You've Got Mail: Identity Perceptions based on Email Usernames

Student's Name

Laura Pelletier, Minnesota State University, MankatoFollow

1st Student's Major

Communication Studies

1st Student's College

Arts and Humanities

Students' Professional Biography

Laura Pelletier received her undergraduate Bachelor of Science degree from Minnesota State University-Mankato in the department of Speech Communication, graduating Magna Cum Laude in December of 2008. She is currently working on her Master of Fine Arts-Forensics in the Speech Communication department at MSU-Mankato. In addition to working on her graduate degree, she is also a teaching assistant in the department teaching Fundamentals of Speech classes. Laura is a member of the speech honor society Lambda Pi Eta, Delta Phi Chapter, was the 2007-2008 Wolff Family Speech Communication scholarship recipient, and has been elected to the 2009 Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities & Colleges in recognition of outstanding merit and accomplishment as a student at MSU-Mankato. She conducted this research as part of a senior project under the direction of Dr. Dan Cronn-Mills in the Speech Communication Department.

Mentor's Name

Warren Sandmann

Mentor's Email Address

warren.sandmann@mnsu.edu

Mentor's Department

Communication Studies

Mentor's College

Arts and Humanities

Abstract

This study explores the idea that email recipients use the email username of the sender as a mediated cue to make basic assumptions of the identity of the sender. For this study 215 participants completed self-report surveys asking their perceptions of a fictional work group member including sex, age, race, and work productivity. Most participants were able to create a basic identity of their fictitious group member based solely on their email username.

Recommended Citation

Pelletier, Laura (2009) "You've Got Mail: Identity Perceptions based on Email Usernames," Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato: Vol. 9, Article 13.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.56816/2378-6949.1066
Available at: https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/jur/vol9/iss1/13

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License