London - Every office has one – the comedian who simply isn’t funny.
Yet even the worst joke generally gets the odd laugh, and now scientists know why.
They say we are hardwired not to embarrass others.
However, they say the problem is actually making the terrible comedians overconfident.
“Social norms make us averse to providing negative feedback,” said Joyce Ehrlinger, a Florida State University assistant professor of psychology.
Her research re-created everyday interactions in which people might feel pressured to withhold negative information.
In her paper, “Polite But Not Honest: How an Absence of Negative Social Feedback Contributes to Overconfidence”, she found that people are rarely told the truth about themselves.
Three studies conducted by Ehrlinger and two Florida State graduate students – Adam J Fay and Joanna Goplen – were designed to re-create awkward social situations in which one person argues for a political position that others find reprehensible.
The researchers suspected that such moments led to awkward silence more often than impassioned debate.
To test this, they brought together unacquainted participants with opposing views on a controversial issue.
They then asked one participant to persuade the other of his or her view on the issue.
Typically the targets responded by smiling or vaguely agreeing, which probably reduced the potential for conflict, but left the political persuaders with inaccurate, overconfident perceptions of their debating skills.
In a second study, participants displayed overconfidence in their ability to be funny because they failed to recognise how often others laughed at jokes that weren’t funny just to be polite.
So exactly what’s so wrong with letting others think they’re comic geniuses? Who said jokes about bears going into bars were so bad?
Ehrlinger explains it this way: “There’s definitely no harm in some types of overconfidence, and I am not suggesting that we should stop living in a polite society.
“The worst that might come from someone believing that they are funnier than, in reality, they are is a bit of embarrassment or wasted effort auditioning for America’s Got Talent.’’
However, she did admit that it could cause problems.
“Overconfident doctors and lawyers might offer their patients or clients poor advice. There are ways in which overconfidence is dangerous, and it might be important to set aside politeness in service of helping people avoid the perils of overconfidence.” – Daily Mail