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Running head: HUMOR AND MORALITY 1

Why So Serious? Experimental and Field Evidence that Morality and a Sense of Humor

are Psychologically Incompatible

Kai Chi Yam

Department of Management and Organization

University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195

[email protected]

Christopher M. Barnes

Department of Management and Organization

University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195

[email protected]

Keith Leavitt

Department of Management

Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331

[email protected]

Eric Luis Uhlmann

Department of Management and Human Resources

HEC Paris, Paris, France

[email protected]

Wu Wei

Department of Business Administration

Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

[email protected]

R&R at the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

HUMOR AND MORALITY 2

Abstract

Many of the jokes people enjoy carry a certain degree of moral violation. Since displaying humor

often requires committing benign moral violations, we hypothesize that 1) a moral mindset stifles

humor and 2) morally-focused people are less humorous, and are therefore less liked by their

workplace peers. Participants primed with a moral mindset were less likely to appreciate humor

that involved benign moral violations (Study 1) and less likely to generate jokes others found

funny (Study 2) compared to participants in the control condition. Additional field studies

demonstrated that morally-focused employees are seen as lacking a sense of humor by their

coworkers and are therefore less liked and less socially popular (Studies 3 and 4). We further

demonstrate that this mediational effect is stronger for targets who strongly endorse the

purity/sanctity moral foundation (Study 4). These results suggest that morality and humor are to

some degree psychologically incompatible, helping to explain why morally-focused individuals

are often socially marginalized in organizations.

Keywords: Morality; Humor; Interpersonal liking; Popularity; Benign Violation Theory


Why So Serious? Experimental and Field Evidence that Morality and a Sense of Humor

are Psychologically Incompatible

“There is no humor in heaven”

(Mark Twain, 1910)

Humor is ubiquitous. Most people enjoy a good laugh and prefer to interact with

humorous rather than non-humorous others (Bressler, Martin, & Balshine, 2006). Yet, in moral

philosophy and religion, humor has historically been characterized negatively. In the Philebus,

Plato (1975) suggested that humor is malicious and morally objectionable. In the Rhetoric,

Aristotle (1939) echoed with this assessment and viewed humor as a kind of mockery. In the

Bible, humor was considered offensive. The boys who made fun of the prophet Elisha were

punished with death (2 Kings 2: 23-24), and the famous Catholic teaching, the Rule of Saint

Benedict, requires monks and nuns to “speak no foolish chatter, nothing just to provoke laughter”

(Benedict, 1982). While direct empirical evidence of a link between morality and humor is

lacking, this anecdotal evidence leads to the following research question: Are morality and

humor to some degree psychologically incompatible? In this paper, we draw from Benign

Violation Theory (BVT; McGraw & Warren, 2010) to suggest that although moral individuals

can undoubtedly benefit others (e.g., helping coworkers selflessly), their morality might also

paradoxically serve to decrease their sense of humor, which in turn leads others to like them less.

In general, humor is recognized as a tool for both navigating the social world and

assuaging the hardship of everyday life. For example, humor can relieve stress (Abel & Maxwell,

2002), enhance physical and psychological well-being (Martin, 2001), and increase purchase

intention of products advertised in humorous ways (Eisend, 2008). People also prefer to date and

marry humorous rather than non-humorous others, suggesting that humor is a valued attribute

within social exchanges (Bressler et al., 2006; Lundy, Tan, Cunningham, 1998). In sum, extant


research generally suggests that people appreciate humor and being humorous can lead to

positive social consequences, whereas a lack of humor has been found to lead to numerous

negative social consequences (Mesmer-Magnus, Glew, & Viswesvaran, 2012).

Although scholars have revealed the social consequences of humor, and have

increasingly explored what factors lead something to be viewed as funny (Gruner, 1997;

Gonzales & Wiseman, 2005; McGraw & Warren, 2010), far less is known about the conditions

under which humor is facilitated or suppressed. To explore this question, we draw from BVT

(McGraw & Warren, 2010) to suggest that moral cognition and a sense of humor are to a certain

degree psychologically incompatible. Briefly stated, BVT proposes that humor often emerges

when a norm is violated, yet the violation is simultaneously appraised as benign. We hypothesize

that morally-focused individuals, defined as individuals who have a high (induced or chronic)

accessibility to moral cognition, would be less willing to engage in the benign moral violations

common to the display of humor, as condemnatory moral judgments serve to uphold valued

social norms and create distress for individuals who even contemplate such violations (Tetlock,

Kristel, Elson, Green, & Lerner, 2000). We further hypothesize that reduced levels of humor are

associated with decreased interpersonal liking and popularity for morally-focused individuals.

Finally, we hypothesize a theoretically-meaningful boundary condition for the negative effect of

morality on humor: that such effects are significantly stronger among morally-focused

individuals who also strongly endorse the moral foundation of purity/sanctity (Graham, Nosek,

Haidt, Iyer, Koleva, & Ditto, 2011).

To investigate these ideas, we conducted four studies and employed multiple

methodologies including two experiments, a multi-source field study conducted in China, and a

two-wave multi-source field study conducted within the United States. Through these studies, we


make a number of important theoretical contributions to research on morality and humor. By

drawing on recent developments in our theoretical understanding of humor (McGraw & Warren,

2010), we build theory and provide both experimental and field evidence that morality and

humor are often psychologically incompatible as a function of proscriptions around violations.

We also extend research on humor by examining its antecedents, identifying psychological

processes (i.e., accessibility of moral cognition) and categories of individuals (i.e., individuals

for whom morality is chronically accessible) that are least likely to be humorous. Finally, this

research provides direct evidence of why morally-focused individuals are liked less by others,

offering a complementary explanation to existing accounts of the social marginalization of moral

individuals (Monin, Sawyer, & Marquez, 2008; Parks & Stone, 2010; Trevino & Victor, 1992).

