1 AIT Asian Institute of Technology

The effect of humor usage by engineers on construction worksite atmosphere

AuthorChudate Niwawate
Call NumberAIT Thesis no.ST-02-30
Subject(s)Wit and humor
Engineers--Humor

NoteA thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering
PublisherAsian Institute of Technology
AbstractA number of researches have been done in the field of humor. Humor provides a lot of benefits to the user. At the same time, it can cause damages as well. This study focuses on the effect of humor in the construction environment. The areas of study consisted of three aspects. The first aspect is the behavior of Thai site engineers regarding the humor practice. This aspect concentrates on the preferable situations for the site engineers to use humor. The next aspect of the study is the effect of humor used by the site engineers on the performance of the foremen. The last aspect is also to figure out the effect of humor on work atmosphere but emphasize on the feelings of the foremen. The results indicated that the most preferable situation for Thai site engineers to use humor is when discussing work-related problems with their foremen. The least preferable situation to use humor is when site engineers do something wrong. They seldom react to their mistake in funny manner in this situation. It was found out that personal factors such as age, experience, and psychological type do not affect the preferred situations for them to use or not to use humor. The findings revealed that the site engineers' personal factors such as age, experience, position power, and psychological type have effects on the performance of their foremen. The site engineers with different attributes can get different results from humor. It was also discovered that not only site engineers' personal factors, but also foremen's personal factors have effects on the results of humor. The attributes of foremen such as age, academic background, experience, and psychological type moderate an individual's feelings toward the persons who use humor with them. However, there must be some other factors affecting the attitude of an individual about humor in terms of the frequency of using humor and the humor appreciation. Hence, the decision to use or not to use humor is dependent on in depth personal conditions of both the message sender and the message receiver.
Year2002
SchoolSchool of Engineering and Technology (SET)
DepartmentDepartment of Civil and Infrastucture Engineering (DCIE)
Academic Program/FoSStructural Engineering (STE) /Former Name = Structural Engineering and Construction (ST)
Chairperson(s)Ogunlana, Stephen O.;
Examination Committee(s)Hadikusumo, B. H. W. ;Truong Quang;
Scholarship Donor(s)Asian Institute of Technology (Partial Scholarship)
DegreeThesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2002


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