Hi friends! I'm as always happy to share another interesting finding of Organizational Behavior research I came across with you - I'm a bit sad as well, though, because this will be my last post. I realized that writing these posts doesn't really fit my purpose, and I will focus more on class assignments and my own empirical research from now on.
April, April! Of course there will be more posts - I love this bridging of scientific research with real-life impact and application way too much to stop so shortly after I started ;-)
I don’t know if you guys do that in other countries, too, but from my experience, April 1st is the joking, or fool's day. The goal of the day is to mess with as many people as you can, and when you resolve the situation with an exclamation of “April, April!” pretty much nobody can be mad - because everyone should know not to take anything seriously that gets said today in the first place (except this article of course, this it can be taken very seriously and is vallidated no matter what day it is published!).
The outcomes of these jokes might go in two different ways - depending on the jokes, and type of humor you use. Telling your partner that you’re expecting a child from someone else as a joke but not be just quite as humoristically perceived as telling your roommate that you ate their left-overs.
Okay, yeah, joking about food is never funny.
In general, how a joke is perceived may depend on the style of the joke. Similarly, how anything that is accompanied by humor is perceived depends on the style of humor used. Intuitively, you may already know some different types of humour, such as sarcasm. The scientific literature has also done its research on humour, different types of it and the respective outcomes of each.
The empirical investigation of humor started over 50 years ago already. It has since been conceptualized in multiple ways; with regard to one’s sense of humor, appreciation of it, humour as temperament or as coping mechanism. Humor in these various conceptualizations has generally been associated with better mood, higher self-esteem, resistance to stress and depression, greater physical well-being (better immune system or higher pain tolerance). The results have often been a bit fuzzy and contradictory, which is probably at least partly due to scholars looking at humor as a single construct, not at different styles of using humor. Certain styles of humor may simply be more or less beneficial than others.
Humor styles refer to the different ways in which individuals use humor to communicate with others and cope with stress. Two positive and two negative styles have been separated in the literature: The affiliative and self-enhancing positive humour styles and the aggressive and self-defeating negative styles.
Using an affiliative humor style refers to humor being used to amuse others, facilitate relationships or reduce stress and conflict between people. This often involves telling jokes or teasing someone playfully (like I try to do with my GIFs here ;-)).
Self-enhancing humor involves having a humorous outlook on life, which comes in handy especially during stressful times. Here, humor can be used as sort of a coping strategy for yourself. It thus does not always have to happen in presence of or for others. Imagine yourself on a day when everything seems to go wrong but you still have to laugh about it.
Personal example: I decided to go for a run a few weeks ago (weather.com predicted only a 3ß% chance of rain), and seriously everything that could go wrong went wrong: I started out by running up to a friend and hugging her, only to find out it wasn’t my friend. Then my shoe laces untied twice, never happened before. I got lost in Regent’s Park and ran a few extra laps because I lost orientation. Meanwhile it has started to pour (30%… right… remind me to never trust the weather forecast again!). As soon as I arrived at home, the sun was shining again.
Okay, it kind of was. I definitely started laughing, already when I got soaked and lost a bit earlier. Why? It was perfect, I thought - everything that could’ve gone wrong went wrong. But I didn’t mind, it actually distracted me from feeling sore and cold and wet.
Self-defeating humor on the other hand involves amusing others or yourself by doing or saying humorous things at one’s own expense. My running story turned more into this type of humor when I decided to share this story to make a friend's day a bit better, and by sharing it with you right now to make you smile.
Aggressive humor as second negative style refers to derogatory humor used, or when it is used to manipulate others such as through sarcasm, ridicule, and hostile teasing. I don’t really know why sarcasm is categorised as aggressive and negative, to be honest, I personally love it and use it frequently. I guess it depends on how well people can perceive the humor in it (i.e. if they can tell that you’re overtly being sarcastic or not) your underlying reason for using it (i.e. if you want to hurt someone). Note to self: This could be interesting to explore at some point.
