CONSIDER THE DILEMMA

Chelsea is the top student in your communication class. Although she is brilliant and talented, she knows it and goes out of her way to show off. You admire her, but her arrogance irks you.

Your professor feels strongly that peer assessment—having students critique one another—is an important part of the class. This has worked out well—except for your group project. Chelsea gave you low marks, which impacted your overall grade. Granted, you didn’t invest as much effort as you could have, but you were still angry. In the aftermath, the two of you fought over her assessment, and you haven’t spoken since.

Now it’s time for public speech evaluations, and sure enough, your professor assigns Chelsea to critique you. She must analyze a video of your speech, then send comments to you and the professor. Your speech goes well, but you’re worried about Chelsea’s assessment. Just before leaving for work, you see that Chelsea’s review is posted. Reading it, you’re stunned to see that her comments are complimentary, detailed, fair, and extremely insightful. Relieved and excited to receive her praise, you type a hasty message: “Just wanted to say I REALLY appreciate your BRILLIANT and INSIGHTFUL comments!”

Getting home from work, you find another message from Chelsea. It reads, “You know, after the group project I thought you were kind of a loser. But I gave you the benefit of the doubt and approached your speech with an open mind. I spent two hours on my review. The least you could have done was thank me straight up, instead of being sarcastic. I guess my initial impression was right after all. Don’t bother writing back—I’ll just delete.”

CONNECT THE RESEARCH

To understand sarcasm, people rely primarily on nonverbal communication (Bryant & Fox Tree, 2005). Facial expressions (smirking), eye movements (rolling eyes), and vocal cues (varying pitch) all indicate that speakers mean the opposite of their spoken words.

Because sarcasm is conveyed nonverbally, dealing with sarcasm online can be tricky (Eisterhold, Attardo, & Boxer, 2006). Researchers Whalen, Pexman, and Gill (2009) found that college students use sarcasm in only 7.4 percent of their e-mail. However, when sarcasm is used, it is almost always marked by online nonverbals, such as capped letters, emoticons (winks), or parenthesized statements (“not!” or “sarcasm!”).

Whalen et al. (2009) warn that regardless of such markers, using sarcasm online is risky because of the potential for misunderstanding. Despite this, people typically have high confidence that their online messages will be understood correctly (Kruger, Epley, Parker, & Ng, 2005).

This research suggests three practical tips for better understanding sarcasm and online nonverbal communication:

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COMMUNICATE

Before making a communication choice, consider the facts of the situation, and think about the sarcasm research. Also, reflect on what you’ve learned so far about characteristics of nonverbal communication (pp. 138–142) and functions of nonverbal communication (pp. 153–158). Then answer these questions:

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