Taken together, our findings suggest an unanticipated negative consequence of reinforcing

morality—that those for whom moral considerations are most central face an increased risk of

marginalization, as a function of being less humorous.

Morality, Humor, and Benign Violation Theory

Philosophers and psychologists have long hinted a link between morality and humor. At

the dawn of Western philosophy, both Plato and Aristotle conceptualized humor as a form of

mockery. They argued that humor emerges when people exert superiority over others or their

former selves, a theory later formalized as superiority theory of humor (Gruner, 1997). In

contemporary psychological research, laughing at others’ misfortunate or intentionally exerting

superiority by making fun of others (e.g., a boss ridicules his/her followers publicly) is often

characterized as deviant or even unethical behavior (Bennett & Robinson, 2000). Thus, the

superiority theory hints at a potentially negative relationship between morality and humor.


Later conceptualizations, however, challenge this superiority account of humor. Freud

(1928) proposed the relief theory of humor, suggesting that the main function of humor is to

relieve sublimated desires and emotions in socially acceptable ways. For example, telling a

sexual joke is proposed to release our repressed hostile sexual desires. Thus, according to this

theory humor is used to express our socially unacceptable desires in a playful manner. Another

early theory of humor is incongruity theory (Suls, 1972). This account of humor suggests that

humor emerges when unexpected things happen. For example, stand-up comedians often create

an expectation at the beginning of a joke (e.g., A man in the library goes up to the desk and asks

for a burger. The librarian says, “Sir this is a library.”) and then violate it at the end (“Oh I’m

sorry, and leans over and whispers, “Can I get a burger?”) to generate humor.

Although these theories (particularly incongruity theory) have dominated Western

thoughts on humor and humor research for many years, McGraw and Warren (2010) argued that

these theories of humor often erroneously predict humor. For example, “unintentionally killing a

loved one would be incongruous, assert superiority, and release repressed aggressive tension, but

is unlikely to be funny” (pp. 1-2). Therefore, McGraw and colleagues (McGraw & Warner, 2014;

McGraw & Warren, 2010; McGraw, Williams, & Warren, 2013; McGraw, Warren, Williams, &

Lenard, 2012) proposed Benign Violation Theory, which better predicts a wide-range of humor

while also drawing careful boundaries that exclude events which are simply esoteric, tragic, or

perverse. BVT makes three interrelated predictions about the generation of humor. First, a norm

violation must occur, and that the violation can be physical or symbolic in nature, or both. For

example, primates often laugh when they play fight each other (i.e., a violation of physical norm;

Gervais & Wilson, 2005), and humans often laugh when an expected norm is violated (e.g., a

rabbi is hired as a spokesperson for a meat product; McGraw & Warren, 2010). Second, the


violation must be perceived as benign; laughter often ceases when primates are fighting seriously

(e.g., for mating purposes; Gervais & Wilson, 2005). Third, the first two conditions must occur

simultaneously (McGraw & Warren, 2010). Empirical support for this theory comes from

multiple studies. For example, McGraw et al. (2013) found that jokes about Hurricane Sandy’s

destruction during the crisis were considered offensive and malicious, thus not funny. However,

the same jokes became more innocuous overtime, and participants found those jokes to be funny

about a month after the crisis. Critically, BVT does not suggest that all humor is rooted in benign

violations (leaving room for other sources of humor), but rather argues that the broadest domain

of humor is produced by leveraging benign violations.

Drawing from BVT, we suggest that morally-focused individuals are less likely to

generate or appreciate humorous content because humor often requires violations of moral norms,

and violations to sacred values are often met with reactions of other-focused moral outrage (e.g.,

anger) or self-focused moral cleansing (e.g., guilt; Tetlock et al., 2000). Of course, not all norms

are morally-laden. For example, violations of linguistic norms (e.g., puns) can be perceived as

benign and thus funny. However, all things being equal, we suggest that morally-focused

individuals, in general, are less likely to be humorous because they would be less willing to

engage in the benign moral violations often involved in the display of humor. Thus, morality

places a restriction around the types of norms which can be permissibly violated as a tool for

producing humor, thereby limiting the available sources of humor available to those for whom

moral cognition is highly accessible.

A recent study provides some indirect support for this hypothesis. Gino and Wiltermuth

(2014) proposed that because immoral behavior and creativity both require breaking rules (e.g.,

divergent thinking requires people to break rules to connect previously unassociated concepts to


generate novel ideas), participants who acted immorally should feel that their subsequent

behaviors are not restrained by rules and thus engage in more creative thinking. The results of

their experiments support the negative relationship between morality and creativity. We contend

that similar to creativity, humor often requires breaking rules and flexible thinking, and morally-

focused individuals are unlikely to break these rules, even when they are benign in nature.

Implications for Interpersonal Liking and Popularity

While previous research has suggested that exceptionally competent and morally-focused

individuals are often disliked by others (Trevino & Victor, 1992), work to date has generally

focused on disadvantageous comparisons as the cause of the relative unlikeableness of morally-

focused individuals. For example, participants who refused to participate in a racist task were

viewed less favorably by others who had gone through the task and failed to object to it (Monin

et al., 2008). Likewise, participants who were the most selfless and prosocial were more likely to

be expelled from a group than participants who were less selfless (Parks & Stone, 2010), and this

relationship is in part driven by peers’ upward social comparisons of morality (Minson & Monin,

2012; Monin et al., 2008; Parks & Stone, 2010).

