Meeting mirth: The critical role of impression management and humor style in meetings

Abstract Drawing from theory on humor styles, impression management, and workplace meetings, we conducted two survey studies of working adults to examine the role of positive and negative humor on meeting satisfaction. We began by investigating the positive effects of humor on meeting satisfaction as moderated by impression management. In an online survey of working adults, we found that humor use in meetings was positively related to meeting satisfaction. Impression management moderates this relationship, such that the positive relationship between the use of humor in meetings and meeting satisfaction is significantly stronger for individuals who report relatively low impression management. In a second study, we investigated perceptions of impression management use in meeting humor. Using an experimental 2×2 factorial design, we investigated how use of impression management strategies differentially impacts meeting attendees’ perceptions of humor styles. We found that affiliative humor resulted in greater meeting satisfaction than aggressive humor. Furthermore, use of impression management enhanced meeting satisfaction following aggressive humor and diminished meeting satisfaction following affiliative humor.