Done tastefully, joke-telling at work could make you appear more confident and competent

By Alex Fradera A little humor in the workplace appears broadly beneficial: it can increase productivity and creativity and helps to build trust. But before you get too carried away attempting to stun your colleagues with your wit, you might want to heed the findings from new research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which focused on the effect of humour attempts on our personal status. The work shows that while a well-judged gag can cover us in glory, misses can have negative consequences. What’s more, this risky nature partly explains why we hold funny people in esteem. An initial study had a decidedly scatological bent. The researchers Brad Bitterly, Alison Wood Brooks, and Maurice Schweitzer asked participants to make up customer testimonials for a company that specialised in pet waste removal. Afterwards each participant listened to testimonials supposedly made up by other participants and judged the calibre of the person who’d written them. For instance, one testimonial began: “Very professional. After cleaning up the poop, they weren’t even upset when they found out that I don’t have a pet!” Participants gave higher ratings of status, competence and confidence to participants who delivered a funny “faecestimonial”, compared to their straight-faced counterparts. Next the researchers investigated what happens when jokes fall flat. Nearly 300 participants read about a hypothetical job interview where a candidate responded to a question...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Occupational Source Type: blogs