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Organizational Psychology, 2023, Vol. 13, No. 3, P. 145-157. DOI: 10.17323/2312-5942-2023-13-3-145-157
ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
www.orgpsyjournal.hse.ru
"Why so serious?". The role of interpersonal conflict management styles in affiliative humour1
Utku GUGERCIN
ORCID: 0000-0002-7667-6256
Elife OZER
ORCID: 0000-0002-5834-7483
Independent Researcher, Adana, Turkey
Abstract. Purpose. The purpose of this study is to examine how affiliative humour, which can be defined as a positive humour style focusing on enhancing connections, is associated with collaborating, compromising, and avoiding conflict management styles in organisations. Study design. An online survey was conducted following the convenience sampling method to test the proposed hypotheses. The sample consisted of 257 teachers working at public schools in Adana, who are master's degree students in Adana Alparslan Turkes Science and Technology University, Turkey. Exploratory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and regression analysis were conducted in line with the research goals. Findings. As a result, affiliative humour was found to be significantly correlated with compromising and collaborating. Nonetheless, avoiding was found to have no significant relationship with affiliative humour. Compromising was the only significant variable in the regression model, which explained a limited variance in affiliative humour. Implications for practice. Managers may deliberately tend to "produce" humour to benefit from it in conflicting situations. Nonetheless, managerial control for the use of humour does not guarantee the expected productivity. Therefore, employees may be advised to acknowledge the benefits of positive humour styles — in case of this study, affiliative humour — in managing interpersonal conflicts. Value of the results. To the best of the authors' knowledge, a limited number of studies exist focusing directly on the association between affiliative humour and interpersonal conflict. Hence, the results are considered to fill the gap in the literature by clarifying that compromising is the only conflict management style that has a positive impact on affiliative humour.
Keywords: humour, affiliative humour, humour in the workplace, interpersonal conflict management styles, collaborating, compromising, avoiding.
ORCID: 0000-0002-8338-7903
"Humour is not a mood, but a way of looking at the world."
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1
With all due respect to previous Jokers and to the great actor Heath Ledger for inspiring us in this title.
Address: Balcali Mahallesi, Çatalan Caddesi No: 201/1 01250 Sariçam, Adana, Turkey.
E-mail: ugugercin@atu.edu.tr
Introduction
Facing relationship breakdowns among employees is one of the most common issues in organisations. A survey in the UK revealed that 38% of the employees experience interpersonal conflict at work in a year (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development [CIPD], 2015). Conflicts in organisations are inevitable since a group of people from different backgrounds, skills, perspectives, and experiences must perform tasks together (Eren, 2000). As a common organisational issue, interpersonal conflicts are expected to be managed in a functional way. Apart from its several benefits such as improving the quality of decisions (Ongori, 2008), boosting productivity (Rahim, 2001), guarding against groupthink or balancing power relationships (Putnam, 1995), interpersonal conflicts may have destructive impacts. If not handled in a constructive fashion, conflicts can cause increased stress and tension, drop in motivation or commitment, decreased morale, productivity, job satisfaction (Stroh, Northcraft, Neale, 2002), declined well-being, communication, and organisational commitment (Hoffman, 2007) resulting in increased workplace toxicity (Pasupuleti, 2021). Unresolved conflicts can directly or indirectly take about 20-30% of the work energy of managers (Dubrin, 2005, 147). Hence, dealing with interpersonal conflicts constructively seems imperative for a productive organisational environment.
M. Rahim defines conflict as "an interactive process manifested in incompatibility, disagreement, or dissonance within or between social entities (i.e., individual, group, organisation, etc.)" (Rahim, 2002, p. 207) and adds that a conflict can occur in an intraindividual form as well as at the interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup levels — in an interactive form. Within the organisational context however, the focus is more on the interactive form and specifically interpersonal conflicts are examined in the literature. As for the reasons, organisational conflicts may arise in several situations such as in case of sequential dependency, disagreements on joint actions, differences in perceptions, values, attitudes, goals of the parties and so on. In this respect K. Cloke and J. Goldsmith describe an iceberg of conflict which is a situation that managers deal with issues which come out to the surface, however there are several factors hidden underneath such as a person's personality, emotions, interests, needs and expectations, values and beliefs or unresolved issues from the past (Cloke, Goldsmith, 2011, p. 66).
