Memorable humorous incidents: gender, themes and setting effects

Giffen, Katherine Van; Maher, Kathleen M.

doi:10.1515/humr.1995.8.1.39

Cited by 13 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…For example, Sagaria and Derks (1985) found that cartoon pictures reduced caption recall in a population with low verbal skills, while a population with high verbal skills performed more poorly without the pictures. In an "autobiographical/everyday memory" study, Van Giffen and Mäher (1995) reported that sex and aggression had relatively little impact on memory for everyday occurrences.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recall of innocent and tendentious humorous material

Derks¹,

Gardner²,

Agarwal³

1998

Humr

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Four studies comparedmemoryfor material that varied in humor, aggressive sexuality (tendency), and style. The findings were that humor improved memoryfor the material but arousing material increased recall further and interacted additively with humor. Humor seemed to have an effect on attention and selection of material while tendency influenced motivation and strength of recall Humor's role in education is assured. No matter how uncertain the effect of humor on appropriate attention and relevant memory, it is irresistible in the classroom. Indeed, when amusement is relevant to the task, äs in the memory for jokes to be transmitted in a social setting, there is a positive, if slight, effect on recall.In the earliest published study, Heim (1936) found that after a delay of between two and twenty-four weeks, 62 percent of the material initially laughed at was remembered, while only 8 percent of the material that did not elicit laughter was recalled. This figure was inflated slightly by the inclusion of three not-funny Stimuli that were remembered better than "slightly funny" Stimuli. In fact, with some computational gymnastics, it can be ascertained that on a 5 point scale (assuming "very funny" = 4 to "not funny" = 0) the remembered items were rated an average of 2.1 (just more than "funny") while the not remembered items averaged 1.3 (somewhat more than "slightly funny"). In spite of these reasonably clear results, Heim concludes that, "The main result of this experiment is to make one exceedingly chary of setting up any rules on the subject of humor" (p. 161).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recall of innocent and tendentious humorous material

Derks¹,

Gardner²,

Agarwal³

1998

Humr

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“…An additional limitation of Study 1 is that the object of ridicule was not recorded. Aggressive humor is told at the expense of others (Martin et al, 2003), and nearly half of jokes told in groups are about the stupidity of other people (van Giffen & Maher, 1995). Although aggressive jokes could be about an uninvolved person or group of people, the butt of the joke could also be the joker's partner or other members of the group (Lampert & Ervin-Tripp, 2006).…”

Section: Limitations and Directions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is it something I said? Sense of humor and partner embarrassment

Hall

2010

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

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This manuscript explores one romantic partner's humor use and the resulting embarrassment felt by the other partner using coorientation theory. Self-report and partner perception data were gathered from 106 couples (N ¼ 212) in romantic relationships, and two coorientation variables were calculated. Actor-Partner Independence Models estimated the relationships between four humor styles and partner embarrassment. Aggressive humor was related to partner embarrassment and self-defeating humor with feeling embarrassed by one's partner. For women, perceived similarity in aggressive and self-defeating humor mitigated embarrassment, and greater understanding of men's self-defeating humor was related to embarrassment. In Study 2, a 2 Â 2 experiment (N ¼ 222) tested whether self-defeating humor predicts embarrassment or whether embarrassment predicts self-defeating humor use, with results supporting the former.

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“…To help maintain perspective, note carefully that the trends described here can be safely generalized only to humor responses to prepared material in laboratory situations. In a provocative study, Van Giffen and Mäher (1995) found that when participants recalled humorous incidents from their lives that did not involve jokes or prepared humor, the most prevalent theme was not sex or hostility but stupidity, neither victim gender Brought to you by | University of Queensland -UQ Library Authenticated Download Date | 6/18/15 9:53 PM was rated äs funnier than the other, and each gender tended to recall more incidents involving same-gender victims. This sobering glance at the real world does not detract one iota from the power of prepared humor or the reactions to it described here, but it does make clear that prepared humor accounts for only pari of humor's impact in everyday life.…”

Section: Caveatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender differences in humor appreciation revisited

Herzog¹

1999

Humor

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Mundorf et al. (1988) found a complex pattern of gender differences in humor appreciation. Specifically, males enjoyed sexual humor more than females did regardless of humor-victim gender, butfor hostile humor each gender enjoyed humor with an opposite-gender victim more than the other gender did. The present study was a conceptual replication of the Mundorf study with cartoons äs Stimuli and with an added independent variable: explicitness ofthe humor Stimuli. The results failed to replicate the pattern reported by Mundorf et al. Instead, females liked sexual humor with male victimsjust äs much äs males did but strongly disliked both types of humor when they had female victims. High explicitness was generally preferred over low explicitness except when females rated either sexual cartoons or cartoons with female victims or when sexual cartoons had male victims. A coherent account ofboth studies andofprevious research on this topic can be given in terms of the evolution of gender attitudes toward humor, with changes occurring primarily infernales äs a result ofthe continued influence of the women's movement.In their study of gender differences in humor appreciation, Mundorf et al. (1988) found a complex interaction involving participant gender, humor type (sexual versus hostile), and humor-victim gender. Males enjoyed sexual humor more than females did, regardless of victim gender. However, for hostile humor, each gender enjoyed humor with an oppositegender victim more than the other gender did. The researchers explained their results for sexual humor in terms of traditional gender roles regarding sexuality. They explained their results for hostile humor by a

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Memorable humorous incidents: gender, themes and setting effects

Cited by 13 publications

References 13 publications

Recall of innocent and tendentious humorous material

Recall of innocent and tendentious humorous material

Is it something I said? Sense of humor and partner embarrassment

Gender differences in humor appreciation revisited

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