Beyond social comparison processes, however, we know very little about why morally-

focused people are often disliked by others. We suggest that the psychological incompatibility

between morality and humor is likely to have implications for how morally-focused individuals

are treated by others. If morally-focused individuals are less humorous as we hypothesize, and a

sense of humor generally increases interpersonal liking and popularity (Cooper, 2005), then it is

logical to suggest that morally-focused individuals are disliked and socially unpopular in part

because they are less humorous. Although humor has been theorized as a double-edged sword

(Malone, 1980), decades of research generally suggests that humorous individuals are often liked

in social interactions. For example, humorous individuals are perceived as more socially adept


by the opposite sex (Bressler & Balshine, 2006) and a sense of humor predicts mating success

(Greengross & Miller, 2011). Humor can also be conceptualized as the glue of friendship

(Kalbfleischl, 2013). Even in the workplace, humor is theorized as an effective ingratiation tactic

for gaining social visibility and capital (Cooper, 2005). Research in different areas of psychology

thus converges on the positive effects of humor on forming and maintaining social relationships.

Therefore, if morality stifles humor as predicted by BVT (McGraw & Warren, 2010), then it is

likely that morally-focused individuals will be less liked and socially unpopular as a result of a

lack of humor.

The Moderating Role of Purity/Sanctity Endorsement

Thus far, we have hypothesized that morally-focused individuals are less humorous and

that this in turn leads them to be less liked and popular in social settings. Given the novelty of

these hypotheses, it is important to explore the boundary conditions of these effects in order to

advance our theoretical understanding of the relationships among morality, humor, and

interpersonal liking. Toward this end, we draw from Moral Foundations Theory (Graham, Haidt,

& Nosek, 2009; Graham et al., 2011; Haidt & Graham, 2007) and suggest that morality based on

the foundation of purity/sanctity should be the most resistant to benign violations, and therefore

the most relevant to humor. Put differently, we suggest that morally-focused individuals who

also highly endorse the purity/sanctity moral foundation are the least humorous, and are therefore

least liked by others.

Contrary to the dual-focus of morality (justice and care) advocated by Kohlberg (1971)

and Gilligan (1982), and expanding on the “big three” of morality (i.e., autonomy, community,

and divinity) advocated by Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, and Park (1997), scholars of moral

foundation theory adopt a cross-disciplinary view and draw from research on evolutionary


psychology (De Waal, 1996), value pluralism (Ross, 1930), and anthropology (Fiske, 1992; Rai

& Fiske, 2011) to suggest six distinct moral foundations that better represent the entire moral

domain (Haidt, 2012). These moral foundations include (1) care/harm, (2) fairness/cheating, (3)

loyalty/betrayal, (4) purity/sanctity, (5) authority/subversion, and (6) liberty/oppression.

Although most moral foundations are based around discernible consequences to other

people or to society (e.g., not enforcing a fair procedure leads to unjust outcomes; oppressing

others violates freedom), we reason that people are perhaps willing to tolerate benign violations

to the extent to which no one is actually harmed or treated unfairly. That is, hypothetical

violations of many moral foundations such as care/harm (e.g., “What do you call 100 dead

lawyers? A Good Start!”) are viewed as benign because no one is actually harmed. In contrast,

purity/sanctity concerns are not readily reducible to consequences and are more symbolic in

nature (e.g., rules around kosher food preparation or religious proscriptions are viewed as the

unquestioned will of God).

Recent research supports the notion that the purity/sanctity moral foundation emerges as

the driver of moral judgments towards a wide range of important morally-laden issues (e.g.,

abortion), above and beyond the other foundations (Koleva, Graham, Iyer, Ditto, & Haidt, 2012).

In addition, research suggests that reading about hypothetical violations to the foundation of

purity/sanctity produces automatic moral outrage for many individuals, even when it is made

explicitly clear that no harm will be caused (e.g., a vignette about consensual incest in which two

forms of birth control are used, and no psychological harm is caused to the siblings; Haidt, 2001).

Thus, we hypothesize that individuals who are particularly sensitive to the purity/sanctity moral

foundation would be the least likely to engage in even benign moral violations, and therefore

especially likely to be perceived as less humorous by their coworkers.


Research Overview

We conducted two experiments and two field studies to test our hypotheses. In Study 1,

we examined the effects of activating concepts related to morality on humor appreciation with an

experimental design to establish a causal relationship. We conceptually replicated the findings

and examined the link between morality and humor production in Study 2. An additional goal of

these two experimental studies was to examine the role of moral violations as a mechanism that

underlies the relationship between morality and humor through both moderation (Study 1) and

mediation (Study 2) approaches. We further conducted two field studies to examine the

downstream implications of a lack of humor on interpersonal liking and popularity of morally-

focused individuals (Studies 3 and 4). Study 4 further examined the moderating role of

purity/sanctity endorsement on the relationship between morality and humor. In each study, we

used different measures and manipulations of morality to increase the generalizability of our

findings.

Study 1: Morality and Humor Appreciation

In our first study, we examined whether experimentally activating a mindset of morality

would negatively affect humor appreciation. We chose to examine this dependent variable

because being able to appreciate and recognize humor is an important dimension in a person’s

overall sense of humor (Thorson & Powell, 1993).

Participants

A total of 80 undergraduate students at a large public business school participated in this

study in exchange for course credit (Mage = 21.60; 47.5% female; 57.5% White).

Procedures

Participants were randomly assigned to either a moral or a neutral mindset condition. We

used a sentence completion task to prime a temporary mindset by giving participants six five-


word strings. Participants were then instructed to delete one target word from each string and

unscramble the remaining words in order to form four-word sentences. Target words in the moral

mindset condition were morally-laden (e.g., fair, honest, kind), whereas target words in the

control condition were not. Similar procedures have been frequently used to increase the

temporary accessibility of a particular concept (Bassili & Smith, 1986; Srull & Wyer, 1979), and

prior research in ethical decision making suggests that this type of priming task can successfully

induce a temporary moral mindset (Leavitt, Xu, & Aquino, 2014).