Examples for the four different styles are: ‘‘Even when I’m by myself, I’m often amused by the absurdities of life’’ (for Self-Enhancing), ‘‘I laugh and joke a lot with my closest friends’’ (Affiliative), ‘‘If someone makes a mistake, I will often tease them about it’’ (Aggressive), and ‘‘I often try to make people like or accept me more by saying something funny about my own weaknesses, blunders, or faults’’ (Self-Defeating).
In general, these four styles have more strongly and consistently linked to personality aspects and well-being - compared to the previously mentioned links found in studies that looked at humor as a unidimensional construct and not in its 4 variant types. Positive humor styles have usually been found related to more desirable traits and characteristics like optimism and self-esteem, positive affect (moods and emotions), increased life satisfaction, and less depression and anxiety. Whereas aggressive humor, on the contrary, has been linked to more aggression and hostility, self-defeating humor has been related to lower life satisfaction and greater depression and anxiety.
Even though these connections have been established, researchers do not fully understand exactly how these differential effects of the four styles impact one’s well-being (compared to understanding why humor in its basic unidimensional form has an effect on well-being). In general, the construct of humor has been linked to greater rating of likeability and attractiveness, reductions of interpersonal conflict, strengthened interpersonal ties, more open communication, and reduced uncertainty in what others are thinking and feeling.
Regarding the different styles of humor, one possibility is that, as different styles reflect different social aspects of humor, they each have different influences on the quality of one’s social relationships, which are in turn an integral part of one's well-being - social support, for example, shows strong evidence for being responsible for both physical and emotional well-being. Some studies have suggested that (certain kinds of) humor may also make building new relationships easier and helps to maintain existing ones. Individuals who use more affiliative and self-enhancing and less aggressive humor tended to report greater relationship closeness and satisfaction with any support they received.
Repeatedly engaging in self-defeating humor, on the other hand, may create emotional distance between two people, generate negative responses from others, and eventually lead to poor well-being. Just imagine some consequences of always joking to hide stress or sadness from people you like, or if others join you in making fun of yourself more than you expected or wanted.
I mean, I get using this kind of humor to make yourself feel better, especially if people around you comfort you and say things like “Haha, that is kind of funny actually. I’m glad you’re okay with it” and “Oh, come on, you're not as stupid as you say”. But what if they (or even worse, you yourself!) get used to you defeating yourself often, and start to think of yourself less, as more messed up and chaotic and unlucky and irresponsible than you really are because you mention these things relatively often or even in exaggerated ways?
I guess this kind of humor is only somewhat helpful, as I just find out now, and maybe it should be used less often (especially if its NOT really funny, like if you failed a test or broke a leg). Maybe in these situations its best to see the positive sides to it only (yay, you finally get to skip the gym without a bad conscience) without ridiculing the negative event itself.
Of the four humor styles, aggressive humor showed the weakest and most inconsistent relationship with well-being so far. Many studies even failed to find a significant effect at all. One possible explanation may be that the effects of aggressive humor vary based on gender, especially when looked at in light of social relations. Men actually tend to engage in stronger aggressive humor than women and are shown to be more physically and verbally aggressive in general. They are also more prone to appreciate and like more hostile jokes, funny stories, situations or movies. A lot of them even think the movie Ted is funny! I just think its stupid and offensive.
A male using aggressive humor is judged in a better light than a female using it, especially if the judges are also men. Thus, men have been socialized to see aggressive humor as something that is normal and expected, potentially even as expression of liking and closeness. On the other hand, engaged in by a woman it may be less desired and expected and it may be interpreted as hostile and indicative of a lack of trustworthiness and intimacy in relationships. These theories have yet to be empirically proven, though.
There are not only different types or dimensions (positive - negative in the discussed case) of the use of humor, but also different dimensions regarding how a humorous display (like a joke, or sarcasm) is evaluated. Research suggests that the appreciation of humour is defined by two nearly orthogonal scales of positive and negative reactions to humor displays. These can be best represented by how "funny" versus how “aversive" it is perceived.
