Humor at work: exploring supervisors’ sarcasm, self-disparaging and vulgar language based humor, and verbal aggression

Abstract

ABSTRACT Employing benign violation theory as a lens, this study (N = 148) explored full-time employees’ perceptions of supervisors’ likelihood to use sarcasm and engagement in self-disparaging and vulgar language based humor and verbal aggression (VA) in the workplace. In part, findings revealed that employees’ perceptions of supervisors’ VA positively related to perceptions of supervisors’ likelihood to use sarcasm and inappropriate humor engagement.