When you make a small mistake that doesn't harm anyone else – such as tripping over a curb or misremembering a name – people will like you more if you can laugh at yourself rather than act embarrassed, finds research published by the American Psychological Association.
"Our findings suggest that people often overestimate how harshly others judge their minor social mistakes," said study co-author Övül Sezer, PhD, of the Cornell University SC Johnson School of Business. "For minor, harmless blunders, laughing at yourself can signal social confidence, reduce tension and communicate that the mistake was accidental."
The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Prior research has found there are social benefits to acting embarrassed after committing a faux pas – people like to see embarrassment because it signals remorse and respect for social norms, according to Sezer.
"But in everyday life, we often see another response -- people laugh at themselves. We wanted to understand whether laughing at yourself might sometimes be even more effective than showing embarrassment – and if so, when," she said.
In six online experiments with more than 3,000 total participants, researchers asked participants to read about other people's embarrassing mishaps, such as walking into a glass door at a party or accidentally waving to the wrong person at the theatre. Participants were then shown how the people in the stories reacted. In some experiments, they were told that the people acted embarrassed or that they laughed at themselves; in other experiments they were shown pictures of embarrassed-looking or laughing people.
Overall, participants judged the people who laughed at their own minor blunders to be warmer, more competent and more authentic than those who acted embarrassed.
"What's interesting is that embarrassment was often perceived as excessive," Sezer said. "Observers tended to think that actors who displayed embarrassment were feeling more embarrassed than the situation warranted, while laughing signaled that they recognized the mistake was minor."
There was, however, a caveat – the mistake had to be harmless. In one experiment, a person was described as accidentally tripping and breaking their own arm, in another, the person tripped and knocked over a colleague, breaking the colleague's arm. In those cases, the person who laughed at themselves was seen as behaving inappropriately.
"What's important is calibrating the reaction to the seriousness of the mistake," Sezer says.
In the future, the researchers plan to look at how other variables affect their findings – including cultural norms around embarrassment and humor, gender norms, and settings like workplaces, to better understand when humor is socially effective versus risky.
Article: " Transcending Embarrassment: On The Reputational Benefits of Laughing at Yourself ," by Selin Göksel, PhD, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Övül Sezer, PhD, Cornell SC Johnson School of Business, and Jonathan Berman, London Business School. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published online Feb. 26, 2026.
