Aaker, J. & Bagdonas, N. (2020). Humour, seriously: Why humour is a superpower at work and in life. Summary: Written by two Stanford professors, this is easy-to-read and entertaining book discusses the benefits of using humour in the workplace, the relevant types of humour, their purpose, what humour is and how to apply it in a work environment (including as a leader) through many anecdotes. Listen to an interview with the authors on BBC Sounds (2020).

Barsoux, J. -L. (1996). Why organisations need humour. European Management Journal, 14(5), 500-508. Summary: Spontaneous humour within an organisation should be considered a useful resource because it closes the communication gap between leader and workers: helps draw management’s attention to problems, enhances trust and facilitates change. In summary, it breaks down barriers between people.

Berk, R. A. (2001). The active ingredients in humor: Psychophysiological benefits and risks for older adults. Educational Gerontology, 27:3-4, 323-339. Summary: A review of research on psychological and physiological benefits and risks of humour, especially for older adults. Psychological benefits include reducing anxiety, tension, stress, depression and loneliness and increasing self-esteem, hope, energy and a sense of empowerment and control; Physiological benefits include improving mental functioning (increase of catecholamine which improves overall mental functioning, increased interpersonal responsiveness, alertness and memory), exercising and relaxing muscles (because laughing creates a total body response, exercising the face, chest, abdominal and skeletal muscles; it also increases digestion rates), improving respiration (exercises the lungs and chest muscles thereby increasing ventilation, clearing mucous, accelerating the exchange of residual air, enhances blood oxygen levels, reduces breading ground for pulmonary bacteria), stimulates circulation (increases heart rate and blood pressure, which exercises the myocardium and increases arterial and venous circulation similar to aerobic exercise, reduces pulse rate and blood pressure to below baseline levels after a laugh), decreases stress hormones (laughter is eustress, a healthy stress, which reduces cortisol, adrenaline and other stress hormones), increases immune system’s defences (moderates NKA and increases activated T lymphocytes, which helps coordinate the immune system’s defence against infectious diseases, including cancer), increases discomfort thresholds and pain tolerance.

Boxer, D. & Cortés-Conde, F. (1997). From bonding to biting: Conversational joking and identity display. Journal Of Pragmatics, 27(3), 275-294. Summary: Examines ‘conversational joking’, specifically teasing, across two communities. The study identifies two types of joking: biting (directed at a participant) and bonding (directed at an absent other). Concludes that conversational joking acts as a means of social control, identity display and relational identity among participants across different communities, but that it is done in a different way by each (i.e. it is cultural).

Carroll, N. (2014). Humour: A very short introduction. Summary: Historical (starting with Aristotle), theoretical (superiority, incongruity, release, play, etc) and ethical review of humour.

Collinson, D. L. (1988). Engineering humour: Masculinity, joking and conflict in shop-floor relations. Organization Studies, 9(2), 181-199. Summary: Examines the interrelationship between humour and masculinity in the social relations of an all-male, shop-floor workforce. Discusses topics such as using humour to manage boredom, as as a method of resisting authority, conforming to social groups and having control over other groups.

Cooper, C. (2008). Elucidating the bonds of workplace humor: A relational process model. Human Relations, 61(8), 1087-1115. Summary: Looks at humour’s ability to create, maintain, impede, or destroy relationships at work. In addition to classic humour theories, Cooper proposes an additional layer of four processes which cause humour to affect the quality of a relationship: affect-reinforcement (interaction between two people causes positive effect), similarity-attraction (two parties judge themselves to be similar), self-disclosure (a feeling that they are opening up to each other and becoming more familiar), and hierarchical salience (decreasing any sense of hierarchy between the two parties).

Critchley, S. (2010). On humour. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. Summary: Review of writings and theories of humour.

Cross M.P. & Pressman S.D. Say cheese? The connections between positive facial expressions in student identification photographs and health care seeking behavior. Journal of Health Psychology, 2020;25(13-14):2511-2519. Summary: FACS-based study which found a correlation between Duchenne smiles in photographs and healthy behaviour.

