An Affective Aspect of Computer-Mediated Communication : Analysis of Communications by E-mail

We focus on an affective aspect of communications by e-mail. In this study university students communicated their information to anonymous companions by e-mail to examine the relations between their affective traits, affective states and affective interpretations. Before the e-mail communication, as the affective traits, they were asked to give the frequencies of 12 affects that they experienced every day. Then, whenever they received the e-mails, using questionnaires, we asked them as follows: (1) what affect they produced: affective states (2) how they interpreted companions’ affect: affective interpretations. By the result of the factor analysis of the data of the affective traits, the subjects divided into the three groups: group of “Negative Affects”, “Positive Affects” and “Affects of Enemies”. The subjects in each group were compared about the correlation between the affective interpretations and states. We found that in communications by e-mail when the subjects interpreted their companions’ affective states as positive affective states, they might tend to feel positive affects. But, when they interpreted their companions’ affective states as negative affects, their affective states might be influenced by their affective traits. This may demonstrate that the affective traits influence on our affective states in e-mail communications. Keywords; e-mail, affective traits, affective states, affective interpretations, communication