1. Your Dilemma
Chelsea is the top student in your public speaking 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 assigns Chelsea to critique your first in-class speech. Chelsea must analyze a video of your speech, then send comments to you and the professor. Your speech goes well, but you’re worried that Chelsea— who is a perfectionist—might be harsh in her assessment. When you read her review, though, you see that her comments are complimentary, detailed, fair, and extremely insightful. Since your shift at work starts in five minutes, you send her a hasty message to thank her: “Just wanted to say I REALLY appreciate your BRILLIANT and INSIGHTFUL comments!”
After work, you find another message from Chelsea. It reads, “You know, I always 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.”
2. 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 email. 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).
3. Your Opportunity
How will you respond to Chelsea? Before you act, consider the facts of the situation and think about the sarcasm research. Also, reflect on what you’ve learned about characteristics of nonverbal communication and functions of nonverbal communication.