You're Awesome! How Sarcasm Enhances Creativity

Comedian Bill Murray's classic line, "You're awesome!" was sarcasm at its best. While sarcasm can be sharp, hurtful, and insulting, it also has an important positive aspect. It can lead to higher levels of creativity.

Research by Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School, Adam Galinsky, the Vikram S. Pandit Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, and Li Huang of INSEAD, the European business school, find that sarcasm is a process that activates and is facilitated by abstraction, which in turn promotes creative thinking. In other words, yes, sarcasm is like mental gymnastics.

“Not only did we demonstrate the causal effect of expressing sarcasm on creativity and explore the relational cost sarcasm expressers and recipients have to endure, we also demonstrated, for the first time, the cognitive benefit sarcasm recipients could reap. Additionally, for the first time, our research proposed and has shown that to minimize the relational cost while still benefiting creatively, sarcasm is better used between people who have a trusting relationship,” said Gino.

While not everyone appreciates sarcasm, it can have a positive effect between peers when used appropriately.

“While most previous research seems to suggest that sarcasm is detrimental to effective communication because it is perceived to be more contemptuous than sincerity, we found that, unlike sarcasm between parties who distrust each other, sarcasm between individuals who share a trusting relationship does not generate more contempt than sincerity,” said Galinsky.

But there's another benefit of sarcasm. A sarcastic remark during a creativity session tells me something important has happened - the creative act. An idea is generated when two previously unrelated themes suddenly come together. The humorous act is essentially the same process. A funny, sarcastic comment tells me an good idea is lurking right around the corner, so to speak.

Here's an example. Imagine you work for a large retailer, and you're trying to figure out how to keep people in the store longer so they buy more. Sarcastically, a participant shouts, "Well, we could just lock the doors!" Everyone bursts out laughing.

As a facilitator, I have to seize the opportunity and use the remark to spur an idea. I do that by saying, "Okay, okay, that was funny. But now, let's imagine that was true - that we're going to lock the doors in a way that customers love it. Why would this be the case, how would it work, and what would be the benefit?"

Challenging participants with these questions forces them to take the strange concept (locked doors) and work backwards to the benefit it might deliver. It's like going from the solution back to the problem instead of the other way around. Research shows humans are much better at this direction than starting with a problem and going to a solution.

At this point, a participant might suggest an idea like closing the store so that only certain high-value customers have full access to all the sales and merchandise. Perhaps it's a special loyalty program to promote new seasonal items. Other customers have to wait outside until the loyal customers are done. All of a sudden, the locked door idea comes to life. What started as a witty remark changes the room to seek real, valuable concepts.

Seriously? Yes. You can boost creative output with sarcasm.

Huang, Li, F. Gino, and Adam D. Galinsky. "The Highest Form of Intelligence: Sarcasm Increases Creativity for Both Expressers and Recipients." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 131 (November 2015): 162–177.