Don’t Be Fooled by Funny Presentations

By David Granirer

We all know that it’s good to use humour in presentations. It makes people more open to whatever the message is, it breaks down barriers, and makes learning more fun.

But what you may not have known is that humour actually changes people’s perception of the quality of a presentation. According to a paper published in the International Journal of Humor Research, findings indicate that use of humour can cause a disorganized speech to be evaluated as better organized than a disorganized speech without humour. A rambling, somewhat incoherent presentation with some jokes thrown in comes across as well-organized, even if it isn’t.

According to researchers, that’s because humour produces a powerful masking effect that interferes with the audience’s ability to detect disorganization.

The researchers also suggested that part of this masking may occur because humour narrows our perceptual field, so that while we’re laughing we’re less aware of other aspects of a presentation. They also hypothesized that when audiences laugh, they tend to be more forgiving and willing to tolerate a lack of organization.

Whatever the case may be, these findings have some interesting implications. First of all, they indicate that we can be easily fooled into thinking that a charming, funny presenter actually knows what he or she is talking about. Indeed, in the disorganized, humourous presentation used in the study, 30% of the sentences of an organized speech were randomly relocated, yet people perceived these presentations as well put together.

Secondly, we need to be on our toes and use our analytical skills when attending a presentation that contains a lot of humour. My guess is that one of the reasons we’re fooled is that we’re having such a good time that we forget to ask ourselves what we’ve actually learned, or whether what the presenter said actually made sense.

This especially applies to any presentation where someone is trying to sell us something. You’re much more likely to buy swampland in Florida when the pitch is delivered with a punch line, but the actual joke may be the fact that you forget to do your homework and realize what you were buying!

David Granirer gives laughter in the workplace presentations to hundreds of organizations across North America. For information call the National Speakers Bureau at (800) 661-4110 or visit www.psychocomic.com.