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examining_the_energizing_effects_of_humor.pdf
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J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:759–772
DOI 10.1007/s10869-014-9396-z
ORIGINAL PAPER
Examining the Energizing Effects of Humor: The Influence
of Humor on Persistence Behavior
David Cheng • Lu Wang
Published online: 27 December 2014
Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract
Purpose This paper examines whether, when, and how
humor can increase individuals’ persistence.
Design/Methodology/Approach Two laboratory studies
were conducted using 124 students from a large Australian
university to examine the causal impact of humor exposure
on persistence.
Findings The results show that exposure to humor
increases individuals’ persistence in two different tasks and
that this effect is mediated by the discrete emotion of
amusement (Study 1). Moreover, the positive effect of
humor on persistence is stronger for individuals with higher
levels of self-enhancing humor style (Study 2).
Implications Humor is not only entertaining but also
replenishing. Individuals engaging in activities that require
persistence may benefit from exposure to humor. Therefore, organizations that require their employees to persist
may consider creating a playful culture that encourages the
use of humor to increase employees’ persistence.
Originality/Value Our study is the first to systematically
examine the influence of humor on persistence. Going
beyond anecdotal and correlational evidence, we document
the causal impact of humor exposure on persistence using
an experimental design. The findings contribute to the
psychology of persistence by showing that humor can be
used to increase persistence behavior. In addition, ours is
the first study to show that the discrete emotion of
amusement mediates the relationship between humor and
D. Cheng (&) L. Wang
School of Management, Australian School of Business,
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
e-mail: d.cheng@unsw.edu.au
L. Wang
e-mail: nick.wang@unsw.edu.au
persistence, and that the effect of humor on persistence is
greater for individuals who are high in self-enhancing
humor style.
Keywords Persistence Self-regulation Humor
Amusement
‘‘Amos (Tversky) was always very funny, and in his presence I became funny as well, so we spent hours of solid
work in continuous amusement. The pleasure we found
working together made us exceptionally patient; it is much
easier to strive for perfection when you are never bored’’—
Daniel Kahneman
Persistence is often the key to success. Sales people need to
persist in persuading customers to buy products, entrepreneurs
need to persist in convincing venture capitalists to invest in
their projects, and academics need to persist in writing and
running research projects in order to advance knowledge.
Well-known examples of those who have achieved success
because of their unfailing persistence include Richard Branson, who persisted through many business failures when he
first began his entrepreneurial career to became the successful
entrepreneur he is today (Branson 2007), and Patch Adams,
who faced many adversities yet persisted in his endeavors to
eventually achieve his dream of establishing a successful free
hospital that has helped tens of thousands (Adams and Van
Amerongen 1998). As the ability to persist often distinguishes
those who eventually achieve their goals from those who do
not, an important question considered by both scholars and
practitioners is, why are some individuals more capable of
sustaining their effort while others give up quickly and
prematurely?
Research on the psychology of persistence has long
noted that persistence requires individuals to exert self-
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control (Hagger et al. 2010; Muraven et al. 1998). In the
process of goal pursuit, many temptations may arise that
entice individuals to give up their goals and abandon their
effort. In order to persist toward their goals, individuals
must be able to effectively inhibit their short-term desires
and impulses. For instance, a researcher committed to
publishing her work must resist the common temptations to
give up, engage in distractions, or attend to other less
demanding tasks. In contrast, when people lack the
capacity to control their impulses and desires, they are
more likely to withdraw their efforts prematurely, despite
their belief in the importance of persistence (Muraven and
Baumeister 2000).
Building on recent research on the ego-depletion model
of self-control (Muraven et al. 1998), this paper explores
the possible role of humor in influencing people’s persistence. As the opening quote illustrates, humor is not only
often present in the workplace (Lehmann-Willenbrock and
Allen 2014), its presence may also play a considerable role
in understanding why some individuals are able to demonstrate extraordinary persistence toward their goals. Past
research on humor has focused primary on the social and
psychological benefits of humor. For example, research has
shown that humor and laughter are effective for dealing
with stress and improving well-being (Boyle and Joss-Reid
2004), for developing and building social relationships
(Cooper 2005), and for enhancing the effectiveness of
collaborations (Duncan 1984; Romero and Pescosolido
2008). However, when it comes to task persistence, not
only is there little research, but humor is often viewed as
inappropriate and distracting because it is associated with
play (Martin 2007; Plester 2009). Notwithstanding the lack
of attention on humor and performance, there is an
increasing recognition that playful experiences are not the
antithesis to work, with evidence pointing to the benefits of
playful experience on work performance (Tews et al.
