"It only hurts when I laugh"

Abstract

Our study examines the impacts on workers when organisational humour is repeated, sustained, dominating, and potentially harmful, and thus can be considered to be bullying. In an ethnographic study of an idiosyncratic New Zealand IT company, we observed humour that was sexualised, dominating, and perpetrated by the most powerful organizational members. We argue that the compelling need for belonging in this extreme organizational culture influenced workers to accept bullying humour as just a joke and therefore acceptable and harmless even when it contravened societal workplace norms. Our contribution is in identifying and extending the significant theoretical relationship between workplace humour and bullying that, to date, is not well-explored in organizational research.

Exposure to workplace bullying: the incremental effect of gelotophobia beyond the big five

“…Finally, workplace bullying might in fact be an antecedent of gelotophobia, as proposed by the reverse causality mechanism. This especially could be true in workplaces with extreme humor culture ( Plester, 2016 ; Plester et al, 2022 ) and/or negative humor climate ( Cann et al, 2014 ), and is in accordance with the proposed causes of gelotophobia. According to Ruch et al (2014) , in adulthood, intense traumatic experiences of being laughed at or ridiculed is one of the causes of gelotophobia.…”