Even the obvious needs to be tested and confirmed

From Medium is a powerful message: Pictures signal less power than words by Elinor Amit, Shai Danziger, and  Pamela K. Smith.  From the Abstract.

This research shows people are perceived as less powerful when they use pictures versus words. This effect was found across picture types (company logos, emojis, and photographs) and use contexts (clothing prints, written messages, and Zoom profiles). Mediation analysis and a mediation-by-moderation design show this happens because picture-use signals a greater desire for social proximity (versus distance) than word-use, and a desire for social proximity is associated with lower power. Finally, we find that people strategically use words (pictures) when aiming to signal more (less) power. We refute alternative explanations including differences in the content of pictures and words, the medium’s perceived appropriateness, the context’s formality, and the target’s age and gender. Our research shows pictures and words are not interchangeable means of representation. Rather, they signal distinct social values with reputational consequences.

One of those studies where I agree with the findings but am confident that the methodology is insufficiently rigorous to tell us anything meaningfully useful.  It is an interesting question that does warrant investigation but a rigorous investigation, not the cheap and easy approach here. 

And the finding is intuitively obvious (though all things obvious eventually need to be tested.)

I cannot think of one communication that I have ever seen from anyone of material organization achievement which incorporates emojis.  Children, weak thinkers, status seekers, the emotionally incontinent seem to be the primary users of emojis.  

Part of the weakness of design (apart from being weakly powered) is that it appears not to control for the actual status of the observer and observed.  If only lower status individuals use emojis, then it is no surprise that people assess emojis as connoting lesser status.  

There is power in complex thought and even more power in spoken and written communication arising from that complex thought.  It is the stuff of serious people and accomplished people.