USING MESSAGE EMOJI TO UNDERSTAND EMOTIONS AND OPINION IN ATHLETES

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating how the emoji used in a conversational text message is able to influence emotional reactions and decision-making process, as well as studying psychological wellbeing, self-efficacy, body perception, interoceptive awareness in, athletes and non-athletes people. A self-administered questionnaire about socio-demographical items, and IPAQ, BIDA, SAQ and WHO-5 questionnaires, through Google Form, was distributed and filled in by 100 subjects. In addiction 18 WhatsApp chat images of text messages, created ad hoc, were presented to the participants, they are images of short communications, composed by a question and an answer between a parent and a daughter/son (9 images), and between two friends (9 images).  All sample, considers the received replies as more positive when the smile emoji is present. Moreover, in some contexts being a sportive lead to a more positive interpretation of the received message. Then, athletes turned out to have higher levels of psychological wellbeing and a better life quality, rather than non-athletes. The present study suggests important implications for athletes and for sport community in general. In particular, further studies on differences about social roles, age and relationship between interlocutors could be helpful and interesting.