You’ve typed it, deleted it and typed it again. You need to let your colleague know there’s a problem with a project at work. Should you use a grinning face — 😄 — in that Slack message to soften the blow, or an angry face — 😠 — to show your distress?

If you’ve experienced this type of internal debate, you’re not alone. Instant messaging now dominates workplace communication, with 91 per cent of businesses using two or more chat platforms. But when we instant message, we can’t see our colleagues’ facial expressions. We try to compensate with emojis, using them as stand-ins for non-verbal cues.

But do emojis actually help, or can they backfire?

My recent study, conducted with colleagues at the University of Ottawa and published in Collabra: Psychology, reveals that emoji choice matters. The emoji you pick, and whether it matches the tone of your message, may impact both how competent your co-workers think you are, and how appropriate your message is for the workplace.

We asked 243 research participants to read short workplace instant messages from a hypothetical co-worker.

The messages varied on three dimensions: the emotional tone (positive, negative or neutral), the emoji attached (a grinning face 😀, an........

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