Brad Bitterly

• Brad Bitterly and Maurice Schweitzer (2019), The economic and interpersonal consequences of deflecting direct questions, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
• Brad Bitterly and Maurice Schweitzer (2019), The impression management benefits of humorous self-disclosures: How humor influences perceptions of veracity, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 151 (), pp. 73-89.
• Emma E. Levine, Brad Bitterly, Taya R. Cohen, Maurice Schweitzer (2018), Who is trustworthy? Predicting trustworthy intentions and behavior, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 115 (3), pp. 468-494.
• Brad Bitterly, Alison Wood Brooks, Maurice Schweitzer (2017), Risky Business: When Humor Increases and Decreases Status, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112 (3), pp. 431-455.
• Brad Bitterly, Robert Mislavsky, Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman, “Dueling with Desire: A Synthesis of Past Research on Want/Should Conflict”. In, edited by, (2015), pp. 244-264

• Want to raise an empowered girl? Then let her be funny., The Washington Post - 10/17/2017
• Humor Is Serious Business, Insights by Stanford Business - 07/11/2017 Description

  You are not as funny as you should be, and your company is suffering because of it.

• Is humour the way to keep an office happy?, BBC News - 07/06/2017 Description

  Using humor in the workplace can help make it a more enjoyable place to work, but you need to proceed with caution.

• Workplace Humor Has Some Unexpected Benefits, Psychology Today - 03/30/2017 Description

  How workplace humor can be used to your advantage.

• Cracking a Joke At Work Can Have a Surprising Payoff, Psychology Today - 03/14/2017 Description

  Humor in the workplace is a double-edged sword.

• Why It Pays Off to Be Funny at Work—Usually, The Wall Street Journal - 02/27/2017 Description

  What the latest research says about the benefits—and occasional perils—of humor in the workplace.

• What Research Says About Humor in the Workplace, The Wall Street Journal - 02/21/2017 Description

  The use of jokes and comedy affects how confident we appear, how productive and creative we are and even how much status we achieve. Brad Bitterly and Maurice Schweitzer of the Wharton School join us with details.

• Lessons From A Workologist, KERA Think - 02/20/2017 Description

  Many of us spend more time with our co-workers on a given day than with our spouses and friends. Rob Walker joins us to talk about how we can get along better with our colleagues, be better managers to our employees and develop a rapport with our bosses. He gives workplace advice as the Workologist columnist for The New York Times. And we’ll also talk with Brad Bitterly, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, about a recent workplace study he authored called “Risky Business: When Humor Increases and Decreases Status.”

• The Joke That Makes or Breaks You at Work, The Wall Street Journal - 01/24/2017 Description

  Using humor at the office can boost your status, but only the right kind of humor.

• Research: Cracking a Joke at Work Can Make You Seem More Competent, Harvard Business Review - 01/11/2017
• Done tastefully, joke-telling at work could make you appear more confident and competent, The British Psychological Society Research Digest - 01/06/2017
• Joke your way to success, Harvard Gazette - 10/05/2016 Description

  If you’re funny, that helps co-workers view you as competent and self-assured, study says

• Using Humor in the Office: When It Works, When It Backfires, Knowledge@Wharton - 10/04/2016 Description

  Wharton’s Maurice Schweitzer and Brad Bitterly discuss the impact of humor in the workplace.

Knowledge @ Wharton

• The Hidden Rules of Workplace Opportunity, Knowledge @ Wharton - 09/01/2026
• The Four Essential Elements of Successful Situations, Knowledge @ Wharton - 09/01/2026
• Can AI Productivity Grow Fast Enough to Justify Big Tech’s Spending?, Knowledge @ Wharton - 09/01/2026
• Cookstove Subsidies Fight Climate Change at a Lower Cost, Knowledge @ Wharton - 09/01/2026
• Why Bond Yields Are Warning Washington, Knowledge @ Wharton - 08/28/2026
• Archer Roose Is Making Canned Wine Mainstream, Knowledge @ Wharton - 08/27/2026
• The Bond Market Is Losing Confidence in the Fed, Knowledge @ Wharton - 08/26/2026
• College Football’s New Power Structure, Knowledge @ Wharton - 08/26/2026
• Building Brain Capital: Why Early Childhood Education Shapes the Future Workforce and Economy, Knowledge @ Wharton - 08/24/2026
• What I’ve Learned: Kenneth Shropshire, Knowledge @ Wharton - 08/24/2026