2013). Furthermore, in the business world, many successful
organizations such as Zappos, Virgin, and Google, deliberately build play areas into their workspaces and organize
fun events with the intent that the humor arising from these
events will ameliorate the stressful nature of work, boost
morale, and increase productivity (Gostik and Christopher
2008; Warren and Fineman 2007). Therefore, extending
research on the psychological and social benefits of humor
in the workplace, this paper examines the relationship
between humor and task performance by focusing on the
causal impact of humor on individuals’ persistence. In
particular, this paper investigates three related questions:
(1) does exposure to humor unrelated to a task help individuals to persist longer at tasks; if so, (2) what is the
psychological mechanism through which humor influences
persistence; and (3) are some people more capable of
capitalizing on the performance benefits of humor than
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J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:759–772
others? Two experimental studies were conducted to
answer these questions. Study 1 examines whether exposure to a humorous video can actually enhance an individual’s ability to persist on a challenging human resource
management task. Study 1 also tests whether the effects of
watching a humorous video on persistence are mediated by
participants’ feeling of amusement. Study 2 replicates the
findings of Study 1 with a different type of persistence task,
an individual’s ability to persist at solving mathematics
problems, and more importantly, examines whether humor
style (i.e., how individuals see and use humor) moderates
the effect of humor exposure on persistence behavior.
Persistence, Self-Control, and Humor
Persistence is the amount of time and effort that a person
spends at a given task (Blau 1993) and is often a key factor
in achieving one’s goals in business. Despite the importance of persistence, many people fail to persist when
pursuing their goals. Recent research examining why
people persist at work tasks has argued that a person’s
ability to persist may be dependent on their level of selfregulatory resources (Quinn et al. 2012). According to the
ego-depletion model of self-control (Hagger et al. 2010;
Muraven et al. 1998), all acts of volition require the use of
self-control. For example, dieters need to exert self-control
in order to persist with their diet and must resist the
temptation to consume food that is high in fat and calories
(Muraven and Baumeister 2000). In addition, this model
argues that the ability to exert self-control is analogous to
that of a muscle (Muraven and Baumeister 2000). Just as a
muscle requires strength and energy to exert force over a
period of time, controlling one’s impulses also requires the
use of self-regulatory resources (Hagger et al. 2010).
Similar to energy stored in muscles, individuals have a
limited reservoir of self-regulatory resources to draw from.
Once these resources are depleted (known as ego-depletion), individuals are less able to control their impulses
leading to reduced persistence at tasks or giving into
temptations. A large number of studies have found support
for this model across a wide variety of tasks and domains.
In particular, research has shown that a momentary
depletion in self-regulatory resources can reduce a person’s
ability to persist at a task and cause them to give up prematurely (e.g., Baumeister et al. 1998; Vohs et al. 2008).
For instance, individuals who were temporarily depleted of
regulatory resources were more likely to give up at solving
geometric puzzles or mathematics questions than individuals who were not depleted (e.g., Baumeister et al. 1998;
Milkman 2012; Vohs et al. 2008). On the other hand,
replenishment of self-regulatory resources has been found
to enhance individuals’ persistence because individuals are
J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:759–772
more equipped to control their impulses to quit (Muraven
et al. 1998; Oaten and Cheng 2006).
Humor is a phenomenon that has existed for as long as
human history (Martin 2007). It is ubiquitous in both social
life and work life, taking on many forms including jokes,
cartoons, and funny speeches (Wyer and Collins 1992).
