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Business Insider India: Constantly pretending your boss's dumb jokes are funny can lead to emotional exhaustion and lower job satisfaction, academics found

08 Mar 2024
Laughing at your boss's terrible jokes is a corporate rite of passage, but it isn't good for you.

Originally found at Business Insider India

Funny bosses can ease up a serious meeting or lighten the mood, but a new study has found that cracking too many jokes could actually harm employee wellbeing.

The study, recently published in the Academy of Management Journal, looks at how "leader humor" — when someone in a leadership position expresses humor — puts pressure on subordinates to engage in "surface acting," which includes faking or exaggerating positive emotional reactions.

The study includes a field experiment, laboratory experiment, and a multi-wave field study and was authored by Randall Peterson, a professor of organizational behavior at London Business School, Xiaoran Hu, an assistant professor of management at the London School of Economics, and Michael Parke and Grace Simon from the University of Pennsylvania.


Continue reading the original article at Business Insider India.

Read the original research in Academy of Management Journal.

Read the Academy of Management Insights summary.

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