You’re Getting Warmer: The Impression Management Benefits of Humor

Abstract

Humor pervades our interpersonal interactions. Across four studies, we identify humor as a powerful impression management tool. Prior work has identified impression management strategies that increase perceptions along one dimension (warmth or competence), but harm perceptions along the other dimension. Revealing strengths can boost perceptions of competence, but harm perceptions of warmth; disclosing weaknesses can increase perceptions of warmth, but harm perceptions of competence. We demonstrate that by using humor, individuals can increase perceptions of both warmth and competence. In doing so, we introduce humor to the impression management literature and challenge the compensation effect. We are also the first to demonstrate the causal link between humor and perceptions of warmth. We demonstrate that the degree to which humor is self- versus other-deprecating moderates the effect of humor on perceptions of warmth; humor that is self-deprecating is more effective at increasing perceptions of warmth than humor that is other-deprecating. We discuss implications of our findings for interpersonal perception and impression management.