Reactions to Humorous Comments and Implicit Theories of Humor Styles

1. Reactions to Humorous Comments and Implicit Theories of Humor Styles Nicholas A. Kuiper, Gillian A. Kirsh, and Catherine Leite Presented by Willie Hallford

2. Topic: the impact of a friend’s use of humorous comments on (1) the recipient’s desire to continue interacting with that friend, (2) the recipient’s positive and negative feelings about self. Note: the article presented three different studies. This presentation is based just the first one.

3. Background/lit review Theory: based on Martin's theory of four Humor Styles Adaptive: Affiliative & Self-enhancing Maladaptive: Aggressive & Self-defeating Affiliative humor involves funny, non-hostile jokes, and spontaneous witty banter to amuse others in a respectful way. Self-enhancing humor involves a humorous outlook on life and a realistic perspective in stressful situations. Aggressive humor puts others down by using sarcasm, teasing and ridicule. Self-defeating humor involves self-disparagement and allowing oneself to be the ‘butt’ of the joke.

4. Prior research 1. Many studies using Martin's HSQ provide evidence that the four dimensions do exist in human interactions. 2. Recent research also suggests that higher adaptive humor is assoc with less depression & higher self-esteem. higher maladaptive humor is assoc with more depression & lower self-esteem. 3. Much less is known about how these humor styles may impact on another person in a typical social interaction (Klein & Kuiper, 2006).

5. Purposes/hypotheses Effects of humor in social interactions were explored in the present studies by focusing on the responses made by individuals that were the recipients of humorous comments pertaining to each of the four humor styles. 1. To determine the extent to which each type of humorous comment (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating) might have either a positive or negative impact on the recipient’s overall desire to continue interacting with the individual that just made that comment. 2. To determine the degree to which each type of humorous comment might make recipients feel either more positive or negative about themselves. Overall, we expected that the adaptive humorous comments (self-enhancing and affiliative) would result in a stronger desire to continue interacting with the friend and more positive feelings about self, than the maladaptive humorous comments (self-defeating, aggressive).

6. Method Sample: one hundred and thirty-two university students (42 males and 90 females), enrolled in introductory psychology courses at the University of Western Ontario. Their mean age was 19.23 (SD = 1.12), with a range from 17 to 24. Short scenarios were presented in a questionnaire format. Participants were first asked to imagine that a friend had just made a humorous comment in a social situation. Each humor style was represented by a brief statement that captured the essence of that particular style: “A friend makes a positive humorous comment to help maintain group morale” (affiliative humor style) “A friend makes a positive humorous comment to cheer him/herself up” (self-enhancing humor) “A friend makes a humorous comment that puts down another person in the group” (aggressive humor) “A friend gets carried away in making humorous comments that are self-critical” (self-defeating humor).

7. For each humorous comment, participants first rated the degree to which they would want to continue interacting with a friend using that type of humor. Following this, participants indicated the extent to which each type of humorous comment would make them feel either more positive or negative about themselves. These self-ratings were made separately for positive and negative feelings, as previous research has demonstrated that these two constructs are often independent (Kirsh & Kuiper, 2003). Ratings were made on 5-point Likert scales, with 1 = “not at all” and 5 = “very much.”

8. Results

9. Overall participants indicated that they would be significantly more likely to continue interacting with a friend who used adaptive rather than maladaptive humor (means of 4.37 versus 3.01) self-focused humor resulted in a greater desire to continue interacting than other-focused humor (means of 3.83 versus 3.54) Furthermore, No difference between self-enhancing and affiliative (4.38 versus 4.36), but participants were significantly less likely to want to continue interacting with friends who used aggressive humorous comments, when compared with friends who used self-defeating comments (3.30 versus 2.72). Similar patterns for Positive Self-Feeling and for Negative Self-feeling . . .

10. Discussion Findings support the idea that humor styles may have strong effects on social interactions and self-perceptions. Specifically, compared to adaptive humor styles, individuals are less likely to want to continue interacting with others displaying maladaptive aggressive or self-defeating humor. Furthermore, these differential effects may also pertain to recipients’ feelings about themselves. Compared to adaptive humor, maladaptive humor styles resulted in recipients having less positive and more negative feelings about themselves.