Development and validation of the humour at work scale

Anecdotally, people maintain that one characteristic of a satisfactory workplace is associating with others who have a 'good sense of humour'. The aim of the present study was to create a metric for the way people both use humour in the workplace and perceive the humour of those with whom they work. The question was whether work humour differs from general humour. From previous studies on humour in general and humour in work settings, items for a Humour at Work (HAW) scale were created and validated against scales measuring individual differences and work-place measures...It was concluded that people report their use of humour in the work situation differently from their use of humour in a general social context. In addition they perceive the humour of others in the workplace to be relevant to their own level of anxiety, to their job satisfaction and to their perception of the productivity of their workplace. Because the HAW is about humour, it appears to be 'off the record' and is not influenced by 'impression management' or 'mood'. The 13 item HAW was not meaningfully related to influences such as age, gender, or level of employment or even to measures of personality characteristics.