After the manipulation, participants were provided with 18 jokes and written captions

(see Appendix for sample jokes/captions) and were asked to rate them on a 7-point scale (1 not

funny to 7 = very funny). Nine of the jokes/captions contained moral violations, whereas the

other nine did not. Five independent raters, with an average of over 15 years of experience

researching behavioral ethics, and who were blind to both experimental condition and our

hypotheses were asked to rate the degree of moral violation for each joke and caption (1 = no

moral violation to 5 = definitely contains moral violations). Jokes and captions in the moral

violation category were evaluated by these independent raters as containing a significantly higher

degree of moral violation (M = 2.38, SD = 1.00) than jokes/captions in the amoral category (M =

1.13, SD = .14), t(4) = 3.16, p < .05. We therefore examined the underling process using a

moderation approach, hypothesizing that priming a moral mindset would only reduce

appreciation for jokes that involved a moral violation (Spencer, Zanna, & Fong, 2005).

Results and Discussion

As predicted, participants in the moral mindset condition were less likely to appreciate

humor associated with a moral violation (M = 3.69, SD = .50) than participants in the control

condition (M = 4.06, SD = .71), t(78) = -2.69, p < .01, but participants in the moral mindset


condition were no less likely to appreciate humor that contained no moral violation, t(78) = .67,

p = .51 (see Figure 1). These results are consistent with the hypothesis that morality and a sense

of humor are to some degree psychologically incompatible, at least in part due to morally-

focused people’s unwillingness to accept the benign moral violations contained in much

contemporary humor.

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Insert Figure 1 Here

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Study 2: Morality and Humor Production

In Study 2, we further explored the hypothesized psychological incompatibility between

morality and humor by examining whether or not participants primed with a moral mindset

would generate less humorous content than participants in the control condition. We

hypothesized that participants in the moral mindset condition would be less likely to generate

humorous content because they would be unwilling to engage in the benign moral violations

often necessary for humor.

Participants

We recruited 81 adults (Mage = 33.42; 42% male; 65.4% White) from Amazon

Mechanical Turk for the study. All participants were compensated with $.50.

Procedures

Participants were randomly assigned to either a moral or a neutral mindset condition. In

the moral mindset condition, participants were provided with a list of morally-laden words (e.g.,

honest, fair, kind), whereas participants in the control condition were provided with amoral

words (e.g., elephant). We then instructed participants to write a story using each of the words at

least once, with the goal of priming vs. not priming morality, depending on the experimental


condition. Prior research has demonstrated that this manipulation can successfully induce a

moral mindset (Aquino, McFerran, & Laven, 2011; Aquino, Freeman, Reed, Lim, & Felps,

2009). As a manipulation check, at the end of the study, participants were asked to what extent

the stories they wrote involved morality (1 = not at all to 7 = very much). Participants in the

moral mindset condition indicated that their stories involved significantly more moral

components (M = 5.71, SD = 1.02) than participants in the control condition (M = 1.82, SD =

1.00), t(79) = 17.37, p < .01.

After the manipulation, participants proceeded to an ostensibly unrelated task in which

they were presented with two different photos and asked to create the funniest captions they

could (see Appendix). Generating humorous captions has been validated as a measure of humor

production in previous studies (Feingold & Mazzella, 1991; Greengross & Miller, 2011; Mickes,

Walker, Parris, Mankoff, & Christenfeld, 2012). Two trained coders, blind to experimental

condition, subsequently coded the level of humor for each written caption (1 = not funny at all to

7= very funny). Weighted kappa coefficients for the two captions were .52 and .55, representing

adequate inter-rater agreement (Landis & Koch, 1977). In addition, they also coded whether or

not the captions contained a moral violation (0 = no caption contained a moral violation to 2 =

both captions contain a moral violation). The two coders only disagreed once in rating whether

or not the captions contained a moral violation, and an average score was used for that particular

case.


Participants in the moral mindset condition displayed significantly less humor (M = 2.23,

SD = 1.10) than participants in the control condition (M = 2.89, SD = 1.33), t(79) = -2.42, p < .05.

We followed the recommendations of Preacher and Hayes (2008; also see Shrout & Bolger, 2002)


to examine mediation through a bootstrapping procedure (for a summary of the advantages of

using this procedure to test for mediation, see Hayes, 2009). A bias corrected bootstrapping

analysis (Hayes, 2013; Preacher & Hayes, 2008) revealed that that this effect was mediated by

reduced likelihood of writing captions that involved moral violations (coefficient = -.13, SE = .09,

95% CI = -.40 to -.001). In short, results suggest that morally-focused individuals are less likely

to produce humorous content because they are less willing to commit moral violations.

Study 3: Morality and Humor in the Workplace

Studies 1 and 2 provided convergent support for our hypotheses that morally-focused

people are less humorous, in part because they are unwilling to engage in the benign moral

violations often necessary to display humor. In Studies 3 and 4, we examined the downstream

implications of the incompatibility between morality and humor. Specifically, we hypothesized

that morally-focused employees would be perceived as less humorous by their coworkers, and

would therefore also be less liked and socially popular.

Participants and Procedures

Participants were 70 dyads (54.3% male, 55.7% between the ages of 26 to 35) from

multiple organizations located in central China. Participants worked in a variety of industries,

including construction, sales, telecommuting, and human resource management. We

intentionally recruited participants from multiple industries to increase generalizability and to

avoid the contextual constraints associated with limited industries (Rousseau & Fried, 2001). We

contacted Executive Master of Business Administration students from a large public university

and asked these managers to randomly recruit two subordinates who worked in the same

department or work team that have daily interactions. To avoid biases, we asked the managers to

select the two employees based on the last alphabet of their last names. We then mailed the

surveys to each employee and ensured anonymity throughout the processes. The focal employees


completed a measure of moral identity, whereas their coworkers rated the focal participants’

humor and indicated how much they liked the other person and his/her popularity among other

coworkers. We controlled for the dyads’ demographic characteristics in the analyses.

