Essay Example on The Role of Humor in Crisis Situation

Humor is a significant way of installing a positive perspective during stressful experiences and times of crisis. Humor is healthy and robust as it can change the mindset of the victims of a situation. Some people appreciate humor that has the owner of the humor targeting themselves as it does not injure or focus on the victims of the circumstances directly. Therefore, other people can share such humor. Humor that targets a situation receives appreciation from other people as it does not necessarily focus on an individual or a group of people but instead focuses on the status alone (Cooper, 2016). However, some people in a crisis view humor as hurtful and as a tool for degrading, insulting, and pulling down the affected.

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The psychology of human response to a crisis is crucial as people directly affected by the crisis synthesize the situation in their own emotions. Thus, they connect the crisis with their emotional state hence finding it hard to depart their inner soul with the experience of the crisis. However, people distant from the crisis hardly merge their emotions with the crisis (Cooper, 2016). Therefore, people who are distant from a crisis appreciate humor as it facilitates a safe distance from the disaster. People with a close connection emotionally to the crisis view humor as an insult directly to them. This paper focuses on whether humor is right or wrong in a company, where humor is helpful and where it is destructive, and how to apply humor in organizations to be beneficial in organizational outcomes.

Humor in Organizational Context

Distancing from the crisis occurs as time passes, and thus the victims of the crises realize that it meant creating a distance of the victims from the disaster. For example, the global pandemic, COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus, is part of our daily vocabulary. However, when the virus started spreading, people connected it with coronavirus (Cooper, 2016). Thus, the company used humor about the coronavirus to advertise their brand through a tweet but negatively impacted the people.

Some people took the humor negatively while others were happy about the humor and misunderstood it as a way of contracting the virus. When the infections increased, the company made a move of removing the tweet online. The company realized the pandemic was no longer a sense of humor. Thus, humor depends on the strength of the crisis: According to various researchers, various proposals elaborate on the sense of humor. The cognitive-perceptual theory argues that humor occurs when something happens without the audience’s expectations, causing them to laugh (Cooper, 2016). For example, when someone falls as a result of missing a chair while trying to sit in a company or their place of work, people tend to laugh at them while the victim suffers from pain; the laughing of the audience is a result of humor from the falling while the victim feels humiliated.

Socio-behavioral theories, also known as superiority theories, argue that humor originates from an individual’s feeling of superiority over a situation that occurred a while ago. Plato introduced the speculation by insisting that a person can use humor to show superiority while humiliating others in a company (Cooper, 2016). People in an organization can laugh when they feel superior over another person who is the object behind the laughter. Thus, people find humor in other people’s crises. The psychoanalytical group of theories elaborates about humor as a tool of relief. Humor facilitates in letting go of suppressed energy. In an organization, people can make jokes to speak their minds through jokes. It facilitates in easing their tension during a crisis: Humor creates freedom of enjoyment and excitement, relieving significant stress and making humor meaningful during an emergency.

In an organization, humor usually targets someone, affecting their output and integration with others in the organization. Humor is often emotions expressed through words with an essential goal towards the target. However, the humor could focus mainly on amusing the target whom; instead takes it to be negative. While, upon positive perception, humor is a better way to cope with tension and stress of everyday life at the workplace.

Cases of Humor in Organization

In a company, humor triggers the cheerfulness and positive emotions of a workforce. Humor deals with emotional anxiety and internal tensions hence reducing g the negative impacts of the crisis. Humor makes people approach a crisis in a non-stressing attempt; therefore, distancing people from the close connection to the crisis. Humor changes the perception of a disaster and creates confidence in the victim.

Humor enables increased tolerance of physical and emotional levels. However, some people can misinterpret humor hence having a permanent negative perception about a situation. Humor is never funny to everyone, according to scientists. In a company, humor can facilitate product promotion, customer service, and coping with stress. However, in organizational perspective, humor could have detrimental impacts on the members.

The case of COVID-19 is a clear example of both positive and negative perceptions of humor. For example, people can use humor to refer to the virus as the Wuhan Virus due to its originality from china. However, the Chinese perceive it negatively. The humor aims to ease the tension that people have towards the virus and the rate at which it claims lives. Television adverts use humor to persuade children about the necessary precautionary measure they have tom undertake to avoid contacting Corona Virus.