Duncan, W. J., Smeltzer, L. R. & Leap, T. L. (1990). Humor and work: Applications of joking behavior to management. Journal of Management, 16(2), 255-278. Summary: A survey of existing research discussion how humour is used to combat monotony and boredom in the workplace; how humour diffuses and reduce organisational conflict; how it defines roles at different levels of the organisation (leadership, power and status relationships); effects on group cohesion; how humour forms and maintains organisational culture. It then also looks at legal cases to investigate humour as a form of harassment (identifying different levels of danger for varying types of humour – although this is a bit dated now in my opinion) and warns against the dangers of horseplay which can lead to damage (of body and/or property).

Durant, J. & Miller, J. (1988). Laughing matters: A serious look at humour. Summary: A collection of essays on topics from neuropsychological issues (how a sense of humour can break down as a result of brain injury), jokes based on countries, children’s humour, political cartoons and clowning around.

Farrelly, F. & Brandsma, J. (1974). Provocative therapy. Summary: Therapists who confronted their patients with emotional honesty. “If you could get patients tuned in toward how other people felt and thought about them, and if you could show them how they could change those negative evaluations on the part of others, they could bring about changes in themselves relatively quickly.”

Goldenberg, A. & Weisz, E. Don’t focus on the most expressive face in the audience. Harvard Business Review, 30 Nov 2020. Summary: Focusing on the most extreme emotion being displayed in a group causes us to over-estimate the group’s overall emotional response. This article suggests that this is heightened when the group is larger and when they are displaying negative emotions. The answer? Try to survey a wider data sample when speaking to a larger group.

Hale, J. & Grenny, J. (2020). How to Get People to Actually Participate in Virtual Meetings. Harvard Business Review. Summary: 5 rules to increase group engagement, such as making the group feel the problem and have them take a responsible and active role.

Hoover, S. (2013). What’s so funny? Theories of comedy. Summary: A survey of the benefits of humour; why we laugh and the structure of humour; different types of humour; downsides of humour; humour theories.

Huber, G. & Brown, A. (2016). Identity Work, Humour and Disciplinary Power. Organization Studies, 38(8), 1107-1126. Summary: Study of New York food co-operative that found humour was used to identify what workers had in common with others, what differentiated them and what made them unique. Also discusses how these were used to enforce norms, power and control.

Lundberg, C. (1969). Person-focused joking: Pattern and function, Human Organization, 28:22-28. Summary: Identified 4 ‘analytical categories’ of individuals involved in joking behaviour: the initiator (who tells the joke); the target (the person the initiator is telling the joke to); the focus (the butt of the joke); public(s) (the people who hear/observe the joke, but are not the target).

Martin, R. A., Puhlik-Doris, P., Larsen, G., Gray, J. & Weir, K. (2003). Individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: Development of the humor styles questionnaire. Journal of Research in Personality, 37(1), 48-75. Summary: Humor Styles Questionnaire, which identified four different uses of humour: self-enhancing, affiliative, aggressive and self-defeating.

Martin, R. (2002,2004)

Kuhn 1994

Berk 2001

Moran, C. & Massam, M. (1997). An Evaluation of Humour in Emergency Work. Australasian Journal Of Disaster And Trauma Studies, 3. Summary: identifies humour as a coping strategy and enhances communication, facilitates cognitive reframing and social support, and has possible physical benefits. Discusses difference between a healthy use of humour and humour that hides feelings (causing distress later).

Morreall, J. (1987). The philosophy of laughter and humor. Summary: Parts 1 and 2 survey traditional and contemporary theories of humour (including Plato, Hobbes, Descartes, Schopenhauer, Freud as well as modern thinkers such as Morreall, Clark and Scruton). Parts 3 and 4 contain a number of essays into the different types of ‘funny’, humour as an emotion and ethics.

Romero, E. & Pescosolido, A. (2008). Humor and group effectiveness. Human Relations, 61(3), 395-418. Summary: Claims that a positive use of humour increases long-term group effectiveness by impacting productivity (especially communication, leadership, group emotions and shared culture/goals), individual development/learning (highlighting that humour has a positive effect on psychological safety which causes a higher level of learning) and team viability (team cohesion and reduced staff turnover).