Measures

Because the scales we used were originally developed in English, we followed Brislin’s

(1980) back-translation procedure to develop the Chinese versions of the measures.

Moral identity. To measure the focal employees’ moral identity, we asked them to

complete the internalization dimension of the moral identity scale (Aquino & Reed, 2002). This

measure assessed the extent to which being “moral” is believed to be particularly self-defining

and central to one’s self-concept, and is thus appropriate as assessing the extent to which moral

content was chronically accessible to participants. Participants were first provided with a list of

positive moral traits (e.g., caring, fair) and were asked to visualize the kind of person who has

these characteristics and imagine how that person would think, feel, and act. Afterward,

participants were asked to answer the five-item internalization of moral identity scale. Sample

items included “I strongly desire to have these characteristics” and “it would make me feel good

to be a person who has these characteristics” (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree; α

= .82).

Perceptions of peer’s humor. We measured perceptions of humor with a seven-item

scale adapted from Thorson and Powell (1993). Because the original scale was designed for

measuring recognition of oneself as a humorous person, we reworded the items to reflect

perceptions of others’ humor for the purpose of this study. Sample items included “my coworker

says things in such a way as to make people laugh” and “my coworker uses humor to entertain

coworkers” (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree; α = .95).


Interpersonal liking. We measured interpersonal liking with a four-item scale (Wayne &

Ferris, 1990). Sample items included “I get along well with my coworker” and “I think my

coworker would make a good friend” (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree; α = .91).

Popularity. We measured popularity with an eight-item scale (Scott & Judge, 2009). An

introductory question asked “When answering the following questions, please consider how your

coworker is perceived by his/her coworkers. Consider the perceptions of coworkers only in your

immediate work group.” Sample items included “my coworker is popular” and “my coworker is

socially visible” (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree; α = .90).

Controls. We controlled for both the focal employees’ and their coworkers’ demographic

characteristics (i.e., gender and age) in the analyses because of the possibility of homophily

effects: people of similar backgrounds often like each other more (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, &

Cook, 2001).


Descriptive statistics of the variables are presented in Table 1.

We first conducted a hierarchical ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to test our

hypotheses. In Model 1, we entered all the demographic control variables. In Model 2, we

entered moral identity as a predictor and found that it is negatively associated with perceptions of

peer’s humor (β = -.29, p < .05) and explained significantly more variance than Model 1 (ΔR2

= .08, p < .01). This result provided support for the negative relationship between morality and a

sense of humor: peers perceived their morally-focused coworkers to be less humorous.

We again used a bootstrapping procedure to examine mediation (Hayes, 2013). Results

suggested that the indirect effect of moral identity on interpersonal liking via perceptions of

peer’s humor was significant (coefficient = -.08, SE = .05, 95% CI = -.22 to -.01). Likewise,


results suggested that the indirect effect of moral identity on popularity via perceptions of peer’s

humor was significant (coefficient = -.06, SE = .04, 95% CI = -.15 to -.01). In sum, these results

suggested that morally-focused employees were perceived as less humorous by their coworkers,

which in turn led coworkers to like them less and diminished their social popularity in the

workplace.

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Insert Table 1 Here

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Study 4: The Moderating Role of Purity/Sanctity Endorsement

Study 4 was different from Study 3 in three key aspects. First, although we found support

for our hypotheses in a field setting in Study 3, we wanted to extend the generalizability of these

findings to a Western work setting. We thus recruited a sample of leader-subordinate dyads in

the United States. Examining our hypotheses with a leader-subordinate dyad sample also allowed

us to examine whether or not our findings are generalizable to people with different status.

Second, we increased temporal precedence by employing a two-wave design in order to

minimize common-method bias concerns (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003).

Finally, we sought to distinguish the role of different foundational moral values (Graham et al.,

2011) in causing people to be perceived as lacking in humor by their coworkers.

Participants and Procedures

Participants were recruited through the Study Response Project, a non-profit research

project maintained by a large private university in the U.S. (for a detailed discussion, see

www.studyresponse.net; for recent articles utilizing this data collection method, see Barnes,

Schaubroeck, Huth, & Ghumman, 2011; Reynolds & Ceranic, 2007). With the assistance of the

Study Response administrators, we first pre-screened potential participants to select those that

were 1) working full time, 2) willing to invite their direct leaders to participate, and 3) willing to


complete surveys at two different time points. To minimize potential self-selection biases,

participants were only provided with a generic description about the intent of the study during

the pre-screening process. Administrators from the Study Response Project validated all leaders’

email addresses.

A total of 283 focal employees expressed interest in participating. Surveys were sent to

each of these employees and their corresponding leaders. A total of 180 dyads successfully

completed the study at both time points (63.6% response rate). On average, subordinates were

38.21 years old, 67.2% male, and 75.8% White; leaders were 41.59 years old, 70.1% male, and

76.5% White. All participants were compensated with $7 at the end of the survey. At Time One

(T1), subordinates completed measures of ethical leadership and perceptions of leader’s humor;

leaders self-reported their endorsement of the purity/sanctity moral foundation. At Time Two

(T2), which was approximately two weeks later, subordinates completed measures of leader

liking and popularity.

Measures

Ethical leadership. At T1, we measured ethical leadership by asking subordinates to

complete a ten-item ethical leadership scale (Brown, Trevino, & Harrison, 2005). This scale is a

widely-used measure in assessing the ethicality of people in leadership positions, and includes

items that assess leaders’ morality regarding both their managerial practices (e.g., “my leader

disciplines employees who violate ethical standards”) and how they behave toward others in

general (e.g. “my leader can be trusted”; 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree; α = .93).

Recent studies have provided evidence for the scale’s validity across a wide range of settings and

samples (e.g., Mayer, Aquino, Greenbaum, & Kuenzi, 2012).


