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is there a place for humor in the
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workplace and what are the implications
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of using humor on perceptions of status
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and competence here to talk about the
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research on this topic are warten
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Professor Morris weitzer and Brad
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bitterly who is a doctoral candidate
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welcome thank you thank you so tell me
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about your research our research is on
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the relationship between humor and
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Status humor pervades our daily
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interactions yet it's been largely
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ignored by the prior organizational uh
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research in this work we look at how it
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can really significantly shape and
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influence the way we perceive others so
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when we look around we see a lot of we
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see some examples of humor going really
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well and it causing us to perceive the
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joke teller as being more confident
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competent and higher in status for
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example the night before Dick Costo
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joined Twitter as the Chief Operating
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Officer he sent out sent out a tweet
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that said first full day as Twitter coo
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tomorrow step one undermine CEO
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consolidate power now a year after he
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sent out that tweet he ended up becoming
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CEO of Twitter so we can see examples of
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where someone uses humor and they rise
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to the top of the hierarchy but we also
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see cases where people attempt to use it
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say a really inappropriate joke and just
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Plum it to the bottom and the focus of
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our work is is trying to understand what
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it is about humor that can cause someone
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to either rise or fall in
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status so what are your paper's key
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takeaways well one thing we find first
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as as Brad mentioned humor is risky so
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sometimes humor can single signal
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competence and confidence and increase
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our status but sometimes if we cross the
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line so humor can fail because it's
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inappropriate because it's just not very
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funny or because we overdo it so too
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much in those cases we signal low
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competence and that harms our status and
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in some cases we've seen actually people
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get fired because of it but we find is
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that whether or not the humor goes well
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or not the use of humor the tempted use
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always signals confidence that is I'm a
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confident person I'm telling a joke but
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the competence how competent I am really
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matters and that's what swings the use
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of humor from being effective or
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ineffective so how does someone get that
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characteristic of being
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humorous should they go out and take
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classes or what should they do well I
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think um since it is a really important
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skill set in our daily lives and a
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really important managerial skill I
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think it could help for people to try to
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take classes they could do improv
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classes um that could get them more
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familiar more comfortable with
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delivering a joke I think part of the
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difficulty to begin with is just trying
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to get that confidence that way you feel
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comfortable delivering it even
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appropriate
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jokes yeah I'd say also to add to that
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um it's also something we can look for
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in selection so when we screen people we
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might look for somebody that is at least
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comfortable with humor again we don't
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want the class clown but for somebody
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who's you know fasile with it it can
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really be a strategic
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Advantage so what conclusions of any
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surprise to you so I'd say one of the
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conclusions that particularly that I
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found particularly surprising was in our
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second study we found that someone who
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effectively used humor they were not
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only perceived to be more confident
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competent and higher in status they were
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even more likely to be elected as a
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group leader for a subsequent task so
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here we see humor not only influencing
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perceptions of one another but even
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influencing
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Behavior I'd say another important
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finding in our work is that we're really
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disentangling Confidence from status in
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a lot of Prior work people had found
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that people who are more confident
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project confidence are perceived to have
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higher status and here we show that with
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the inappropriate use of humor people
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can can project confidence but still
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come off so badly they actually lose
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status and what are some practical
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implications of your
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research so some practical implications
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first of all are that humor can be a
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really effective tool for increasing
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status and that people should be aware
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of this it compared to other methods of
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increasing status say um using Goods to
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Signal status a joke is free whereas a
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Louis Vuitton bag is extremely expensive
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um it can be uh if people realize the
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power of it it can be really effective
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but the other thing to keep in mind is
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as we said it's really risky and that
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people should be aware and in novel
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situations with unfamiliar others you
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might not have a good read on how your
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joke is going to be received and we even
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see professionals getting in trouble at
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times last month we saw Ellen degenerous
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send out a picture where she
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photoshopped herself on on usin bolts
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back and even though she meant it as a
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joke and this is someone that's really
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built their career on being able to
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effectively use appropriate humor there
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was some backlash for for the picture
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that we should be yeah should be careful
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and our work identifies the use of humor
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as something really important that is
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humor influences the hierarchies within
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our groups at work and at home and here
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rather than being some an inary or
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Superfluous Behavior we're arguing that
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humor should be taken seriously in so
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far as it can really help us navigate
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our social interactions and and
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profoundly influence our perception of
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of where we fit in in a
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hierarchy so what sets your research
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apart from other work in this
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area so one way that we set ourselves
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apart is we're the first to really
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experimentally manipulate humor to study
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how it influences
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uh status so we we ran a series of
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experiments where we presented uh
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participants with a situation where they
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were faced with an individual that
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either gave a serious comment or a joke
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and we found we were able to establish
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causality between humor and confidence
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confidence and Status the other area
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where we set ourselves apart is that we
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demonstrate that although confidence
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really does help us in our daily lives
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it's really good to be confident saying
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an inappropriate joke is such a strong
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signal of lower intelligence and lower
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skill it overpowers any of the benefits
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of confidence and causes a person to
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lose status so what will you do next as
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a followup to This
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research well we have an active program
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looking at humor in some other contexts
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like in
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negotiations we're also interested how
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how powerful we feel influences our
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inclination to use use humor so for
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example people who are powerful may be
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less inhibited in using humor people who
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are low in power may feel uncertain
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about their use of humor and it could be
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that we create a cycle where if powerful
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people are more likely to use humor and
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they get better at it and use it more
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effectively it might maintain a power
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hierarchy in a way that other things are
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sort of you know might might be harder
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just sort of break so we're going be to
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think about how how power and humor
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really interact
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[Music]
