Jag fann studien ”Why So Serious? A Laboratory and Field Investigation of the Link between Morality and Humor” underhållande:

Consistent with our hypotheses, compared with participants in the control condition, participants whose moral identities were situationally activated (Study 1a) or chronically accessible (Study 1b) were less likely to appreciate humor and generate jokes others found funny (Study 2), especially humor that involved benign moral violations. We also found that participants with a strong moral identity do not generally compensate for their lack of humor by telling more jokes that do not involve moral violations (Study 3). Additional field studies demonstrated that employees (Study 4) and leaders (Study 5) with strong moral identities and who display ethical leadership are perceived as less humorous by their coworkers and subordinates, and to the extent that this is the case are less liked in the workplace. Study 5 further demonstrated two competing mediating pathways—leaders with strong moral identities are perceived as less humorous but also as more trustworthy, with differentiated effects on interpersonal liking.

Så att vara moralist kan ha sina fördelar (som att uppfattas som pålitlig) och sina nackdelar (som att uppfattas som trist). Jag har nihilistiska-immoralistiska drag och har därför ingen stark moralisk identitet – men jag skämtar i stort sett aldrig, trots det, och är synnerligen tråkig. Det sämsta av båda världar på arbetsmarknaden? (Jag hoppas att den akademiska världen är annorlunda härvidlag!)