In the organisational perspective, although it is usually evaluated as a problem, a conflict can be a functional issue as well as a dysfunctional one suggests that conflict at a certain limit managed constructively is needed for the optimum level of organisational effectiveness (Pondy, 1967; Rahim, 2001). However, in most cases, solving conflicts is greatly associated with the stability of an organisation (Pondy, 1967). Therefore, conflict management strategies to minimise dysfunctional conflicts and improve the constructive functions of conflict for organisational learning and effectiveness are suggested (Rahim, 2002).
The approach to conflicts reveals different interpersonal conflict management styles representing how an individual reacts to another person in case of a conflict and they are differentiated by based on the concern for self and concern for others (Cann et al., 2008; Rahim, 2002). K. W. Thomas labels these two dimensions as assertiveness and cooperativeness (Thomas, 1976; Womack, 1988). The dimensions are grounded on the degree of the parties' orientation and attempt towards satisfying their own concerns or others'. As a result, five responses to interpersonal conflicts are widely accepted in the literature: avoiding, accommodating, competing, compromising, and collaborating. Among these, compromising, collaborating, and avoiding conflict management styles show either high or intermediate concern for both self and others or a complete avoidance. M. A. Rahim explains the compromising style as the intermediate concern for self and others involved in, both parties giving up something to make a mutually acceptable decision (Rahim, 2002). Collaborating style shows high
concern for self and others. It involves collaboration, namely commitment required from the parties, and problem solving in which both parties share information and look for ways to satisfy each other whereas avoiding style entails an individual withdrawing from conflict. Each of these styles of handling interpersonal conflict may be applicable depending on the situation.
Members of the organisations usually value the conflict negatively because major conflicts generate pressure to alter the form of the relationship or to dissolve it together (Pondy, 1967). Therefore, ways to resolve and manage conflicts is a topic of interest for both researchers and practitioners. The fact that many conflicts arise from lack of communication lay emphasis on the importance of constructive communication skills in conflict management (Sathyanarayana, 2007; Meyer, 2000). In this sense, as a communication tool, the effective use of humour may be functional in conflicts. Besides, humour is emphasised to be an effective instrument to lessen the negative impact of conflict in several studies as sense of humour has been attributed to improving morale, relieving stress, spurring productivity, motivation, creativity, and a more positive culture in an organisation (Duncan et al., 1990; Hoffman, 2007; Pasupuleti, 2021; Smith, Harrington, Neck, 2000; Jepordei et. al., 2014). In this respect, the tendency to maintain a humorous perspective in the face of adversity can make things smoother and more fun even in the most serious work environments. Heggie (2018) specifically focused on laughter and stated that it induces positive effects on the body such as the release of endorphins and leads to mentally positive effects.
In the frame of this study, workplace humour is conceptualised as "any activity of laughter, fun, or amusement used in the work environment" (adopted from: Duncan et al., 1990). However, in general terms, the multidimensional nature of humour and its ability to generate both positive and negative responses make it difficult to agree on a commonly accepted definition (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012). Even though it is a complex phenomenon to generalise it in a single definition, several definitions may draw a useful framework (Cooper, 2005; Long, Graesser, 1988). From a broad perspective, humour can be seen as "anything done or said, purposely or inadvertently, that is found to be comical or amusing" (Long, Graesser, 1988), whereas humour also refers to "amusing communications that unite, direct, and energise people in ways that benefit the individual, group or organisation" (Romero, Pearson, 2004, p. 53) in a closer perspective to the organisational context. After all, behaviourists unite in the idea that, regardless of the purpose, humour is a communication tool between people (Al Obthani, Omar, Bakri, 2013).