Perceptions of leader’s humor. At T1, we measured perceptions of leader’s humor by

asking subordinates to complete the same scale as in Study 3 (Thorson & Powell, 1993; α = .96).

Leader’s purity/sanctity endorsement. At T1, leaders self-reported their endorsement

of the purity/sanctity moral foundation by completing a six-item scale developed by Graham et al.

(2011). This scale is divided into two components, one that assesses whether concerns about

purity/sanctity are morally relevant to leaders (three items) and one that assesses whether leaders

make moral judgment consistent with concerns of purity/sanctity (three items). In the moral

relevance section, an introductory question asked “to what extent are the following statements

relevant to your ethical decision making?” Sample items in the moral relevance section included

“whether or not someone violated standards of purity and decency” and “whether or not someone

did something disgusting” (1 = not at all to 6 = extremely relevant). Sample items in the moral

judgment section included “chastity is an important and valuable virtue” and “I would call some

acts wrong on the grounds that they are unnatural” (1 = strongly disagree to 6 = strongly agree).

Although divided into two sections, prior research has suggested that this scale is best

conceptualized, both theoretically and empirically, as a unified measure of endorsement of the

purity/sanctity moral foundation (Graham et al., 2011; Graham et al., 2009). We therefore

combined the two different sections into a single measure (α = .87).

Leader liking. At T2, we measured leader liking by asking subordinates to complete the

same scale as in Study 3 (Wayne & Ferris, 1990; α = .89).

Leader popularity. At T2, we measured leader popularity by asking subordinates to

complete the same scale as in Study 3 (Scott & Judge, 2009). An introductory question asked

“When answering the following questions, please consider how your leader is perceived by

his/her coworkers. Consider the perceptions of coworkers only in your leader’s immediate work


group (i.e., those people, including yourself, who report to the same leader)”. Sample items

included “my supervisor is popular” and “my supervisor is well-known” (1 = strongly disagree to

5 = strongly agree; α = .90).

Control variables. In all subsequent analyses, we controlled for leader and follower

demographics due to the same concern for homophily discussed in Study 3. To further enhance

the validity of our findings, we control for leader-subordinate relationship quality, as perceptions

of liking should be strongly influenced by this factor. We asked subordinates to complete an

eight-item measure of leader-member exchange at T1 (Bauer & Green, 1996). Sample items

included “I would characterize the working relationship I have with my manager as extremely

effective” and “I usually know where I stand with my manager” (1 = strongly disagree to 7 =

strongly agree; α = .92). In addition, because humor is often said to be in the eye of the beholder,

we controlled for subordinates’ purity/sanctity endorsement by asking them to complete the same

six-item purity/sanctity moral foundation measure at T1 to strengthen our analyses (α = .88).


Descriptive statistics for the variables are presented in Table 2.

We conducted a hierarchal OLS regression to examine the relationship between ethical

leadership and perceptions of leader’s humor. In Model 1, we entered all the control variables. In

Model 2, we entered ethical leadership as a predictor and found that ethical leadership is

negatively associated with perceptions of leader’s humor (β = -.27, p < .01; see Table 3) and

explained significantly more variance than Model 1 (ΔR2

= .10, p < .01). In short, subordinates

perceived their leaders to be less humorous when their leaders displayed high levels of ethical

leadership. This result holds even after controlling for the dyad’s demographics information,

relationship quality, and subordinates’ own purity/sanctity endorsement.


We again examined our mediation model by using a bootstrapping procedure (Hayes,

2013). Results suggested that the indirect effect of ethical leadership on leader liking via

perceptions of leader’s humor was significant (coefficient = -.14, SE = .04, 95% CI = -.23 to

-.08). Likewise, results suggested that the indirect effect of ethical leadership on leader

popularity via perceptions of leader’s humor was significant (coefficient = -.16, SE = .04, 95%

CI = -.25 to -.09). These results suggested that ethical leaders are liked less and are less popular

in the workplace in part because they are less humorous.

To test for the moderating role of leader’s purity/sanctity endorsement, we began our

analysis by examining the interactive effect of ethical leadership and leader’s purity/sanctity

endorsement on perceptions of leader’s humor. We entered the interaction term in Model 3. The

addition of the interaction term resulted in a significant change in R2 (ΔR

2 = .04, p < .01) and was

significant (β = -1.60, p < .05; see Table 3). To aid interpretation, we graphed this interaction

effect at one standard deviation above and below the mean of the moderator (see Figure 2). We

then statistically compared these two slopes to zero using the simple slopes test (Aiken & West,

1991). Ethical leadership significantly predicted lower levels of humor when leader’s

endorsement for purity/sanctity was high (t = -2.95, p < .01), but not when leader’s endorsement

for purity/sanctity was low (t = -.26, p = .79).

-----------------------------------------

Insert Tables 2, 3, and Figure 2 Here

-----------------------------------------

To test our hypotheses in an integrated fashion, we utilized the bootstrapping-based

analytic approach of Edwards and Lambert (2007) and the statistical software of Hayes (2013) to

test for conditional indirect effects at high vs. low levels of leader’s purity/sanctity concern (with

1,000 resamples). We entered ethical leadership as the independent variable, leader’s


purity/sanctity endorsement as a first-stage moderator, perceptions of leader’s humor as a

mediator, and leader liking/popularity as the dependent variables. When morally-focused leaders

strongly endorsed the purity/sanctity moral foundation, they were most likely to be perceived as

less humorous and consequently liked less (conditional indirect effect = -.17, SE = .05, 95% CI =

-.33 to -.10) and less popular (conditional indirect effect = -.20, SE = .05, 95% CI = -.34 to -.12).