Indeed, a study by Holmes and Marra (2002) found that
humor occurred on average once every 2–5 min in business
meetings. Numerous attempts have been made to define
humor. For example, Cooper (2005) defined humor as any
stimuli intended to be amusing and Crawford (1994)
defined it as any stimuli that produces positive cognitive
and affective responses from observers. Consistent with
these definitions, we define humor as any stimuli intended
to produce amusement in the intended target (Romero and
Cruthirds 2006; Romero and Pescosolido 2008).
Scholars have long argued that humor can be used to cope
with stress and enhance resilience during challenging times
(Darwin 1965; Hobbes 1651; Vaillant 2000). Indeed, both
relief and superiority/disparagement theories of humor suggest that humor has important adaptive functions because it
momentarily shields and frees people from the source of
negativity in difficult situations and as a result, allows one to
recover faster from challenges (Gruner 1997; Martin 2007;
Mindess 1971). Over the past few decades, research in psychology and medicine has found empirical support for these
ideas with studies showing that exposure to humor can have
many mental and physical health benefits (Abel 2002; Henman 2001; Martin and Lefcourt 1983; Nezlek and Derks
2001). For instance, some studies have found that humor could
be used as an effective tool to aid in physical recovery processes, as those exposed to humor showed improved rates of
recovery after induced stress or cardiovascular disease
(Fredrickson and Levenson 1998; Lockwood and Yoshimura
2013). Others have found that humor helps individuals deal
with the negative impact of minor daily stresses (Abel 2002;
Kuiper and Martin 1998) and negative life events (Bizi et al.
1988; Yovetich et al. 1990). For example, Kuiper and Martin
(1998) found that the effect of daily stress on negative mood
was weaker at higher levels of experienced humor. Furthermore, a number of studies have also found strong evidence that
exposure to humor helps one tolerate greater amounts of pain
(Cogan et al. 1987; Weisenberg et al. 1995; Zillman et al.
1993). In one such study, Weisenberg and colleagues (1995)
found that those who watched a humorous video and found it
funny were able to tolerate pain for more than twice as long as
those who did not watch the humorous video.
The findings that humor facilitates recovery from
stressful situations suggest that humor may also shield
individuals from the source of work-related depletion and
in turn facilitate the restoration and replenishment of
resources. Because self-regulatory resources are also
associated with self-control (Muraven and Baumeister
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2000; Muraven et al. 1998), exposure to humor should
have positive consequences on persistence at a task, even
when the humor is only incidental to the task. In light of
this, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 1 Individuals who are exposed to humorous
stimuli will persist longer at a task than individuals who are
not exposed to humorous stimuli.
Amusement as Mediator
Why would humor exposure help restore and replenish selfregulatory resources? Scholars examining the effects of
humor have long suggested that its adaptive impact on
mental and physical health depend on the ability to experience positive emotions after encountering a humorous event
(Martin 2007). Consistent with this view, we suggest that the
positive effect of humor on persistence depends on an
individual’s emotional reaction to humor. In particular, we
propose that the replenishing effect of humor on persistence
behavior does not arise simply because humor elicits a
positive emotion, but rather because humor elicits a particular type of emotion—amusement (Keltner 2008; Martin
2007; Morreall 1983). Emotions research has long established that not all positive emotions are the same (Ekman
1999; Herring et al. 2011; Sauter and Scott 2005). Indeed,
scholars have identified a number of discrete positive emotions (Ekman 1999), such as pride and awe, each with their
own unique antecedents, characteristics, and consequences,
and have called for further research examining the differences between the discrete positive emotions and their
effects on both self-regulation (Hagger et al. 2010) and
behavior in the workplace (Lindebaum and Jordan 2012).
Sometimes referred to as mirth (Martin 2007), the primary emotion elicited when one comprehends and appreciates a humorous occurrence is amusement (Herring et al.
2011; Shiota et al. 2006). Amusement is one of a number of
basic emotions, distinct from other positive emotions such
as happiness and contentment, with its own unique
expressions (Ekman 1999; Shiota et al. 2003). It is a
pleasurable emotion that people often spend money to
experience such as when they pay to attend comedy performances or watch humorous movies. But more than just
pleasant and entertaining, amusement is associated with
unique physiological changes and behaviors such as higher
levels of respiratory amplitude and laughter (Herring et al.