In answering how humour emerges from human thoughts, three theories — namely incongruity, superiority, and arousal theories — offer insights (e.g., Banas et al., 2011; Buijzen, Valkenburg, 2004; Ferguson, Ford, 2008; Martin, 1998; McCreaddie, Wiggins, 2008; Meyer, 2000). Among these theories superiority and arousal (relief) theories lay emphasis on social relationship between the humourist and the target person(s) whereas incongruity emphases the irony and surprise in the content of humour (Scheel, 2017). Incongruity theory is considered as the one offering the widely accepted approach to humour which also takes its roots from the philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer and Aristotle. Incongruity can be described as the cognitive-perceptual process in which conflicting ideas or events are combined or "something that violates our mental patterns and expectations"2. Therefore, by its nature, incongruity theory forms a basis to associate humour and conflict.
The ways in which individuals express humour in social settings reveals different humour styles. A framework with four main humour styles proposed by R. A. Martin with colleagues is at the forefront of generally accepted models (Martin et al., 2003). As shown in Table 1, the styles are based on the origins of the individual's humour perspective of being positive or negative as well as being self-directed or concerned for others.
2 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/humor/
Table 1. Four main humour styles
Humour direction Negative Positive
Self-directed Self-defeating Self-enhancing
Other-directed Aggressive Affiliative
Source: Martin et al., 2003.
Among the humour styles, in aggressive humour there is a tendency to use humour for the purpose of criticising or manipulating others, as in sarcasm, teasing, ridicule, derision, or disparagement humour. Self-defeating humour style is usually used to ingratiate oneself with others. This style is characterised by individuals' attempts to amuse others by doing or saying funny things at one's own expense, excessively self-humiliating and laughing along with others when being ridiculed or disparaged. Self-enhancing humour tends to be frequently amused by the incongruities of life, to maintain a humorous perspective even in the face of stress or adversity, and to use humour as an emotion regulation mechanism. Lastly, affiliative humour describes the use of humour with a tendency to say funny things and tell jokes to facilitate relationships and reduce interpersonal tensions (Chen, Martin, 2007). Particularly, the constructive nature of affiliative humour style helps build a positive atmosphere in relationships. In this sense among the humour styles, affiliative humour can be a more useful tool in reducing or avoiding interpersonal conflict at work.
Just as the humour styles suggest, humour is not always used for positive purposes. It is functional only when it is used appropriately without offending others. Appropriate jokes even violating expectations and social norms are seen as a sign of intelligence and competence which may contribute to the joker's prestige in the organisations (Bitterly, Brooks, 2020). In that respect, a positive humour style which has orientation towards building constructive connections with others would make a meaningful effect on resolving conflict at the workplace. Since positive humour is considered to be an icebreaker or a bridge-building tool in managing conflicts, it may be a remedy to break the vicious cycle of conflict when used in the right circumstances (Sclavi, 2003; 2008) and, affiliative humour seems to fit perfectly to this mean.
The proper use of humour has the potential to work as a "social lubricant" in the organisation (Lyttle, 2007, p. 240). In a similar way, use of positive humour is suggested as a tool for businesspeople to develop relationships and communicate effectively (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012; Robert et al., 2016; Tremblay, Gibson, 2016). Since the positive styles of humour may be beneficial for striking up conversations and initiating friendships as well as increasing persuasion and lowering defence so that it may work as a silver bullet throughout the conflict management processes in particular (Evans, Slaughter, Ellis, Rivin, 2019; Gallo, 2015; Kushner, 2004; Yip, Martin, 2006).
Based on incongruity theory and in line with the above-mentioned literature, the purpose of this study is to examine how affiliative humour, which can be defined as a positive humour style focusing on enhancing connections, is associated with collaborating, compromising, and avoiding conflict management styles in organisations.
Research Hypotheses
Conflict management and humour styles can be both categorised on the same two significant dimensions as self- and other-orientated. Studies showed significant correlations between the corresponding styles (e.g. Cann, Norman, Welbourne, Calhoun, 2008; Martin et al., 2003; Smith, Harrington and Neck, 2000). W. J. Smith with colleagues as one of the instances, found that humour is related to different types of conflict management strategies and diversity factors such as gender or race tend to moderate the relationship (Smith et al., 2000).