Ronglan, L. T. & Aggerholm, K. (2014). Humour helps: Elite sports coaching as a balancing act. Sports Coaching Review, 3(1), 33-45. Summary: How humour can be used to counterbalance the seriousness and extremely repetitive/structured way of life of elite sports people. Looks at challenges and risks, benefits as well as identifying that hierarchies are identified by who is ‘permitted’ to use humour within a team.

Rosenberg, E. (2020). Reading President Trump’s Facial Expressions. Summary: Considers facial expressions of Trump using FACS: the horizontal lip stretch (AU20) showing fear when he is reassuring people everything is okay, his trademark miserable/self-conscious smile (AU12 + AU17) and the lack of genuine smiles (AU6 + AU12).

Scogin, F. R. & Pollio, H. R. (1980). Targeting and the humorous episode in group process. Human Relations, 33(11), 831-852. Summary: A study on ‘targeted’ and ‘non-targeted’ humorous remarks in groups. It found that humorous targeting occurred in about two-thirds of the cases  (although less for groups involved in short-term problem-solving); ratio of appreciative to deprecating targeted remarks was about 2:1 or 3:1; humorous remarks often occurred in episodes of 2-5 remarks (long-lived groups were longer); most comments, whether positive or deprecating, strengthened the group’s bond by bringing about communal laughter.

Taylor, P. & Bain, P. (2003). Subterranean worksick blues: Humour as subversion in two call centres. Organization Studies, 24(9), 1487-1509. Summary: Study in two call centres found that humour (particularly satire) was used by workers to relieve boredom and routine, reinforce a shared sense of group identity, create countercultures, erode authority of leadership and undermine management, subvert company culture and challenge rules.

TEDx Talks (2010). What makes things funny. [Video]. Summary: Peter McGraw explains Benign Violation theory, giving examples of how to make a violation benign: not be committed to norm being violated (e.g. people who hold different beliefs), be psychologically distant (e.g. a long time ago), have alternative explanation that makes the violation okay (e.g. play fighting).

Terrion, J. L. & Ashforth, B. E. (2002). From ‘I’ to ‘we’: The role of putdown humor and identity in the development of a temporary group. Human Relations, 55(1), 55-88. Summary: Study examines how putdowns (e.g. insults, demeaning joke, teasing, sarcasm) help foster group identity and cohesion in a temporary group (e.g. task forces, film crews, auditing teams, juries, cadet training college intake). Putdowns were used to signify that the focus (aka the butt) of the joke was accepted and belonged to the group (no putdowns identified people as outside!). Putdowns often initially focused on the self, shared identities/external groups, finally each other. Their use was influenced by a set of implicit rules: the focus of the putdown had to be present; the focus must be willing and able to laugh at themselves; it must not be meant to be offensive; some people should not be focus (someone stigmatised because of certain attributes such as being physically unattractive, someone not liked, an outsider, a relative of a group member); violators of group norms are fair game (e.g. sycophants).

Vetter, L. & Gockel, C. (2016). Can’t buy me laughter – Humour in organisational change. Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. Zeitschrift Für Angewandte Organisationspsychologie (GIO), 47(4), 313–320. Summary: Identifies 3 factors relating to organisational change: coping with the change (that ‘high-humour individuals’ maintain positivity in stressful situations and deem a stressful event a positive challenge rather than a threat), resisting the change (aggressive humour can be an indicator of distress and resistance), and leading the change (using humour can help leaders manage people’s emotions to increase a positive outlook on the change).

Watson, C. (2014). A Sociologist Walks into a Bar (and Other Academic Challenges): Towards a Methodology of Humour. Sociology, 49(3), 407-421. Summary: Humorous academics are not taken seriously (e.g. humorous titles cited less than non-humorous); discussion of theories, specifically incongruity (identifies that many academics aren’t clear around meaning of ‘incongruity’, discusses different forms of incongruity, irony, satire); how humour and laughter impact society (e.g. breaking with norms); Nietzsche’s two forms of laughter: ‘derisive laughter of the crowd’ (superior mocking) and ‘laughter of the heights’ (able to laugh at humanity’s absurdity).