A maximal appreciation of such humorous displays arises through high funniness and low aversiveness (Top left. Example: An old grandma brings a bus driver a bag of peanuts every day. First the bus driver enjoyed the peanuts but after a week of eating them he asked: "Please granny, don't bring me peanuts anymore. Have them yourself.”. The granny answers: “You know, I don't have teeth anymore. I just prefer to suck the chocolate around them.” 😂). In the right lower rectangle of our two-axes diagram we would find the minimal appreciation, which occurs if a display is not considered funny but found aversive (“What’s the difference between a drug dealer and a hooker? A hooker can wash her crack and sell it again.” Sorryyyy - just for the purpose of examples 🤐!). However, the two orange rectangles show that a joke can also be considered not funny but be far from being aversive (“What are the strongest days of the week? Saturday and Sunday, the rest are week days.” Hah…hah…haaa 🙄) or it can make one laugh although there are certain annoying or critical aspects about it (e.g. a funny “Your Mum” joke about your own Mum 💩).
Rate this one:
Funny? Or not? If not, maybe this proves this joke to be right. I AM efficient, at least. 😉
So, why make a day about joking and teasing and laughing?
I think its just a nice way of making people laugh a bit more - even if that person is just ourself.
Human laughter is believed to have evolved from the relaxed, open-mouth (see Captain America above as an example) play face observed in other primates, such as chimpanzees which occurs during forms of social play, such as mock fighting, and communicates that the behavior is playful and not dangerous.
Laughter first appears in humans at 1 to 2 months of age and in childhood, before we learn other and more strategic types of humor, it is associated with situations that generate elevated levels of arousal (e.g. toddler-you trip over untied shoelaces and you fall on your bum while eating ice-cream), that are then eventually deemed safe or inconsequential (no pain, ice cream still on cone!). Thus, once you find out that nothing hurts, toddler-you laughs.... or, should laugh.
Theoretical explanations of laughter in adults have focused on the intrapersonal and interpersonal mechanisms that explain its origins and apparent psychological benefits. In terms of intrapersonal processes, laughter is believed to accompany the dissociation of the experience of distress, meaning laughing makes your brain think of a situation as less threatening and bad as it might really be and therefore you can cope better with it. Such dissociative phenomena range from relatively harmless shifts in psychological states, such as daydreaming and distraction, to more severe or pathological alterations in memory and identity. Laughter is a rather short-lived, milder form of dissociation from distress, it promises short-term joy and perhaps some peace in the face of stress factors.
An individual may laugh when she adopts a novel or additional perspective on a distressing event or violated expectation (such as realizing that literally EVERYTHING about my expectedly non-embarrassing, dry and short run went opposite to expected, and that this might as well have happened to a movie character), because it resolves a bit of the associated tension (I mean, I didn’t really WANT to get wet) and shift the mood a bit to the positive side of things, and to humor. The reduction in distress produces a positive feeling state that is labeled humor, amusement, mirth, or exhilaration.
As we can see, laughing is healthy, humor is good for your well-being as well, and if you don’t use aggressive or self-defeating humor in ways that really hurt your or others’ self-confidence or feelings, its good to be funny. If you are the one attempting the joke - know that most positive effects of humor are attributed to the people using the humor, not being the receivers of the humorous displays. So, laugh about your own jokes - if they’re not too aversive and offensive, even if no-one else is laughing with you. And, since laughing is also healthy for us: should you be the one tricked today on April's Fools Day, just laugh with them - even if it IS a Mum joke about your own Mum.
Sources:
G. Keltner & D. Bonanno (1997) - A Study of Laughter and Dissociation: Distinct Correlates of Laughter and Smiling During Bereavement
R. Martin et al (2003) - Individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: Development of the Humor Styles Questionnaire
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