Several studies support that humour has an important role in interpersonal relationships especially in terms of enhancing positive interactions, resolving tensions and conflicts (Collinson,
2002; Lefcourt, 2001; Long, Graesser, 1988). Humour has been linked to reduce interpersonal conflict, strengthen relational bonds, encourage open communication, and reduce uncertainty in what others are thinking and feeling (Martin et al., 2003). However, literature also has indication that humour can be a source of conflict as well as helping resolve them (Collinson, 1988; Ponton, Osborne, Thompson and Greenwood, 2020; Zelizer, 2010). Hence, with the negative nature, aggressive and self-defeating humour styles may cause those undesired consequences. However, it is worth to mention that the level of affiliative humour use is linked with the conflict management style that an employee or manager uses.
Among the humour styles, affiliative humour is mostly associated with intimacy and interpersonal competence (Dozois, Martin, Bieling, 2009; McCosker, Moran, 2012; Yip, Martin, 2006). In terms of its relationship with these variables that contribute to constructive interpersonal relationships, affiliative humour may be a functional work behaviour within an instrument perspective helping lighten the tension, making difficult problems seem solvable, and inspiring positive attitudes as well as healthy interactions at the workplace.
In a group context, the use of humour to increase the morale of group members, enhance group cohesiveness and identity, create an atmosphere of enjoyment, reinforce group norms, and so on (Martin et al., 2003). Hereby it is suggested that affiliative humour can be useful in managing teamwork diversity. Hence, understanding how affiliative humour is associated with conflict management styles is important in the organisational context since the conflict management style that an employee uses may be a predictor of the level of affiliative humour.
In the light of the literature, the following three hypotheses were proposed to test in the study.
H1: Affiliative humour style is positively associated with avoiding.
H2: Affiliative humour style is positively associated with compromising.
H3: Affiliative humour style is positively associated with collaborating.
As for the role of demographic characteristics of the participants in the association between affiliative humour and conflict management styles, only the role of gender was analysed. This is due the fact that the only data provided by the Republic of Türkiye Ministry of National Education that enables a comparison between the demographic characteristics of the participants of the study and teachers in Turkey is for the gender ratio of teachers, which shows that 60% of the teachers are female and 40% are male (Republic of Türkiye ministry of national education, 2022).
Method
To test the hypotheses that were developed in the context of this study, data was gathered from teachers working at public schools in Adana, Turkey by survey method. The online survey form was developed on Google Docs and the survey link was sent to the participants. Along with the questions about several demographic characteristics, the survey form included affiliative humour and conflict management style scales to measure the variables in the research model.
Measurement
Affiliative humour
Affiliative humour dimension of Humour Styles Questionnaire (HSQ), which was developed by Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, Weir (2003), was used to measure humour. Originally, the questionnaire involves four humour styles, which are affiliative, self-enhancing, self-defeating, and aggressive humour. However, in line with the purpose of the research, only the affiliative humour dimension of HSQ was used in this study. This dimension was composed of eight items, five of which were reverse coded. The scale is designed in a 5-point Likert type with responses ranging from "1"
— 'strongly disagree' to "5" — 'strongly agree'. E. E. Yerlikaya executed the Turkish translation of the questionnaire and showed that the questionnaire is a reliable and valid measurement tool that can be used in Turkey (Yerlikaya, 2003).
Conflict management styles
To measure the three interpersonal conflict management styles, namely avoiding, compromising, and collaborating, three dimensions of The Rahim Organisational Conflict Inventory-II (ROCI II) developed by M. A. Rahim were used (Rahim, 1983). This scale is in a 5-point Likert type, with scores ranging from "1" — 'never' to "5" — 'always. Each of the three dimensions consists of six items. Originally, the scale involved five dimensions nonetheless, due to the nature of the study, only aforementioned three dimensions were measured. The Turkish version of the items was used (Gürsel, 2009).
Sample
The sample of the study consisted of teachers working at public schools (from preschool to high school) in Adana, who are also master's degree students at Adana Alparslan Turkes Science and Technology University. In the data collection process, following the convenience sampling method, the online survey link was sent to all the teacher participants in the master's programs and the participation was voluntary. A total of 265 forms were received, eight of which were not appropriate to analyse because of the missing values of the scales. Therefore, 257 survey forms were analysed. The demographic characteristics of the sample are presented in Table 2.
