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Workplace bullying is associated with a host of negative outcomes for the worker who is the target of bullying, as well as for the organization where the bullying occurs. Moreover, we know that rates of bullying are particularly high in health care settings; however, we are less familiar with the factors that may reduce workplace bullying in hospitals. Thus, this study was conducted to determine whether the humor orientation styles of individuals, including nurses working in hospitals, as well as their managers’ leadership styles, can influence perceptions of bullying in the workplace. Using data from 459 workers employed in a large hospital in the Southern United States, we examined associations between the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale, which has four dimensions, as well as the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, with three leadership substyles, and their associations with the risk of being bullied. We observed that one of the four humor subscales, Humor Appreciation, did affect perceptions of bullying in the workplace. The other three, Humor Recognition, Humor Production, and Humor for Coping, did not. However, the leadership styles of managers did affect reports of negative acts. In fact, transformational leadership was associated with 22% of the variance in reports of decreased bullying activity. This work is consistent with previous work on the importance of leadership styles for creating positive work environments, particularly in hospital settings. Given these findings, we offer suggestions for leaders to further improve nursing communication.

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Teasing is both a playful act that can be used to convey closeness among friends and a hurtful act that can create distance among enemies. This study explores the nature of this complicated communicative act and how it changes with age, as evidenced in children’s talk through in-depth interviews with participants in 3rd, 6th, and 10th grade. In fact, children and teens deftly use the term “teasing” to mean different things. Teasing for third graders is a negative activity used only among disliked peers. It can be used to harm and hurt feelings. In fact, any positive banter between children is referred to as “just teasing,” which is different from teasing. Although negative teasing persists throughout childhood, by sixth grade, children have learned to use teasing with friends by relying on relational cues to interpret the ambiguous act and begin to see teasing as a functional activity. By 10th grade, teens continued social and cognitive development correspond with their use of teasing to build relationships, broach difficult topics, and manage embarrassing situations. Recommendations are made for better understanding how adults, teachers, and researchers might better approach teasing developmentally, as well as why we should consider further work to help understand its relationship to bullying and harassment, while retaining the prosocial aspects of teasing.

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