Humor in the Workplace

Humor is something that we experience on a daily basis, but when asked to define it we often fall short. We often think of humor as jokes, but in reality it entails much more than that. Humor can be considered any incidence that generates amusement. These amusement-provoking situations can be intentional (e.g., jokes, puns, sarcasm, a play on words) or unintentional (e.g., minor mishaps, misspellings, mispronunciations). Humor is inherently social, and social scenes provide the context for humor to occur. Thus, humor can be used as a tool to alleviate awkward situations and interactions. Research on humor is important because it has helped us understand how humor (a) contributes to people’s emotional and physical well-being, (b) is seen as a desirable attribute by others, and ...