Oscar Wilde once referred to sarcasm as “the highest form of intelligence,” and according to new research, he may actually be correct.

As sarcastic people around the world have long believed, researchers have confirmed that sarcasm requires a degree of social intelligence that those who are not sarcastic may lack. But what these wise guys may not know is that, according to new, international research, sarcasm not only indicates intelligence for the wise guy himself (or herself), but actually helps those on the receiving end of the sarcasm become more creative.

You are welcome, world.

[Image via someecards]

But in case anyone doubts the veracity of this, Dr. Li Huang, assistant professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD business school in France and a co-author of the research, explained the theory in detail to the Huffington Post.

“Both constructing and decoding sarcasm requires overcoming the psychological distance between two opposite meanings — what’s said and what’s intended. Traversing psychological distance often triggers abstract thinking, a cognitive process responsible for creative thinking. As a result, sarcasm can fuel creativity for both the expresser and recipient.”

The researchers based their conclusion on three separate experiments, where they asked more than 100 men and women to either be sarcastic or sincere, as well as to either be the one to express the sincerity or sarcasm or to be on the receiving end of either. In another experiment, more than 250 people had to think about someone they trust, and then imagine that person making either sarcastic or sincere comments.

At the end of each experiment, the people were asked to complete either a task or test designed to measure their creativity and abstract thinking. The results showed that those participants who were asked to express, receive, or think about sarcasm tended to score higher in creativity and abstract thinking than those who were in the control groups.

“We were not too surprised by the fact that sarcasm can increase creativity,” Huang explained. “But the fact that it increases creative thinking for the recipients as well was somewhat a surprise. Only after we found out the common mechanism for expressers and recipients, that is abstract thinking, it started to make sense to us.”

In other words: duh.

The results of the tests led researchers to conclude that a “cognitive benefit of sarcasm must be abstract thinking, which then can boost creativity.”

Dr. Adam Galinsky, who is a professor of business at Columbia Unversity as well as a co-author of the research, said the added work of interpreting sarcasm is beneficial to the recipient.

“To perceive and correctly understand sarcasm we have to recognize there is a difference between the stated content and the intended meaning. One of the main benefits that we know of is creativity and this flexibility of thought.”

It’s that flexibility of thought, Dr. Galinsky explained, that may be behind the reason why some people with autism sometimes have difficulty recognizing sarcasm, along with other social cues.

Dr. Huang refers to sarcasm as a hostile humor.

“While research has a slightly better understanding about how hostile humor affects relationship or how non-hostile humor affects our cognitive processes, we know very little about how hostile humors, such as sarcasm, may also have positive impact on cognitive processes. Our research is one of the very first to theorize and study this topic,” he explained.

So, the next time someone asks you to stop being so sarcastic, tell them you are actually doing them a favor, and remind them that Fyodor Dostoevsky defined sarcasm as “the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.”

He looks like a fun guy, right? [Image credit: Wikipedia]

[Image credit: HCC]