英文原声 A User’s Guide to Humor at Work（2/2）

When to use sarcasm.

00：10 Despite the fact that you’re soooo good at using sarcasm, a little more guidance won’t hurt. Research by Li Huang (INSEAD), Francesca Gino (Harvard), and Adam Galinsky (Columbia) reveals that sarcasm is not just for teenagers trying to irritate their parents; it can be useful for managers and teams as well. In their study, participants either made or received sarcastic comments or made or received sincere ones. Participants in the sarcasm condition were significantly more likely to solve a creativity task assigned later in the experiment than those in the sincere condition. In a subsequent study, participants were asked to merely recall a time when they either said or heard something sarcastic or a time they said or heard something sincere. Once again, creativity on the subsequent task was higher in the sarcasm condition.

01：13 Why does this happen? Sarcasm involves saying one thing and meaning the opposite, so using and interpreting it requires higher-level abstract thinking (compared with straightforward statements), which boosts creativity. The downside is that sarcasm can produce higher levels of perceived conflict, particularly when trust is low between the expresser and the recipient. And because sarcasm involves saying the opposite of what you mean, there’s a risk of misunderstanding or worse if the recipient does not pick up on the humorous intent and takes a sarcastic comment literally. The lesson: Unleash your sarcastic side to get creative juices flowing—but tone it down with new colleagues, in unfamiliar settings, or when working in teams where strong relationships haven’t yet been built. Until you’ve established trust, it’s best to communicate with respect.

When to use self-deprecation.

02：09 During his presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy faced accusations that his wealthy father was attempting to buy the election. At the 1958 Gridiron dinner, Kennedy addressed those accusations by saying, “I just received the following wire from my generous daddy: ‘Dear Jack, don’t buy a single vote more than is necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide.’”

02：39 Self-deprecating humor can be an effective method of neutralizing negative information about oneself. Research by one of us (Brad) and Maurice Schweitzer found that individuals are seen as warmer and more competent when they disclose negative information about themselves using humor than when they disclose it in a serious manner. When they add humor to a disclosure, counterparts view the negative information as less true and less important. For example, the study found that job candidates who revealed their limited math ability in a humorous manner (“I can add and subtract, but geometry is where I draw the line”) were perceived as better able to do math than those who disclosed the information in a serious manner (“I can add and subtract, but I struggle with geometry”).

03：28 There are limits to the benefits of self-deprecating humor, however. Among lower-status people it can backfire if the trait or skill in question is an essential area of competence. For instance, a statistician can more safely make self-deprecating jokes about her spelling than about her statistical skills. So when discussing core competences, another form of humor might serve the purpose better. (An exception worth mentioning is when being self-deprecating about a core competence is the only alternative to disclosing the information in a serious way.) You should also avoid using humor to reveal your failures in situations where levity would be seen as inappropriate (such as if you are testifying in court) or when the failure is perceived as so serious that joking about it would be in poor taste. At the 2004 White House Correspondent’s Dinner, for example, President George W. Bush showed a video in which he was searching around the Oval Office and saying, “Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere. Nope, no weapons over there…maybe under here?” The topic was too consequential for jokes, and the video generated harsh criticism.

When to use humor to dodge difficult questions.

04：47 In the second of two debates during the 1984 U.S. presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan, the incumbent, was asked if his age would impede his ability to do the job in a second term. At age 73, Reagan was already the oldest president in American history, and he was perceived as being fatigued during the first debate. The president responded by saying, “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” The audience, along with Reagan’s opponent, Walter Mondale, erupted in laughter. Mondale later said it was the moment he knew he had lost the election.

05：29 Few people enjoy being asked difficult questions like the one posed to Reagan. Previous research has revealed a range of ways people can respond: by staying silent, explicitly lying, paltering (saying truthful things to deliberately mislead), or responding with another question. Using humor to dodge a question is another option that can be quite helpful in certain situations. That’s because humor is cognitively distracting, according to research by Madelijn Strick (Utrecht University) and colleagues. Just as a good magician gets the audience to look away from the sleight of hand, a successful joke can turn our attention away from certain information. Successful humor also makes us happy, and we are more likely to trust people when we are in a good mood. And as we have mentioned, funny people are seen as more intelligent and skilled. Part of the reason Reagan’s response was so effective was that his mental ability was under attack. By responding with humor (even with a scripted line he had probably rehearsed), Reagan signaled to the audience that he was still mentally sharp.

When to use humor to deliver negative feedback.

06：40 During the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was angered when General George B. McClellan failed to attack General Robert E. Lee in Richmond. Lincoln addressed the issue in a letter to McClellan saying, “If you don’t want to use the army, I should like to borrow it for a while. Yours respectfully, A. Lincoln.” Using humor to deliver negative feedback, as Lincoln did, can make criticism more memorable.