Table 2. Demographic characteristics of the sample
Demographics n % Demographics n %
Gender Age (years)
Female 186 72.4 Below 30 30 11.7
Male 71 27.6 31-40 102 39.7
Marital Status 41-50 103 40.1
Single 64 24.9 51 or over 22 8.6
Married 190 73.9 Work Experience
No answer 3 1.2 1-15 years 104 40.5
16 years or more 153 59.5
In terms of teachers' conflict management style in the literature stated that teachers tend to prefer avoiding (Cornille, Pestle, Vanwy, 1999). With respect to other professionals, they are found to be more accommodating independent of the situation they are in. In the conflict context, teachers mostly face interpersonal conflicts at schools. The common reasons for the interpersonal conflicts are listed below (Cornille et al., 1999; Çagirtekin, 2016; Özdemir, 2018).
• Conflicts about student behaviours (approved and disapproved behaviours of students, how to approach disapproved behaviours etc.).
• Different opinions of supervisors and subordinates.
• Individual differences in perceptions.
• Ambiguity in authority and responsibility.
• Lacking or poor communication.
• Power struggle within the organisation.
The humour style that teacher candidates use the most is considered to be the affiliative humour (Açilioglu, 2021). Another study conducted in Turkey also supported this stance. Although there are teachers who use self-enhancing and aggressive humour styles, affiliative humour style was the most preferred one in school settings (Çahin, 2021).
Results
In the initial step of the analysis, the normality assumption was analysed since parametric tests require normally distributed data. Firstly, skewness and kurtosis estimates were analysed. The estimates were seen to be in the range of expected limits (skewness ranged from -1.5 to 1.3 and kurtosis ranged from 1.9 to -0.9), which did not show a violation of the normality assumption. Secondly, along with the histogram graphics, mean, median, and mode values were analysed. As a result, it was seen that the data satisfy the assumption of normal distribution. Afterwards, exploratory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and regression analysis were performed. The reliability of the scales was measured with Cronbach's Alpha coefficient. Four Alpha coefficients were calculated, and the results were found to be greater than .70 (Nunnally, 1978), indicating a good consistency of the scales and dimensions (Gliem, Gliem, 2003). The coefficients were presented in Table 2.
Before the exploratory factor analysis, KMO was calculated, and Bartlett sphericity test was performed. Bartlett sphericity test was significant for four of the scales (p < .01), and KMO values ranged from .76 to .90. The results of the factor analysis (Table 2) showed that each variable was composed of one dimension as expected. Low factor loadings, which are below .50 were deducted. Two items (#4 and #6) from avoiding, one item (#6) from compromising, and one item (#4) from affiliative humour were dropped-off.
Table 2. Factor loadings and Cronbach's Alpha coefficients
_Scales_Item_Factor Loadings_Cronbach's Alpha
Affiliative Humour 1 .75 .82
2 .64
3 .75
5 .68
6 .67
7 .78
_8 .61_
Avoiding 1 .79 .79
2 .81 3 .75
5 .80
Compromising 1 .74
2 .86
3 .86
4 .87
5 .89
Collaborating 1 .84
2 .86
3 .91
4 .77
5 .89
6 .81
After employing exploratory factor analysis, correlation analysis was implemented to reveal how these structures are associated. As presented in Table 3, the results of Pearson correlation analysis demonstrated that among the interpersonal conflict management styles, the relationships between compromising and collaborating (r = .68, p < .01) and compromising and avoiding (r = .13, p < .05) are significant. However, the relationship between collaborating and avoiding is not significant (p >.05). Additionally, compromising (r = .28, p < .01) and collaborating (r = .14, p < .05) were found
to be significantly related to affiliative humour. Nonetheless, the remaining interpersonal conflict management style, namely avoiding, was found to have no significant relationship with affiliative humour (p > .05).
Table 3. Results of the correlation analysis
Variables 1 2 3 4
Affiliative Humour (1) 1
Collaborating (2) .14* 1
Avoiding (3) -.04 .00 1
Compromising (4) .28** .68** .13* 1
Note: * — Correlation is significant at the .05 level (2-tailed). ** — Correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed).
