Humor in the sky: the use of affiliative and aggressive humor in cabin crews facing passenger misconduct

Abstract

PurposeThe authors present a fist attempt to test the mediating role of humor in the relation between unruly passenger behavior and occupational stress in cabin crews.Design/methodology/approachThis study used an experience sampling design to investigate the relationship between a frequent job hassle in air service provision, namely unruly passenger behavior (UPB), and the stress experienced by flight attendants.FindingsThe results of multilevel analyses show that UPB is positively related to the use of aggressive humor and negatively related to the use of affiliative humor in cabin crews. Moreover, humor mediates the relationship between unruly passenger behavior and stress. In addition the results show that general self-efficacy as a personal resource buffers the association between passenger misconduct and the use of aggressive humor.Originality/valueThis study is among the first empirical attempts to explore the role of humor as a mediator between uncivil customer behavior and stress in air service employee.

Relaxation, morning recovery state and customer- and coworker-directed extra-role service behavior: the moderating effect of work–family interface

“…To account for the non-independence of endogenous variables, we employed random coefficient modeling (i.e. multilevel path modeling) using M -plus 8.5 (Muthén and Muthén, 1998/2017), consistent with previous service studies (Curșeu et al. , 2022; Seger-Guttmann and Medler-Liraz, 2020; Tan et al.…”

“…To account for the nonindependence of endogenous variables, we employed random coefficient modeling (i.e. multilevel path modeling) using M-plus 8.5 (Muth en and Muth en, 1998/2017), consistent with previous service studies (Curșeu et al, 2022;Seger-Guttmann and Medler-Liraz, 2020;Tan et al, 2020;Yue et al, 2021). Prior to analyzing the hypotheses, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC(1)) was defined for each variable to determine the proportion of variance attributed to each level of analysis.…”

Personality and humor in groups: implications for collective emotional intelligence, psychological safety and satisfaction

“…On the other hand, members who score high in neuroticism tend to engage in more hostile interpersonal communication (Grumm and von Personality and humor Collani, 2009;Molero Jurado et al, 2018;Vernon et al, 2009), and to be sensitive to cues of social rejection (Denissen and Penke, 2008), so we would argue that they tend to experience more aggressive humor than groups that on average score lower in neuroticism (group-level effect). Aggressive humor is indicative of limited concern for others (Vernon et al, 2008), and through mechanisms such as contagion and entrainment (Curs , eu et al, 2022), one sarcastic comment from a group member could lead to the emergence of group aggressive humor. Based on the above arguments, we hypothesize that:…”

“…According to their classification, affiliative humor is a relationship-oriented strategy that is used to improve affect and signals social acceptance. For example, humor can help group members regulate their emotions through distraction and reframing negative events (Kugler and Kuhbandner, 2015; Szabo et al , 2005; Curșeu et al , 2022) or stimulating positive affect (Gheorghe et al , 2023). At the same time, however, we could categorize aggressive humor as a relationship-oriented affect worsening strategy, which signals social rejection, through criticism masked as jokes and due to the negativity bias (Barsade, 2002; Baumeister et al , 2001), the negative affect associated with aggressive humor could be more salient and contagious.…”

“…Group humor reflects emergent communication patterns in groups that are shaped by individual as well as group-level factors (Curșeu and Fodor, 2016; Romero and Pescosolido, 2008; Romero and Arendt, 2011); therefore, humor in groups warrants more complex multilevel studies (Gheorghe and Curșeu, 2024). With few exceptions (Curșeu et al , 2022; Gheorghe et al , 2023; Nguyen et al , 2022), literature to date did not extensively explore the multilevel interplay between humor in groups and different team outcomes. Although we have preliminary empirical evidence supporting the role of group humor as antecedent for collective emotional intelligence (Curșeu and Fodor, 2016), we still miss empirical evidence concerning the implications of humor for other emergent states and outcomes in groups.…”