"Don’t work too hard," wrote a colleague in an e-mail today. Was she
sincere or sarcastic? I think I know (sarcastic), but I’m probably
wrong.

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.

"People often think the tone or emotion in their messages is obvious
because they ‘hear’ the tone they intend in their head as they write,"
Epley explains.

At the same time, those reading messages unconsciously interpret
them based on their current mood, stereotypes and expectations. Despite
this, the research subjects thought they accurately interpreted the
messages nine out of 10 times.

The reason for this is egocentrism,
or the difficulty some people have detaching themselves from their own
perspective, says Epley. In other words, people aren’t that good at
imagining how a message might be understood from another person’s
perspective.

"E-mail is very easy to misinterpret, which not only triggers flame wars but lots of litigation," says Nancy Flynn, executive director of the e-Policy Institute and author of guidebooks E-Mail Rules and Instant Messaging Rules. Many companies battle workplace lawsuits triggered by employee e-mail, according to Flynn.

People write absolutely, incredibly stupid things in company e-mails," said Flynn.