The Double-Edged Sword: Unraveling the Dual Outcomes of Workplace Humor on the Social Identity of Employees

Building on the social identity theory, this conceptual article proposes a process model to understand the linkage between workplace humor and the social identity change experiences of employees. Further, it identifies the underlying mechanisms and conditions which impact the positive and negative identity changes during this process. Based on the proposed model, it is suggested that exposure to negative workplace humor is likely to lead to employee surface acting particularly when the need for social affiliation is high among individuals. On the one hand, identity synergy would facilitate positive emotions and psychological safety and is likely to support improved voice behavior in employees. On the other hand, perceptions of identity conflict would trigger negative emotions and lead to emotional exhaustion and expressed rudeness at the workplace; such individuals would engage in deviant workplace behaviors because of persistent negative experiences. Overall, the proposed conceptual model proposes a thorough relational process model unveiling socio-psychological outcomes of negative workplace humor and needs to be tested in multiple contexts to unveil the role of novel conditional factors impacting internalized change experiences of employees.