10 Reasons Why Humor Is A Key To Success At Work

• Reframing a negative event in an amusing light doesn't allow the negativity to trigger a depressive episode.
• People who score highly in certain types of humor have better self-esteem, are more positive, have greater self-competency, more control over anxiety, and better performance in social situations.
• Laughter can boost cardiovascular health and lower heart rates, blood pressure, and muscular tension.

Researchers described four types of humor:

• Affiliative humor: this is the humor designed to enhance social bonds.
• Self-enhancing humor: this is similar to having a humorous, playful view of life in general.
• Aggressive humor: it happens when we are mocking others.
• Self-defeating humor: this happens when we favor jokes that are self-deprecating.

Humor and status have always been tightly linked: good leaders seem to often use humor in order to motivate their team members' actions. As individuals, we tend to prefer, researchers claim, jokes that make us laugh while feeling slightly uncomfortable.

Furthermore, we perceive the joke teller as a self-confident person, who could easily become a leader due to his or her courage to make such a joke. The key point here is that the joke should be appropriate and match the context.

Making inside jokes usually shows how bounded a team or a group is: their jokes can understood the best by themselves.

However, the moment an outsider integrates the group, it is better to avoid the inside jokes, as this will most probably make him or her feel out of place.

• The wrong joke at the wrong time. It can make your brand look amateurish and unprofessional.
• If people think you’re cracking jokes for the sole purpose of getting more attention, you’ll be seen as exploitative rather than funny.
• Humor can cheapen certain ideas or make them be taken less seriously.
• In some cases, humor can be outright offensive.

• Humorous touches can almost always improve a piece that is already valuable on its own.
• If you’re sure a joke is going to land, it can make an effective advertisement. Test variations of the joke with a small audience first; that way, you can be sure the humor doesn’t cross a line.
• Brand differentiation. For example, Oreo has long differentiated itself by offering a quirky, tongue-in-cheek voice across its social media platforms. This is especially effective in dry, or otherwise “boring” industries.
• Personal branding. Elon Musk, for example, has separated himself from his companies Tesla and SpaceX by cracking jokes and roasting people on his own account.