However, these effects dissipated for morally-focused leaders who did not strongly endorse the

purity/sanctity moral foundation (conditional indirect effect = -.06, SE = .05, 95% CI = -.19

to .02; conditional indirect effect = -.06, SE = .05, 95% CI = -.19 to .03, respectively).

In sum, the results of our two field studies suggest that, regardless of status or cultural

background (United States vs. China), morally-focused employees are less likely to be perceived

as humorous, and in turn are less liked and less popular in organizations. In addition, Study 4

finds that these effects are most pronounced for morally-focused targets who also strongly

endorse the purity/sanctity moral foundation.

General Discussion

In four studies, we found support for our hypotheses that 1) morality and a sense of

humor are to a significant degree psychologically incompatible, 2) morally-focused individuals

are less liked partly because they are less humorous, and 3) the inverse relationship between

morality and a sense of humor is strongest for individuals who strongly endorse the

purity/sanctity moral foundation. In Study 1, participants primed with a moral mindset were less

likely to appreciate humor that involved moral violations. In Study 2, participants for whom a

moral mindset was activated generated less humorous content than participants in the control

condition, and this effect was mediated by reduced likelihood of creating humorous content that

contained moral violations. Studies 3 and 4 extended these findings to the workplace,


demonstrating that morally-focused employees were less liked by their coworkers in part because

they were perceived to lack a sense of humor. Finally, Study 4 showed that this was especially

true for morally-focused individuals who strongly endorsed the purity/sanctity moral foundation

(Graham et al., 2009; Graham et al., 2011). Below, we discuss the theoretical contributions of

our work and suggest future research directions.

The Psychological Incompatibility of Morality and Humor

Although the notion of a relationship between morality and humor can be dated back to

ancient philosophy, to our knowledge, this research is the first to empirically document causal

and correlational effects of a moral focus on a person’s sense of humor. Consistent with BVT,

we hypothesized and found a negative relationship between morality and humor. While there is

no doubt that moral individuals benefit our society (e.g., financial scandals cost billions), little is

known about whether morality may also have negative consequences. This research suggests that

morally-focused individuals may become less humorous because they are less willingly to

engage in even the benign moral violations often necessary for the display of humor.

Our results also contribute to the broader field of moral psychology. To date, scholars

have remained largely optimistic about the consequences of being paragons of morality. Indeed,

only recently have scholars begun to examine the potential dark side of morality, demonstrating

that moral individuals can be less creative (Gino & Wiltermuth, 2014). Our results add a unique

insight into this discussion by utilizing BVT to identify another important way in which morality

can be detrimental. Our findings also complement moral psychology research that traditionally

examines the antecedents of morality (e.g., Bazerman & Gino, 2012; Tenbrunsel & Smith-Crowe,

2008; Trevino, Weaver, & Reynolds, 2006). Whereas a majority of research focuses on factors

that predict moral behaviors, we underscore the importance of examining the consequences


(reduced levels of humor, interpersonal liking, and popularity) of a moral mindset (Studies 1-2)

and endorsing moral principles in the workplace (Studies 3-4).

The results of Study 4 suggest that the negative relationship between morality and humor

may be especially strong for individuals who strongly endorse the purity/sanctity moral

foundation, where even symbolic violations are not tolerable. Interestingly, a recent large-scale

study revealed that most of the funniest cities in the United States can be characterized as heavily

liberal (e.g., Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Portland; McGraw & Warner, 2014). This is consistent

with our moderation finding since politically liberal individuals are significantly less likely than

others to endorse the purity/sanctity moral foundation (Graham et al., 2009). Nevertheless, we

suggest that that more research is needed in order to determine how endorsement of different

moral foundations contributes to humor. Relatedly, although we controlled for subordinates’

purity/sanctity moral foundations in Study 4, humor is often in the eye of the beholder. For

example, church goers, who often highly endorse the purity/sanctity moral foundation (Graham

et al., 2009), will likely find religious jokes offensive and not funny, even when they are benign

in nature to others. This suggests the need to not only consider the targets’ moral foundations,

but also the perceivers’ moral foundations in examining the relationship between morality and

humor.

Beyond moral psychology, we also contribute to research on humor. Despite the

importance of humor in social life, it has continued to be an understudied topic in mainstream

social sciences. In a comprehensive review, a group of researchers noted “[humor research] has

followed a somewhat disjointed and irregular path” (Duncan, Smeltzer, & Leap, 1990, p. 274).

Not only does our research directly speak to the literature on humor, but we also examine both

the antecedents and consequences of humor. It appears that a morally-relaxed mindset may


facilitate the appreciation and expression of humor. Given the benefits of humor (Mesmer-

Magnus et al., 2012), future research should continue to explore individual traits or situational

factors that may lead to increased levels of humor production and appreciation.

Morality and Social Marginalization

Our work also contributes to research on the relationship between morality and social

marginalization. Past research has revealed that moral individuals are often socially marginalized

by their peers (Minson & Monin, 2012; Monin et al., 2008; Parks & Stone, 2010; Trevino &

Victor, 1992), and scholars have typically used upward social comparison to explain this

puzzling finding. For example, victims sometimes experience threats to self-esteem after

receiving help (Fisher, Nadler, & Whitcher-Alagna, 1982); team members experience negative

self-evaluations after interacting with highly cooperative and generous teammates (Parks &

Stone, 2010). This explanation suggests that when comparing ourselves to morally superior

individuals, we feel a sense of moral inferiority, which eventually leads to resentment (for a

review, see Monin, 2007). Because individuals in general care a lot about their moral self-image

(Aquino & Reed, 2002), these feelings of moral inferiority and resentment lead to social

rejection of “do-gooders”.

