Humour mediates the facilitative effect of bizarreness in delayed recall

Worthen, James B.; Deschamps, Joseph D.

doi:10.1348/000712608x298476

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Research suggests that individuals use fantasy to deal with loneliness and aversive situations because it provides them with companionship and entertainment (Logan, 1985;Lynn & Rhue, 1988;Rhue & Lynn, 1987;Wilson & Barber, 1982). Indeed, findings indicate that individuals may use imagination to produce interpersonal and entertaining scenarios to increase feelings of connection and shift attention away from aversive conditions such as isolation and conflict (Honeycutt & Keaton, 2012;Lang, 1995;Poerio et al, 2016;Worthen & Deschamps, 2008). Similarly, the active use of humor helps individuals alleviate tension when their sense of connection is undermined (Robert, 2017;Tucker et al, 2013).…”

Section: Playfully Redesigning Communion Hindrance Job Demandsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using playful work design to deal with hindrance job demands: A quantitative diary study.

Scharp¹,

Breevaart²,

Bakker³

2021

Journal of Occupational Health Psychology

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All job demands are exhausting, but hindrance job demands are particularly stressful since they also impede personal growth and goal attainment. In the present study, we use the dual perspective model to distinguish between agency hindrance job demands (i.e., task-related stressors that cost energy and offer few opportunities for mastery and competence) and communion hindrance job demands (i.e., social stressors that cost energy and limit the probability of experiencing close relationships). We hypothesize that daily agency hindrance job demands and daily communion hindrance job demands have unique indirect and negative associations with daily job performance (i.e., in-role and extra-role performance behaviors) through daily work engagement. In addition, we used theories about proactivity and play to hypothesize that the association of both types of hindrance job demands with work engagement will be moderated by playful work design—the process of proactively creating conditions during work activities that foster competition or fun. Employees from various occupational backgrounds filled out an online questionnaire at the end of each workday (N = 202 × 5.61 days = 1,133 observations). The results of structural equation modeling analyses supported our mediation hypotheses. In addition, as predicted, the negative association between agency hindrance job demands and work engagement was buffered on days when employees designed competition, whereas the negative relation between communion hindrance job demands and work engagement was buffered on days when employees designed fun. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

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Section: Playfully Redesigning Communion Hindrance Job Demandsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using playful work design to deal with hindrance job demands: A quantitative diary study.

Scharp¹,

Breevaart²,

Bakker³

2021

Journal of Occupational Health Psychology

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“…Humorous information is easily recalled, at higher rates than non-humorous information encoded in close temporal proximity (Carlson, 2011;Martin, 2010;Strick et al, 2010). Humorous content could be recalled after a substantial delay, for example about a 15-week delay (Worthen & Deschamps, 2008).…”

Section: Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

A series of experiments on humour perception and memorization – a case of humour associations and remembering humorous stories

Stoyanova

2015

EJHR

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Four experiments with 48 participants were conducted to study humour perception and memorization. A computerized method (FVW) from Vienna Test System was used (Kessler, Pietrzyk & Puhr, 2003), as well as humour associations, the recall of three funny stories, a short text evoking admiration and respect. The research was focused on what was associated with the word "humour" and on the types of the best remembered stories. The results indicated that the participants remembered better concrete rather than abstract stimuli, as well as meaningful rather than meaningless stimuli. The participants remembered well short verbal stimuli. They associated humour mainly with positive meaning, positive emotions (joy, happiness, amusement, satisfaction). The participants remembered better and nonintentionally the verbal stories heard by them that they estimated as the funniest compared to the stories estimated by them as less funny or the sentences provoking other positive emotions (admiration and respect). The funniest estimated stories were relevant to their personal experience, no matter if they contained puns or not. The estimated least funny story also contained puns, but contradicted some social norms related to the appropriate behaviour at the workplace.

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“…On the basis of the foregoing results, some researchers have suggested that the bizarreness effect might be driven by verbal elaboration rather than visual imagery (Anderson & Buyer, 1994;Hirshman et al, 1989;Kroll & Tu, 1988;Weir & Richman, 1996;Worthen, 1997;Worthen & Deschamps, 2008). However, investigating the role of visual imagery, and clearly contrasting these two possibilities, has been challenging because most extant research used sentences, a form of material that permits both imagery and verbal/semantic encoding.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The bizarreness effect and visual imagery: No impact of concurrent visuo-spatial distractor tasks indicates little role for visual imagery.

Besken¹,

Mulligan²

2022

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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Ancient as well as modern writers have promoted the idea that bizarre images enhance memory. Research has documented bizarreness effects, with one standard technique finding that sentences describing unusual, implausible, or bizarre scenarios are better remembered than sentences describing plausible, every day, or common scenarios. Not surprisingly, this effect is often attributed to visual imagery, and the effect often referred to as the bizarre imagery effect. But the role of imagery has been disputed even as research has found it difficult to clearly distinguish the effects of imagery from other possible bases for the bizarreness advantage. The current experiments assessed the visual-imagery hypothesis by disrupting visual imagery processes during encoding, which should reduce the bizarreness effect if it is indeed due to imagery. Specifically, one group carried out a concurrent task that selectively disrupted visual working memory (and visual imagery) during the encoding of sentences; a control group encoded the sentences without distraction. Across four experiments, the distractor task was dynamic visual noise, the spatial tapping task, and a visual span task. Each experiment found a robust bizarreness effect that was never reduced by visuospatial distraction. Combined, meta-analytic, and Bayesian analyses concurred with the results of the individual experiments. The results indicate little role for visual imagery in the bizarreness effect.

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Humour mediates the facilitative effect of bizarreness in delayed recall

Cited by 10 publications

References 35 publications

Using playful work design to deal with hindrance job demands: A quantitative diary study.

Using playful work design to deal with hindrance job demands: A quantitative diary study.

A series of experiments on humour perception and memorization – a case of humour associations and remembering humorous stories

The bizarreness effect and visual imagery: No impact of concurrent visuo-spatial distractor tasks indicates little role for visual imagery.

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