In the last phase, in order to determine the effect of each of the interpersonal conflict management styles in affiliative humour, stepwise regression analysis was performed. The regression model, in which the only predictor variable of affiliative humour is compromising, was found to be statistically significant (p < .01). The model showed that compromising has a positive effect on affiliative humour (P = .28, p < .01). Collaborating and avoiding are excluded from the model. The results are presented in Table 4.
Table 4. Results of the stepwise regression analysis*
Variable B Standard Error ß t P Tolerance VIF
(Constant) 2.46 .27 9.08 .000
Compromising .32 .07 .28 4.72 .000 11
Note: *— Avoiding and collaborating are excluded from the model. R = .28; R2 = .08; F(1,257) = 22.29; p < .01.
The only significant variable in the regression model, which is compromising, explains a limited amount of the variance in affiliative humour. Additionally, the effect of the remaining two conflict management styles, namely avoiding and collaborating, was not statistically significant. The results suggested that H1 was supported whereas H2 and H3 were not. As for the analyses regarding the role of gender in the association between affiliative humour and conflict management styles, it was seen that the models for both males and females were statistically significant. The only predictor variable of affiliative humour for female teachers was compromising in line with the research model (R2 = .14, F(1,184) = 29.48; p < .01). However, for male teachers, collaborating was found to be the only variable that explained the variance in affiliative humour (R2 = .09, F(1,69) = 6.74; p < .05).
Discussion and conclusion
This study has investigated how specific interpersonal conflict management styles are related to affiliative humour use among teachers. Collaborating, compromising, and avoiding conflict management styles were in the focus as affiliative humour was assumed to have a positive association with them. With its contribution to interpersonal relationships, affiliative humour was proposed to be positively associated with collaborating, compromising and avoiding.
The results of the study indicated that affiliative humour was found to be significantly related to compromising conflict style and collaborative conflict style. On the other hand, the relationship between affiliative humour and avoiding was found to be statistically insignificant. Stepwise regression analysis showed that the only interpersonal conflict management style that has an effect on affiliative humour is compromising. Although affiliative humour use was found to be correlated with collaborating and compromising in conflicts, the only significant effect was using affiliative humour in case of compromising conflict.
To the best of the authors' knowledge, a limited number of studies exist focusing directly on the association between humour and interpersonal conflict. Among these studies, in similar research conducted in schools in Turkey, there was no correlation with affiliative humour and avoiding conflict ($ahin, 2016). In addition, affiliative humour use showed a significant relationship with compromising conflict management strategy. In another study, in which data was gathered from university students, humour in general is positively correlated with compromising and avoiding conflicts (Jepordei et al., 2014). Lastly, S. Pasupuleti showed that for IT professionals, affiliative humour is significantly related to solution-oriented (positive) interpersonal conflict management style (Pasupuleti, 2021). Hence, in general, the results of this study are in line with the findings of the limited studies in the literature.
As for the role of gender, the results showed that affiliative humour is in association with compromising for female teachers whereas affiliative humour is in association with collaboration for male teachers. Holt and DeVore found that females are more likely to endorse the use of compromising than males, regardless of culture; males are more likely to report using forcing than females (Holt, DeVore, 2005). Another study provided evidence that although men are more likely to report shouting or heated arguments, overall results support that women are just as likely as men to report interpersonal conflict, and no significant difference is found between men and women in terms of judging conflict (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2015). For humour, several studies present evidence towards the proposition that males tend to have more humour in their communication pattern than females (e.g. Cox, Read, van Auken, 1990). In conclusion, the results vary in terms of the role of gender in the use of affiliative humour and styles to manage interpersonal conflict.
While discussing the results, it is worth mentioning that the association between affiliative humour and conflict management styles may vary depending on the culture that the employees are exposed to. Although no cultural data were collected in this study, the finding regarding the positive relationship between affiliative humour and compromising and (or) collaborating conflict style may be explained with both the national culture and (or) organisational culture of the schools in Turkey. Firstly, as an element of Turkish national culture, high power-distance may lead the teachers to unwillingly compromise and (or) collaborate in conflicts (Ergeneli, Karapinar, Camgoz, 2011). In other words, teachers may feel the need to meet in the middle and (or) sacrifice due to the national culture. In this context, humour may work as a legitimation tool for their efforts to compromise and (or) collaborate. Secondly, in assessing the relationship between affiliative humour and conflict management styles, the effects of organisational culture -particularly power relations, managerial control, and organisational climate- should be taken into account. Because it is possible to observe employees compromise or collaborate in conflicting situations in organisations where the culture supports affiliative humour. In this line, Collinson (2002) drew specific attention to the effect of managerial control process and conditions on joking dynamics in terms of suppressing or producing humour.