In organizations, leadership that applies humor creates a close relationship with the employees hence creating a sense of reduced tension while working. Humor makes the workplace a desirable for workers, thus motivating them for more and quality output (Tremblay et al., 2016). Additionally, It creates a positive working environment hence the retention of experienced workers. Humor helps eradicate frustrations and anxiety at the workplace.

Appropriate humor at organizations and workplaces facilitates morale, thus increasing the rate of performance. Humor, when added to instructions, helps in remembrance when added to vital guidance to workers. However, inappropriate humor can distract workers; it can cause the workplace; thus, humor has to be appropriate to eliminate offending other workers. Humor can cause a commotion or unnecessary grudges among workers, which could result in murder.

Humor can be a form of communication, as people in an organization will continue to engage in a conversation or a meeting upon applying appropriate humor. Managers can use humor to beat anxiety by diverting the employees’ attention from a problematic situation that affects their performance. Humor makes managers and leaders approachable hence making workers contribute their opinions towards the improvement of the organization. Lack of humor could be detrimental to the employees (Tremblay et al., 2016). Nevertheless, some people link the humor of leaders as a failure of leadership.

Humor facilitates the memorization of significant moments during a test, for example, in students’ cases. Humor improves the mood at the workplace hence increasing the level of participation in the workplace. People have to consider the emotional state of a person whom they want to share the humor. Upon provoking others who perceive humor negatively, one has the responsibility of making up to the offended.

Humor creates resilience to stress when practiced in the workplace. People tend to have a different kind of internal and external stress. Elimination of such stress and application of humor is vital to making them concentrate on the organization’s production rather than on their burdens. Funny managers and directors have the flexibility of increasing salaries for their employees hence merit to the employees.

Humor improves the power of the brains at work hence eliminating dormant minds. Humor facilitates the production of the chemical serotonin in the brain that ensures focus and brainpower (Tremblay et al., 2016). Humor promotes the acceptance of new ideas as people get close to each other. However, negative perception of humor reduces overall brain power, thus impacting negatively on performance.

Humor enables expansion in thinking, hence offering solutions to problems. Application of humor at the workplace facilitates search before decision making towards something. The motivation of decision making occurs due to positive moods created by humor. According to studies, watching comic movies elevates creativity in problem-solving skills. However, comic movies can ignite bad memories hence making people take them negatively.

The use of appropriate humor to the relevant audience creates interest in the audience’s desire to listen more. People tend to engage in an argument with people who engage humor in their discussions (Morgan et al., 2019). Humor enables persuasions while distracting those forming counter-arguments. Humor helps in twisting direct blame on someone hence addressing them without direct attacks. It facilitates the creation of a positive atmosphere of learning new techniques of application at the workplace. Moreover, it enables interpersonal relationships as people like jokers for excitements.

People who crack jokes attract attention and earn from making fun of various situations regardless of what they target. In an organization, such people can facilitate advertising and marketing as they catch the attention of a large number of people. Some jokers turn out to be celebrities who can persuade a whole nation towards a particular perspective (Morgan et al., 2019). Therefore, through humor, jokers can change the perception of the audience concerning something through the creation of a positive image.

Humor causes people to smile. Therefore, it ensures that the audience flows with the joker. It also creates a firm connection between the audience and the joker. In a company, a manager who applies humor in his speech usually has employees listening to their lectures without hesitation. Humor decreases the chance of distractions as people focus on the speech that incorporates humor. Humor reduces the gap between managers and employees, thus, increasing approval of the message of the manager to the employees.

Humor is an organization that shows the collaboration of every member of the organization in realizing the goals of the company. Laughing is a body language that reveals the connection of the body and mind of the listeners; hence an investment in each other’s wellness (Morgan et al., 2019). s. It creates trust and satisfaction with the message delivered in accompanying humor—leaders in a company employing humor in their communication display control over a stressful situation or crisis. Therefore, creating a stress-free atmosphere for the workers.

Humor facilitates reconciliation in workplaces, thus encouraging the togetherness of the company. People with a dispute can resolve them with the use of humor. It enables the mediation of two warring parties by easing the tension between the parties. Humor allows a low rate of resignations from work. Supervision is easy as humor tends to facilitate hard work and continued production through group work. It ensures credibility and competency.