New Study: Being Negative and Pessimistic Will Get You a Much Quicker Response to Your E-Mail

The old adage 'nice guys finish last' might actually have some truth to it if you believe a new study. How often have you sent an e-mail to someone hoping for a quick response, only to get a response much later than desired, assuming you even get a response. It could be the tone of your e-mail was too nice and positive...what...really? Yes. According to a new study done by the software company Contactually, the more negative your e-mail, the quicker the response as hard as that may be to believe.

The research looked at 100 million e-mail messages where they looked for negative words like 'stupid' and 'missed' and more positive words like 'care' and 'amazing'. Sixty-four percent of the messages with the negative words received a reply the same day as compared to only 47 % with the more positive words.

The research cited two possible reasons for this phenomenon: One being, if you are writing about some kind of EMERGENCY, you are more likely to use words that fall into the negative category and people will respond much quicker to a perceived emergency.

The second reason according to the research might have more to do with the personality type of the sender. If they are perceived as being judgmental and impatient people in general, they will get a quicker response because the respondent doesn't want to make them mad.

We are always taught to NEVER send an angry or negative e-mail. It's ok to write a negative e-mail, just don't send it. Once you have relieved yourself of the frustration, return to the keyboard and and write a nicer, more positive e-mail, but according to this study, that will get you nowhere...at least if you want or need a quick response. What do you think?

[Gawker]