In this research, we offer a complementary explanation for the relationship between

morality and social marginalization: morally-focused individuals are less humorous and therefore

less liked and socially popular. Put differently, perhaps morally-focused individuals are less liked

in part because they are less enjoyable to interact with. Unlike feelings of moral reproach and

resentment (Monin et al., 2008) or pressure to become selfless (Parks & Stone, 2010), this

finding may have some practical implications for morally-focused individuals to gain social

acceptance. For managers, cracking a few jokes while discussing business ethics with


subordinates may partially reduce the negative social consequences of displaying morality. For

organizations, formal policies should be institutionalized in order to ensure moral leaders and

employees to not suffer as a consequence of upholding their moral principles. Business educators

should also ensure that students are taught strategies to overcome such effects, to avoid trading

off morality for interpersonal influence.

Limitations and Future Directions

Although we replicate the negative relationship between morality and humor both in

experimental and field studies using different manipulations and measures (Anderson, Lindsay,

& Bushman, 1999), a few limitations warrant further discussion. First, in our field investigations

(Studies 3 and 4) we measured humor using third parties’ perceptions rather than objective

measures of humor production, a limitation since the observed effects could be partly due to a

popular belief that morally-focused individuals are less humorous. While this could partly

account for the results of our field investigations, it is important to emphasize that the

experimental studies (Studies 1 and 2) confirm that individuals in a moral mindset appreciate

humor less and produce less humorous captions. Nevertheless, we recommend future research to

include objective measures of humor production (rather than just third party perceptions of

humor) in field settings. Second and relatedly, the humor appreciation and production tasks used

in Studies 1 and 2 might not have captured the entire range of the construct (e.g., attitudes toward

humor). Although the caption-writing task has been validated by prior research (Feingold &

Mazzella, 1991; Greengross & Miller, 2011; Mickes et al., 2011), we encourage future research

to examine these effects with a larger set of jokes/captions.

Finally, future research should also explore the generalizability of these effects across

cultures. Although we have some evidence of cross-cultural generalizability (U.S. and China),


variability is also of great interest. For instance, morality and humor maybe even more

negatively related in cultures in which purity/sanctity are strongly endorsed, such as traditional,

religiously fundamentalist cultures. A potential way to capture these cross-cultural differences

would be to conduct text analyses of representative social media posts, newspapers, and books

(e.g., Graham et al., 2009, Study 4).

Conclusion

As noted in the opening quote by Mark Twain that there is no humor in heaven, people

have long considered the idea that there is a tension between morality and humor. Through the

use of Benign Violation Theory, we examine the effects of morality on humor, likeability, and

popularity. Both experimental and field data indicate that such tension not only means that

morality may impinge upon humor, but that this can come at the expense of likeability and

popularity. Thus, morality can have a downside that was previously overlooked. Although our

society will be better off if people are moral, there appears to be social cost in becoming

paragons of morality.


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Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and correlations of the focal variables (Study 3)

Variables Means (SD) 1 2 3 4

1. Moral Identity 4.15 (.88) .82

2. Perceptions of Humor 3.57 (1.10) -.27* .95

3. Interpersonal Liking 4.11 (.70) -.13 .34** .91

4. Popularity 3.48 (.60) -.08 .29* .69** .90

Alpha coefficients are presented on the diagonal

*p < .05

**p < .01


Table 2. Means, standard deviations, and correlations of the focal variables (Study 4)

Variables Means (SD) 1 2 3 4 5

1. Ethical Leadership 3.90 (.69) .93

2. Perceptions of Humor 3.83 (1.26) -.30** .96

3. Leader Purity/Sanctity Concerns

3.99 (1.10) .09 -.27** .87

4. Leader Interpersonal Liking 4.09 (.70) -.07 .43** -.15* .89

5. Leader Popularity 3.93 (.73) .02 .46**

-.09 .71** .90

Alpha coefficients are presented on the diagonal

*p < .05

**p < .01


Table 3. Summary of regression results (Study 4)

DV = Perceptions of Leader’s Humor

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Variables B SE B β B SE B β B SE B β

Leader Age -.01 .01 -.10 -.01 .01 -.09 -.01 .01 -.10

Leader Gender1 .07 .22 .15 .13 .20 .05 .12 .20 .04

Leader Race2 .05 .09 .05 .02 .09 .02 .03 .09 .02

Subordinate Age .01 .01 .09 .02 .01 .12 .02 .01 .12

Subordinate Gender1 -.19 .22 -.07 -.13 .21 -.05 -.08 .20 -.03

Subordinate Race -.05 .09 -.05 -.05 .09 -.04 -.06 .08 -.06

Leader-Member Exchange .28 .10 .22** .01 .13 .01 .02 .13 .01

Subordinate Purity/Sanctity -.34 .08 -.31** -.32 .08 -.30** -.35 .08 -.32**

Endorsement

Ethical Leadership -.48 .17 -.27** .96 .50 .54

Leader Purity/Sanctity Endorsement -.29 .08 -.26** 1.15 .47 1.03*

Ethical Leadership X -.35 .12 -1.60*

Leader Purity/Sanctity Endorsement

Adjusted R2

.13 .22 .26

ΔR2 .10** .04**

1Dummy variable (1 = Male, 0 = Female)

2Dummy variable (1 = White, 0 = Others)

+p < .10

*p < .05

**p < .01


Figure 1. Humor appreciation by condition (Study 1)

3

3.2

3.4

3.6

3.8

4

4.2

Humor that involves

moral violation

Humor that does not

involve moral violation

Hu

mor

Ap

pre

ciati

on

Moral Mindset

Control


Figure 2. The interaction between ethical leadership and leaders’ purity/sanctity endorsement on perceptions of humor (Study 4)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Low Ethical Leadership High Ethical Leadership

Per

cep

tio

ns

of

Hu

mo

r

Low

Leader

Purity

High

Leader

Purity


Appendix

Sample written captions used in Study 1 (left = moral violation; right = no moral violation)

Captions used in Study 2

why so serious? experimental and field evidence that ... · running head: humor and morality 1 why...

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