Differences between Males and Females Concerning Perceived Electronic Mail Appropriateness

Electronic mail is one of the most successfully diffused modern communication technologies. Yet, few researchers have investigated whether gender differences exist in perceptions of the types of appropriateness embedded within electronic mail messages. A framework originally created by Wiemann and Backlund (1980) served as the basis for the measures of verbal, relational, and environmental electronic mail appropriateness. Two hundred and seventy-six respondents completed the 3 measures. Analysis of variance indicated that females (M = 13.7, SD = 1.9) scored significantly higher than males (M = 13.1, SD = 2.6) in reference to verbal context (p less than 0.05, F = 4.44, [eta][superscript 2] = 0.016). In addition, a significant difference was found between females (M = 9.8, SD = 3.0) and males (M = 6.9, SD = 3.6) for the relational context variable (p less than 0.01, F = 50.39, [eta][superscript 2] = 0.155). Furthermore, a significant difference (p less than 0.01, F = 14.63, [eta][superscript 2] = 0.051) between females (M = 10.6, SD = 2.8) and males (M = 9.2, SD = 3.1) regarding environmental context variable was also observed.