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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address participants’ humorous provocations as a part of informal
interactions between participants and researcher that can be treated just like the research data. By means of
autoethnographic analysis, the author explores the expectations of the researcher and participants that
humour research entails and discusses how different expectations are revealed in participants’ provocations.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses an autoethnographic approach to discuss the informal
interactions between participants and the researcher gathered during research into staffroom humour.
The informal interactions in general and humour specifically were recorded, analysed, coded, interpreted and
theorised just like the data on humour between participants. The theoretical framework used in the study
combines Goffman’s (1959) version of symbolic interactionism and Solomon et al. (2006) idea of hybrid spaces.
Findings – The study shows the need for reconsideration of expectations entangled in humour research and
proposes to be prepared for unexpected. Expecting unexpected can help stay open minded in the field and in
interactions with participants and apply healthy distance towards own research and own expectations.
The study shows that whenever certain behaviour was expected and different behaviour was delivered, there
was a chance for certain behaviour being interpreted as provocations. Participants’ provocations can result
from their own expectations about the research or what they think is expected from them by the researcher
and thus they remain subject to different interpretations.
Research limitations/implications – Further research could investigate and discuss the role of humour in
participant-researcher interactions in different research contexts and across different methodologies.
Combining and analysing experiences of use of humour from both participants and researchers could allow
for creating the guidelines in the use of humour in different research situations. Ethical challenges posed by
informal interactions between researcher and participants could be explored further and suggestions as to
how to protect the researcher, research and participants in such interactions could be developed.
Originality/value – This paper aims to be a starting point for a discussion about the understudied
relationship between expectations humour research is entangled with and participants’ provocations.
The study shows innovative approach to informal interactions between participants’ and researcher which
are treated as research data and are theorised using original combination of symbolic interactionism and
hybrid spaces. The study contributes to the qualitative research methodology by discussing the ethics of both
using humour with participants and recording and analysing informal humorous interactions between
participants and the researcher.
Keywords Humour research, Participants’ provocations, Research expectations

Objectives: The paper discusses the benefits of including a laughter therapy into group psychotherapy. Methods: The laughter therapy session was experimentally included in group psychotherapy. Laughter therapy consisted of various carefully designed humour-related tasks. The patients and the laughter therapist were observed via two-way mirror by experienced psychotherapists and a psychiatrist. The assessment of the experiment was based on the opinions of all three parties: patients, observers and the laughter therapists were documented. Results: Patients enjoyed laughter therapy and, except one patient, took an active part in it. Patients were enthusiastic about this type of therapy and expressed willingness to participate in laughter therapy again. The therapy provided a two-tier liberation for patients: a liberation from their problems and from a typical therapy. It provided a return to childhood, evoking feelings of levity and spontaneity. It also strengthened in-group integration. The laughter therapy helped to unlock conscious experiencing of previously suppressed positive feelings in paranoid patients who experienced some ambivalence after laughter therapy. Conclusions: Laughter therapy can constitute a valuable part of group psychotherapy. Future research can explore the effects of implementing elements of laughter therapy in different parts of traditional group therapy

Objectives: Humor plays an important role throughout life, including old age. However, appreciating and understanding humor may be hindered due to dementia and late-life depression, two common old age-related diseases. Still little is known about humor preferences among the elderly diagnosed with dementia, depression or both disorders. This study aims to explore humor preferences in elderly participants with those disorders and their influence on the perceived funniness of more and less cognitively challenging verbal jokes.Methods: A total of 36 elderly participants and 39 students (representing a control group) rated 20 humorous and 20 non-humorous examples. To test the differences in the funniness rating between the elderly participants and the control group, both Welch’s t-test and U Mann-Whitney test were used, accompanied with bootstrapped confidence intervals.Results: The study reveals that the elderly participants found both humorous and non-humorous examples funnier than the...

Staffroom humour constitutes an integral part of teachers' workplace culture and contributes to the quality of workplace relationships, yet it remains under-researched in the field of educational research. This thesis explores the importance of humour in relationships between teachers and its meaning for the overall workplace culture. This research has two foci; one intended and one acquired. Originally this research was set up to investigate staffroom humour in three educational settings. However, humour between participants and I became another focus of the research. Therefore, apart from exploring how staff use humour in the staffroom and what influences staffroom humour, this research also explores how and why humour was used in interactions between participants and myself. Research was undertaken in three post-16 educational settings in England. This takes the form of a case study and uses a mixture of qualitative methods: group and individual semi-structured interviews, unstructured participant observations and the collection of funny artefacts. Findings show that humour at each workplace is distinctive and makes a unique contribution to workplace culture. Workplace humour is spatially and temporally conditioned. Space and time are crucial conditions determining the use of humour, more important than work politics. Different humour functions are located within workplace relationships and not outside of them. Workplace humour serves to construct, nurture or contest relationships. Contesting and the constructing/nurturing of relationships do not need to be mutually exclusive. Degrees of familiarity between staff, just like type of humour, serve as indicators of the type of work relationship. Familiarity is crucial in deciding who uses humour and how within the workplace. Humour used between participants and researcher reveals a number of expectations and complexities that humour research entails. It also shows how interconnected participants' and researcher's behaviours are. What needs to be recognised is the value and role of humour in both relationships between teachers and the participant-researcher relationship. Humour research represents specific challenges and opportunities for rapport, data collection and access negotiation that should be explored further.

Humor plays an important role throughout life, including old age. However, appreciating and understanding humor may be hindered due to dementia and late-life depression, two common old age-related diseases. Still little is known about humor preferences among the elderly diagnosed with dementia, depression or both disorders. This study aims to explore humor preferences in elderly participants with those disorders and their influence on the perceived funniness of more and less cognitively challenging verbal jokes. Methods: A total of 36 elderly participants and 39 students (representing a control group) rated 20 humorous and 20 non-humorous examples. To test the differences in the funniness rating between the elderly participants and the control group, both Welch's ttest and U Mann-Whitney test were used, accompanied with bootstrapped confidence intervals. Results: The study reveals that the elderly participants found both humorous and non-humorous examples funnier than the control group. Elderly participants rated two types higher than the control group: the visual error-based jokes and non-visual metaphorbased jokes. The patients with a single disorder (cognitive disorder or depression) rated the funniness of the examples highest. Out of all participants with a single disorder, those with cognitive disorder rated the examples slightly higher than those with depression. Conclusion: Elderly participants are able to enjoy simple and familiar humor. While the perceived funniness of those with a single disorder may be a result of them using humor as a coping mechanism, such a mechanism no longer works in the case of coexisting dementia and depression.