Teachers’ use of humor to support students’ emotional regulation: A grounded theory approach

Humor can be a powerful educational tool for helping students manage their emotions. This grounded theory study examines how teachers describe using humor to assist students in shifting between emotional states and meta-motivational moods. Fourteen teachers from Norwegian primary and lower secondary schools were interviewed individually, and their responses were used to create a theory regarding teachers' humor use.This study presents a theoretical framework that draws on key implications from reversal theory (Apter, 2007), illustrating how humor can be employed by teachers as a tool to help students manage their emotions and mental states. For example, humor is used to help transition between emotional pairs (e.g., from sadness to joy, stress to calm) and motivational states (e.g., from goal-oriented to playful). The theory explains how humor, applied with contextual sensitivity, can support students in regulating their emotions and meta-motivational states.These findings emphasize the importance of timing and teacher-student relationships in determining when and how humor can effectively support emotional regulation. The theoretical framework offers insights into how teachers can intentionally use humor to promote emotional flexibility and well-being in the classroom.