: Task-oriented Situation,Social-oriented Situation)between-subject experimental design.The results show that:(1)compared with no emojis,Emoji and Sticker can effectively enhance the online initial interpersonal trust,and the Sticker has a greater effect;(2)compared with the socially-oriented situation,the type of Emojis in the task-oriented situation has a greater impact on online initial interpersonal trust.Study 1b,with a total of 158 subjects,aiming at the task-oriented situation,adopted the between-subject experimental design of 2(Type of Emojis: Emoji,Sticker)×3(Number of Emojis: 1,3,4)to explore the effects of the type of Emojis and the number of emojis on online initial interpersonal trust of college students.The results showed that:(1)online initial interpersonal trust increased first and then decreased with the increase of the number of emojis;(2)only when use Sticker,online initial interpersonal trust first increased and then decreased significantly with the increase of the number of emojis.In Study 2,a total of 163 subjects were enrolled.An between-subject experiment design of 3(Type of Emojis: None,Emoji,Sticker)× 2(Gender: Male,Female)was adopted to investigate the mediating role of perceived intimacy between the type of emojis and online initial interpersonal trust of college students,and to explore the moderating role of gender.The results showed that:(1)perceived intimacy had a relative mediating effect on the relationship between Emoji type and online initial interpersonal trust,that is,compared with the non-emoji group,when the types of emoji and Sticker were,individuals’ perceived intimacy was higher,thus causing a higher level of online initial interpersonal trust.(2)gender moderates the pathways and direct effects of the first half of the mediating model of the type of emojis,perceived intimacy and online initial interpersonal trust.When the opposite was female,the type of emojis had a greater effect on online initial interpersonal trust than when the opposite was male.When men use Emoji,they can promote the increase of perceived intimacy more than when they do not use emojis;when women use Sticker,they can promote the increase of perceived intimacy more than when they use Emoji.In conclusion,based on instant chat,this study has explored the influence of the use of emojis on online initial interpersonal trust and its mechanism,which not only helps to explain the relationship between the use of emojis and online initial interpersonal,but also provides effective suggestions for the initial stage of online social communication.