2011). In addition, unlike other positive emotions such as
contentment, which is experienced when one is satisfied
with their current goal state, or pride, which is experienced
when one succeeds in a socially valued endeavor (Shiota
et al. 2006), amusement is essentially an emotion of play
(Martin 2007). When people feel amused, they are able to
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turn their mind away from the present activities and focus
on play. This is because the experience of amusement
requires individuals to actively engage in comprehension
and elaboration processes in order to understand and
appreciate the humorous aspect of a stimulus (Keltner and
Bonanno 1997; Wyer and Collins 1992). Therefore, humor
produces unique consequences for those who find the
humor funny. According to Keltner (2008), the experience
of amusement and laughter in response to humor can be
likened to a momentary vacation of the mind, in which one
takes a break from serious events. In this state, Keltner
(2008) argues that reality, serious activity, and duty are
suspended and one’s mind is temporarily free and at leisure. This dissociative experience may stop further egodepletion as a person’s mind is freed from concentrating on
activities that require the use of self-regulatory resources,
allowing one to replenish one’s resources. Indeed, just as a
physical vacation can better restore a person’s resources
than resting (Fritz and Sonnetag 2006), the psychological
vacation that one’s mind experiences when experiencing
amusement after exposure to humor may also be more
effective in replenishing and restoring self-regulatory
resources. Support for this idea has been found in a couple
of studies. Zweyer and colleagues (2004) found that it was
the emotional enjoyment of humor that mediated the
relationship between humor and increased pain tolerance,
while Strick and colleagues (2009) found that participants
were less susceptible to the effects of negative emotions,
when they had experienced amusement, than those who
experienced other non-humor-related positive emotions.
Hypothesis 2 The positive effects of humor on persistence behavior will be mediated by the emotion of
amusement.
Study 1: Persistence at a Human Resource Task
Following the established procedure of previous studies in
the area of ego-depletion (see Hagger et al. 2010), Study 1
used the two-task paradigm to examine the effects of
humor on persistence behavior. First, participants engaged
in one task known to deplete self-regulatory resources.
Following this, participants were subject to the humor
manipulation and then engaged in a second task designed
to measure their persistence behavior.
J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:759–772
introductory management course. Participants undertook
the study in exchange for course credit. Two participants
were excluded for not following instructions.1 Sixty percent of the participants had some work experience, with an
average work experience of 2.09 years (SD = 1.85). The
average age was 19.02 years (SD = 2.82). The experiment
featured three between-subjects conditions: a humor condition (n = 24), a neutral condition (n = 24), and a contentment condition (n = 24). A contentment condition was
included to compare the impact of humor with that of
another positive emotion. Participants were randomly
assigned to one of the three conditions.
Procedure
Upon arrival at the laboratory, participants were told that
they were to take part in a study about perception and
analysis that required them to perform several unrelated
tasks. Because the replenishing effects are difficult to
detect when participants are not depleted (e.g., Gailliot
et al. 2007; Thoman et al. 2011), all participants first
engaged in an initial depletion task. After collecting
demographic details, participants performed a depletion
task that involved the crossing-out of the letter ‘‘e’’ on two
pages of writing.2 This task has been found to deplete
individuals’ self-regulatory resources (e.g., Baumeister
et al. 1998; DeWall et al. 2008). After the depletion task,
participants watched one of three videos, depending upon
the condition they were assigned to. Following the video,
participants in all conditions engaged in a second task that
measured their persistence.
Humor Manipulation
In line with past research, we used video clips to manipulate humor (Rottenberg et al. 2007). In the humor condition, participants watched a clip from ‘‘Mr. Bean,’’ an
award-winning BBC comedy (Rottenberg et al. 2002). In
this video the main character struggles to complete a test,
tries to cheat off another student who refuses to help, and
makes many humorous facial expressions in the process. At
the end of the video, the main character realizes that there
are two different tests being administered in the same
examination room and that his difficulties have arisen
because he has been taking the wrong test. In the neutral
condition, participants watched an educational video about
the management profession designed for undergraduate
Method
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