From the management perspective, managers may deliberately tend to "produce" humour to benefit from it in conflicting situations. However, managerial control for the use of humour does not guarantee the expected productivity (Collinson, 2002). Both humour and conflict have a critical balance, as they can be highly beneficial or detrimental for organisations. Therefore, employees may be advised to acknowledge the benefits of managing interpersonal conflicts in creating positive humour — in case of this study, — affiliative humour.
Limitations and directions for the future studies
Results presented in the study come with limitations. Three of the interpersonal conflict management styles (collaborating, avoiding and compromising) and one humour type (affiliative)
were examined in the context of the study. The study was conducted with a limited number of teachers. Future studies may cover a wider sample of employees from a variety of institutions. Except gender, differences based on the demographic characteristics were not intended to investigate in this study. Interpersonal conflict management styles and humour use may differ depending on characteristics such as age, work, or experience. Both the use of humour and how one chooses to resolve conflict are culturally bound (Ziv, 1984). Further research may be directed to provide more empirical data on this matter with the use of more holistic models, which takes potentially mediating or moderating variables such as cultural items or leadership style, or power relations (Avolio, Howell, Sosik, 1999; Collinson, 2002).
Acknowledgment
This article is an enhanced version of a conference paper presented at the Middle-East Conference on Contemporary Sciences IV, held on November November 1-3, 2020 in Beirut, Lebabon.
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Received 24.08.2022
«Почему ты такой серьезный?» Роль стилей управления межличностными конфликтами в аффилиативном юморе
ГУГЕРЦИН Утку
ORCID: 0000-0002-7667-6256
ОЗЕР Элифе
ORCID: 0000-0002-5834-7483
Турецкий научно-технический университет Адана Алпарслан, Адана, Турция
ГУГЕРЦИН Седа
ORCID: 0000-0002-8338-7903
Независимый исследователь, Адана, Турция
Аннотация. Цель. Целью данного исследования является изучение того, как аффилиативный юмор, который можно определить как стиль позитивного юмора, направленный на укрепление отношений, связан со стилями сотрудничества, компромисса и избегания конфликтов в организациях. Дизайн исследования. Для проверки выдвинутых гипотез был проведен онлайн-опрос по методу удобной выборки. Выборка состояла из 257 учителей, работающих в государственных школах Аданы, которые учатся в магистратуре Адана Альпарслан Туркес Научно-технический университет, Турция. Эксплораторный факторный анализ, корреляционный анализ и регрессионный анализ были проведены в соответствии с целями исследования. Выводы. В результате было обнаружено, что аффилиативный юмор значительно коррелирует с компромиссом и сотрудничеством. Тем не менее, было обнаружено, что избегание не имеет существенной связи с аффилиативным юмором. Компромисс был единственной значимой переменной в регрессионной модели, которая объясняла ограниченную изменчивость в аффилиативном юморе. Последствия для практики. Менеджеры могут намеренно «продуцировать» юмор, чтобы извлекать из него пользу в конфликтных ситуациях. Тем не менее, управленческий контроль за использованием юмора не гарантирует ожидаемой продуктивности. Таким образом, сотрудникам можно посоветовать признать преимущества стилей позитивного юмора — в случае данного исследования, аффилиативного юмора — в управлении межличностными конфликтами. Ценность результатов. Насколько известно авторам, существует ограниченное количество исследований, посвящённых непосредственно связи между аффилиативным юмором и межличностным конфликтом. Следовательно, считается, что результаты восполняют пробел в литературе, разъясняя, что компромисс является единственным стилем управления конфликтами, который оказывает положительное влияние на аффилиативный юмор.
Ключевые слова: юмор, аффилиативный юмор, юмор на рабочем месте, стили управления межличностными конфликтами, сотрудничество, компромисс, избегание.
