Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this study was to investigate failed interpersonal affect regulation through the lens of humor. We investigated individual differences that influenced people’s affective and cognitive responses to failed humor and their willingness to persist in the interpersonal regulation of positive affect after a failed attempt.Design/Methodology/ApproachUsing well-established autobiographical narrative methods and surveys, we collected data at two time points. All participants (n = 127) received identical surveys at time 1. At time 2, they were randomly assigned to complete a narrative about either successful or failed humor as well as a second survey.FindingsUsing moderated regression analyses and SEM, we found significant differences between our failed and successful humor conditions. Specifically, individual differences, including gender, affective perspective taking, and humor self-efficacy, were associated with negative reactions to failed humor and the willingness of individuals to persist in the interpersonal regulation of positive affect. Moreover, affective perspective taking moderated the effect of gender in both the failed and successful humor conditions.ImplicationsOur results suggest that failed humor is no laughing matter. Understanding individuals’ willingness to continue in attempts to regulate the affect of others contributes to the comprehension of an understudied phenomenon that has implications for interpersonal behavior in organizations such as helping, group decision making, and intragroup conflict.Originality/ValueStudies of interpersonal affect regulation often focus on people’s ability to successfully regulate others’ emotions. In contrast, this is the first quantitative study to explore factors that influence individual’s willingness to persist in interpersonal affect regulation after failure, and to investigate how individual differences influence the personal outcomes associated with failed attempts.
Highlights
Active efforts to regulate the feelings of others are a ubiquitous part of social life
Because people do not seem to recall different types of humor episodes when asked to recount a failed versus a successful humor attempt, we can be more confident that the results reported below are related to the experience of failed humor rather than to the experience of recalling a particular type of humor or to a particular humor goal that is associated with failed humor
We investigated how individual differences in gender, affective perspective taking, and trait guilt were related to the experience of failed humor and how these experiences differed from those of successful humor
Summary
Active efforts to regulate the feelings of others are a ubiquitous part of social life. In order to build this framework, previous research has focused on establishing that individuals can successfully influence the emotions of others and on the personal and interpersonal consequences of successfully regulating others’ affect when required to do so (Niven et al 2009; 2012a, b; Grandey et al 2005). Despite the scholarly and practical relevance of interpersonal affect regulation, scholars have paid scant attention to the consequences of failed interpersonal affect regulation (but see Francis et al 1999) Despite this lack of research attention, interpersonal affect regulation is a skilled behavior and nearly everyone experiences failed attempts at regulating others’ feelings (Francis et al 1999)
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