Exploring an Emoji-Based Evaluation and Intervention Method for Psychological Safety in Ongoing Co-Creations

Psychological safety is pivotal for co-creation to build an open environment where innovative ideas can flourish. Traditionally, psychological safety has been evaluated from a stable and long-term perspective by implementing psychological scales. Consequently, existing interventions often focus on s...

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Main Authors: Qiner Lyu, Gaku Kutsuzawa, Hiroyuki Umemura, Kenta Kimura, Masaaki Mochimaru, Akihiko Murai
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-04-01
Series:Multimodal Technologies and Interaction
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2414-4088/9/5/40
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author Qiner Lyu
Gaku Kutsuzawa
Hiroyuki Umemura
Kenta Kimura
Masaaki Mochimaru
Akihiko Murai
author_facet Qiner Lyu
Gaku Kutsuzawa
Hiroyuki Umemura
Kenta Kimura
Masaaki Mochimaru
Akihiko Murai
author_sort Qiner Lyu
collection DOAJ
description Psychological safety is pivotal for co-creation to build an open environment where innovative ideas can flourish. Traditionally, psychological safety has been evaluated from a stable and long-term perspective by implementing psychological scales. Consequently, existing interventions often focus on steadily enhancing psychological safety, which is less suitable for dynamic short-term co-creation settings. The purpose of this study is to introduce the use of emojis as a novel and intuitive interaction during co-creations and assess their effectiveness in evaluating and influencing psychological safety. We performed two experiments with 140 participants in total to test emojis as evaluations and interventions, respectively. The participants watched videos and annotated them with emojis based on their perceptions of emotions. This process allowed us to explore the relationship between perceived emotions and psychological safety. In the next phase, we embedded emojis directly into the videos to observe whether the participants’ emotional perceptions—and, consequently, their psychological safety—could be influenced by visual cues. Our findings demonstrate that positive emojis are positively correlated with psychological safety and negative emojis are negatively correlated with psychological safety. We also revealed that negative emojis significantly decreased psychological safety scores, whereas positive emojis did not lead to a corresponding increase.
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publishDate 2025-04-01
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series Multimodal Technologies and Interaction
spelling doaj-art-9467cd5ff6e841bf90c8fe2b429c33ff2025-08-20T01:56:44ZengMDPI AGMultimodal Technologies and Interaction2414-40882025-04-01954010.3390/mti9050040Exploring an Emoji-Based Evaluation and Intervention Method for Psychological Safety in Ongoing Co-CreationsQiner Lyu0Gaku Kutsuzawa1Hiroyuki Umemura2Kenta Kimura3Masaaki Mochimaru4Akihiko Murai5Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa 277-0882, JapanNational Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Kashiwa 277-0882, JapanNational Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Kashiwa 277-0882, JapanGraduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa 277-0882, JapanGraduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa 277-0882, JapanGraduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa 277-0882, JapanPsychological safety is pivotal for co-creation to build an open environment where innovative ideas can flourish. Traditionally, psychological safety has been evaluated from a stable and long-term perspective by implementing psychological scales. Consequently, existing interventions often focus on steadily enhancing psychological safety, which is less suitable for dynamic short-term co-creation settings. The purpose of this study is to introduce the use of emojis as a novel and intuitive interaction during co-creations and assess their effectiveness in evaluating and influencing psychological safety. We performed two experiments with 140 participants in total to test emojis as evaluations and interventions, respectively. The participants watched videos and annotated them with emojis based on their perceptions of emotions. This process allowed us to explore the relationship between perceived emotions and psychological safety. In the next phase, we embedded emojis directly into the videos to observe whether the participants’ emotional perceptions—and, consequently, their psychological safety—could be influenced by visual cues. Our findings demonstrate that positive emojis are positively correlated with psychological safety and negative emojis are negatively correlated with psychological safety. We also revealed that negative emojis significantly decreased psychological safety scores, whereas positive emojis did not lead to a corresponding increase.https://www.mdpi.com/2414-4088/9/5/40psychological safetyemojisco-creationpsychological evaluationintervention
spellingShingle Qiner Lyu
Gaku Kutsuzawa
Hiroyuki Umemura
Kenta Kimura
Masaaki Mochimaru
Akihiko Murai
Exploring an Emoji-Based Evaluation and Intervention Method for Psychological Safety in Ongoing Co-Creations
Multimodal Technologies and Interaction
psychological safety
emojis
co-creation
psychological evaluation
intervention
title Exploring an Emoji-Based Evaluation and Intervention Method for Psychological Safety in Ongoing Co-Creations
title_full Exploring an Emoji-Based Evaluation and Intervention Method for Psychological Safety in Ongoing Co-Creations
title_fullStr Exploring an Emoji-Based Evaluation and Intervention Method for Psychological Safety in Ongoing Co-Creations
title_full_unstemmed Exploring an Emoji-Based Evaluation and Intervention Method for Psychological Safety in Ongoing Co-Creations
title_short Exploring an Emoji-Based Evaluation and Intervention Method for Psychological Safety in Ongoing Co-Creations
title_sort exploring an emoji based evaluation and intervention method for psychological safety in ongoing co creations
topic psychological safety
emojis
co-creation
psychological evaluation
intervention
url https://www.mdpi.com/2414-4088/9/5/40
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