Humour

Humour can be learned like most other social skills. If you haven’t got a good sense of humour, you can always develop one. Here’s our top tips that guarantee to work!

• Try and observe people with a good sense of humour. Apart from what they say, much more important is their timing, tonality and delivery. Visit comedy clubs so you learn a thing or two from those great stand-up comedians.
• Don’t turn yourself into a clown. Of course you can always get cheap laughs by doing stupid things but instead of laughing with you, people will just laugh at you. It’s not always a bad thing to be able to laugh at yourself, but never deliberately lower your social status.
• Never take yourself too seriously. If used in moderation, a self-deprecating wit can actually convey both high status and high value. If somebody makes a friendly joke about you at which others are also laughing, laugh with them.
• There are a couple of different types of humour: ironic humour, sarcastic humour, satirical humour etc. Make your sense of humour as wide-ranging as poss. The repeated type of humour can be really grating.
• Laughter is excessively contagious. The ability to find and laugh at other ongoing funny things will encourage people to laugh as well. This really catalyses good humour and social bonding.