Research Hit: How Humour Helps Well-Being and Performance in the Workplace
New research shows that benevolent humour benefits psychological functioning in Medical Assistants
A bit of humour is always welcome, eh?!
Well, we’re British. humour is very much a part of our culture. This study was done in Germany.
Oh, right, no jokes about German humour then! But what were these researchers studying?
One thing I’ve learned in international environments is that all cultures have humour.
This research by was specifically looking at preferred types of humour (8 different styles in total) of Medical Assistants (MAs) and positive psychological functioning. As you can well imagine working as a Medical Assistant is a stressful and challenging role, working with doctors, but also patients and having multiple tasks.
I have a lot of questions such as what were the styles of humour - and was this related to using humour?
The humour styles can be grouped into four positive styles of benevolent humour, fun, wit, nonsense; and four negative or dark styles of irony, satire, sarcasm, cynicism. These styles were then correlated to facets of psychological functioning such as well-being and feelings of competence.
They didn’t directly measure usage of humour but the self-report questionnaire used to categorise MA’s humour styles takes this into account e.g. “I have the ability to tell something witty and to the point.”
Ok, and which humour styles seemed most beneficial?
All of the light humour styles correlated with higher psychological functioning but the strongest correlations were for benevolent humour.
Three of the dark humour traits had neither a positive nor negative impact and sarcasm had a negative impact!
So, benevolent humour increases wellbeing?!
Well, this will need to be researched further to tease out causation in contrast to personality effects. But it is easy to imagine, and I am sure we have all experienced this, how positive humour can destress work scenarios and make them more enjoyable.
But this research also shows it correlating to feelings of higher competence - which is very interesting!
I would also love to know how the humour of the doctors impacted the MAs?
Yes, that is also very good point. This research has also simulated my curiosity - I know positive mood has often been researched but I am not aware of research into humour in the workplace.
I think I need to do some more research on this!
Yes, please, and do let me know.
Trust me, you will be the first to know!
And drop the sarcasm also!
Yes, indeed, this shows that it is likely to have a negative impact on yourself, not to mention others!
So, wishing you a happy and humorous day
Thanks I had a good start to the day with a friendly, humorous business meeting this morning - and this also supports this research: it set me up nicely for the rest of the day!
Research
Julia Raecke, René T. Proyer.
Medical assistants’ comic styles and their potential for positive functioning at work: a cross-sectional study including a subgroup analysis.
BMC Primary Care, 2024; 25 (1)
DOI: 10.1186/s12875-024-02363-y