Date of Award

1-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department/Program

Psychology

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Manuel Gonzalez

Committee Member

Michael Bixter

Committee Member

Jennifer Bragger

Abstract

As virtual work arrangements expand and email becomes an increasingly central workplace communication tool, the function of virtual communication norms provide valuable insight into workplace email dynamics. This study draws from social information processing theory, expectancy violations theory, and channel expansion theory to model how behavioral and linguistic features associated with virtual communication norms shape email perceptions and downstream conflict. The present research examines key communication features from real workplace email threads. Specifically, I extracted response time, sentiment, and linguistic mimicry (e.g., text length, word use), using Natural Language Processing techniques. Data was collected from 461 participants, resulting in 245 useable responses for a conditional indirect effects model with first stage moderation. Positive email perceptions were found to have a moderate to large negative relationship with both task (β = -0.35, p < 0.001) and relationship conflict (β = -0.40, p < 0.001). There was also evidence to suggest that response time, sentiment, and word use linguistic mimicry may influence email perceptions and subsequent conflict, though future research is required to expand upon these findings. Text length linguistic mimicry did not meaningfully influence email perceptions or conflict. This study integrated the ecological validity found in computer science methods with the theoretical explainability of psychological and business research methods, answering the call for such interdisciplinary approaches (Gilson et al., 2015; Hu et al., 2021; Keyton & Heylen, 2017; Roos et al., 2024). Future high-powered, longitudinal research is recommended to clarify the complex, contextually driven boundary conditions influencing email perceptions and their relationship to workplace conflict.

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