Azint wrote...
GuardianAngel470 wrote...
A lot can be said about a person's emotional state from facial expressions but often reading into their thought processes can be quite hard. On the internet a person has time to think through their response to a statement making it more likely what they say is what they mean. The same cannot be said of face to face encounters. Just think how many times you've kicked yourself for saying something you didn't mean in the heat of the moment.
And you can actually judge quite accurately a person's emotions by their word choice. I can't give any examples but If you know who ZennExile is, I judged him completely accurately just by the words he used to convey his meaning. I was able to build a complete picture of his reasoning and he proved me right.
Sentence structure and word choice are a reliable way to read someone's emotions, and they are both available on a forum.
I tend to choose my words carefully, but I often type carelessly. True though, on forums and such, one has time to write a post how they see fit, but many in haste type out what they want and it leaves little or very much to interpret. But it is easier to decieve or mislead someone when there is no personal contact, because things are spur of the moment it is often the honest opinion, or the one by instinct.
Judging by what I've read from you, I read that you are deliberate in your posts, noticing the longer intervals between your posts from many others, that you may even be proof-reading before you submit. And seeing as how you are interested in these social experiments, you must be a student of some sort, I say student because I do not know of many professors who have the time to be posting in video game forums.
I am indeed a student, but probably not the type you think. At least not if you think I am a psych or anthro major. I do proof read many of my posts but I don't get to all of them. Mainly they are what I want them to be because I've gotten used to only speaking after I have thought something through, at least in cases where pause is acceptable. For everything else I'm am thinking about how what I say will affect another's perception of me, how they will interpret my statement, and what might happen if they misinterpret my statement. If anywhere along that thought process I believe what I am saying will have a negative outcome, I stop speaking.
My understanding of interaction comes as a direct result of what I have been through. When a casual statement can get you into a fight against a person who may or may not be better at fighting than you, you tend to speak carefully. I often make the assumption that the other person is willing to go further than I am (ie, violence), which ultimately leads to me surrendering a point.
My experiences have also made me quite good at reading people, as well as given me a curiosity about people. When you can usually judge when someone is angry (especially good at this one), sad, happy, or indifferent from one sentence, interaction becomes almost easy. As such I have developed the aforementioned curiosity because I am good at finding the answer.