07：13 Delivering negative feedback can be challenging, so it may be tempting to fall back on a joke to lighten the mood. However, couching criticism in the form of a joke can lessen its impact. Peter McGraw and colleagues ran experiments in which participants reviewed complaints that were made in either a humorous or a serious manner. Although humorous complaints were better received than serious ones, they were also seen as more benign, and people felt less compelled to take action to rectify the problem.

07：43 Because accompanying criticism with humor softens the feedback, it detracts from getting the point across when the issue is not obvious. If a manager jokes about a subordinate’s slipping performance, the employee may think either that his performance hasn’t been slipping or that the situation isn’t a big deal. If it were, why would she be joking about it?

When to use humor as a coping mechanism.

08：05 Do you remember the day after the 2016 U.S. presidential election? For Donald Trump supporters, it was a happy day; for Hillary Clinton supporters, not so much. We took that opportunity to study how humor might help people cope with negative news. The day after the election, one of us (Alison) and several collaborators asked people who had voted for Clinton to write either something humorous or something meaningful about Trump’s victory. Those who sought humor in the situation felt better about it in the moment—and they still felt better about it when the researchers checked back in with them months later.

08：52 Humor can be an extremely powerful coping tool, in even the toughest of circumstances. Leadership consultant Linda Henman found that American prisoners of war in Vietnam frequently used it to deal with the tough conditions they experienced. Strick and colleagues conducted studies in which they presented participants with photos of negative scenes (such as a physical assault or a car crash), followed by either a funny stimulus or a positive but not funny stimulus. Participants presented with the funny stimulus reported fewer negative emotions than did participants presented with the nonhumorous one. Why? Again, the cognitively demanding aspect of humor distracts people, leaving them less able to focus on negative information.

09：41 Other research, however, revealed that the type of humor matters. One study by Andrea Samson (University of Fribourg) and James Gross (Stanford) found that positive, good-natured humor in response to bad news made people feel better, but negative, dark, or mean-spirited jokes made them feel worse. It’s also important to be careful about offending others with jokes when a situation is ongoing or recent (“too soon”).

10：10 But in general, humor can be tremendously useful in helping people cope not only during or immediately after a negative event but also over the long term. In other studies Samson and Gross conducted with Alana Glassco (Twitter) and Ihno Lee (Uplight), participants who created funny responses to negative stimuli (such as responding to a photo of a man with facial stitches with, “Now he has a great zombie costume for Halloween!”) reported higher positive affect a week later when they were shown the negative pictures again. So the next time you receive bad news at work (slow sales or a botched launch), think about ways to laugh about it (“At least we don’t have to worry about stockouts” or “I’ve been stress eating so much it’s a shame my portfolio isn’t tracking my waistline”), even if you don’t say them out loud. As comedian Stephen Colbert observes, “You can’t laugh and be afraid at the same time—of anything. If you’re laughing, I defy you to be afraid.”

You Don’t Need to Be a Comedian

11：12 Just as you don’t need to be Phil Mickelson to do well at the company golf outing, you don’t need to be Amy Schumer, Ali Wong, or John Mulaney to use humor well in the office. If anything, following the style or content of many professional comedians—who are expected to push the boundaries of appropriateness—would be dangerous in most workplaces. A joke’s success depends on who’s telling it, where and when it is told, and to whom, so everyone should use caution when attempting to retell a comedian’s jokes at work. The good news is that your colleagues are not expecting you to be as edgy (or as funny) as the professionals—or even to tell planned jokes at all.

11：52 When you think about humor as a tool of leadership, recognize that people can be funny in a variety of ways. For example, witty conversationalists differ from elaborate storytellers, clever emailers, and rollicking presenters. Each of these types of humor requires a different response time, unique delivery pacing, and an understanding of the audience. If you’re uncomfortable making jokes in a large group or during a presentation, stick to using humor in one-on-one conversations. If you tend to be more serious when talking one-on-one, you might try sending funnier emails. Options for incorporating more humor into your work life abound.

CONCLUSION

12：32 Humor at work is a delicate dance, and humor research is still in its infancy. Scholars (including us) are gaining data-driven descriptions of how people use various kinds of humor, and of when it works and when it doesn’t. But any rules of thumb for using humor have to include a caveat: Context matters. Conversational dynamics can vary profoundly from culture to culture, person to person, and group to group. These factors are tricky to navigate and make it difficult—even in the moment—to know whether your humor attempt has been successful or not. Many people will laugh politely even if something isn’t funny or is in poor taste, creating an unreliable feedback loop.

13：19 If you don’t think you can land jokes at work, or you’re too nervous to try, that’s OK. Not everyone is meant to be funny, just as not every attempt at humor will be successful. (Even professional comedians have bits that bomb.) But you can still incorporate levity into your work life by doing something simple: appreciating other people’s humor. Be quick to laugh and smile. Delight in the absurdity of life and in the jokes you hear. A life devoid of humor is not only less joyful—it’s also less productive and less creative, for you and for those around you. Abundant benefits await those who view humor not as an ancillary organizational behavior but as a central path to status and flourishing at work.