How to tell if you're communicating with an insincere person by text message: research results

A new study shows how to understand that you are communicating with an insincere person. The psychologists' analysis showed that the use of abbreviations in text messages looks less sincere than writing full words.

Psychologists analyzed messages from more than 5,000 people in eight studies. And the result proved that those who used abbreviations were less likely to receive a response, The Guardian writes.

In the era of digital messages, the number of abbreviations has increased dramatically, and they have become typical for fast communication. However, psychologists emphasize that people should write words in full, not abbreviate them.

A team of researchers from Stanford University in California conducted eight experiments with text messages involving about 5,300 people. The analysis showed that people who used abbreviations in text messages were perceived as more insincere and therefore did not always receive responses to their messages, DailyMail reports.

"Although abbreviations can save time and effort, our study shows that they can also hinder effective communication and negatively affect interpersonal perception," the authors of the psychological analysis write.

David Feng from Stanford University and his colleagues from the University of Toronto noted that people who receive abbreviated messages easily refuse to respond. "These negative effects arise because abbreviations indicate a lower level of effort on the part of the sender," the experts say.

"Our findings are consistent with the literature indicating that people value conversation quality, preferring messages that convey thoughtfulness and personal connection," the researchers added.

But Christopher Hand, a psychologist at the University of Glasgow, emphasized that in electronic communication, a lot also depends on the personal relationship between the sender and the recipient, as well as whether you know the people who use abbreviations or not.

"People are likely to choose their communication styles carefully, depending on who they're talking to, why they're talking to them, and whether it's personal, professional, romantic, aggressive, etc.," Hand said.

"Modern technology goes beyond short text communications: voice characteristics in voice notes, emojis, gifs, memes, and so on are likely to be more influential than plain text," the psychologist from the University of Glasgow added.

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