Which Type of Emailer Are You?
Does your email inbox stress you out? Does "You've got mail" mean "You've got stress"? Or are you more laid back about email? Do you see it simply as a way to make your life easier?
Hair, Renaud and Ramsay (2007) investigated the different ways that people react to email. After administering some questionnaires, they came up with three types of emailers:
Seems about right, although I'd be interested to know how many people fit into each of these categories. So, let's do a straw poll, please vote below:
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Hair, Renaud and Ramsay (2007) investigated the different ways that people react to email. After administering some questionnaires, they came up with three types of emailers:
- The relaxed emailer. If you fall into this category then chances are you see email as something you will deal with as and when you have time. You don't try to respond to emails almost instantaneously. You expect others to be relaxed about email as well.
- The driven emailer. For you email must be replied to immediately. You see it as more like an ongoing conversation. Responding quickly is important for you.
- The stressed emailer. For you email is just a source of stress and you don't see it as that useful. You feel the pressure to respond.
Seems about right, although I'd be interested to know how many people fit into each of these categories. So, let's do a straw poll, please vote below:
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12 comments
Hmm. Relaxed emailer but obviously I feel the need to respond to invitations to vote in a poll inmmediately...
Emma, perhaps you're a relaxed emailer but a driven pollster!
this kind of self-reported answer may not be right
Driven emailer here!
You'd best respond to my comment quickly!
:D
Hope this is quick enough Deb! Cheers...
Hmmm.... Don't these general categories apply to just about everything?
Parenting?
Studying?
Pooping?
How I react to my email pretty much depends on the content. I can fall into any of the three categories depending on time of day, my mood, or whether I'm in a hurry.
Dr G and Romeo - I guess you've pointed out two of the major problems with typologies. First they may not be specific to the activity and second they don't account for the situation. And Conge, you're right, there are problems with self-report studies.
It comes down to balancing whether this is a theoretically/practically useful distinction against these problems. I'll have to cop out here and say we need more research. You'd have to be able to make accurate predictions with these categories for them to be useful.
Jeremy,
I'd say that my attitude is best described as follows:
I find it interesting that most of the psychologists I have met do not question their drive at generating categories within the context of our cognitive predispositions to do so. That is, our brains are hardwired to create categories, and once those categories are created, we often fall into the trap of believing they are somehow meaningful.
I'm confident I could generate a typology for poopers.
So, I sort of cringe inside (and I also probably manifest it non-verbally) when I come across research that describes typologies absent what they mean within a social context.
Dr G, good point. I don't think these categories are at the point of being extremely useful yet - but hopefully with more theoretical refining they will be.
As for your typology of pooping...I think it's best not to encourage you :-)
There seems to be a missing option here - the inbox is full, you intend to deal with many of them soon, but you are quite relaxed about the whole business.
Alan, sounds like you might be an extremely relaxed emailer!