The Impact of Culture and Social Distance on Humor Appreciation, Sharing, and Production

Building on the benign violation theory and self-construal theory, we conducted four studies to examine how culture and social distance would influence humor appreciation, sharing, and production. Study 1 found that Chinese participants appreciated and intended to share a joke involving distant others more than that involving close others. They also generated funnier titles for a joke involving distant others than close others. Studies 2a and 2b compared Chinese and Americans using various types of jokes, replicating the social distance effect among Chinese but finding little effect of social distance among Americans. In Study 3, interdependence-primed participants generated more humorous titles for a joke involving distant than close others, whereas independence-primed participants showed no effect of social distance. The research provides further support to the benign violation theory from a cultural perspective and has important implications for cross-cultural communications.

The neurodevelopmental basis of humor appreciation: A fNIRS study of young children

Humor is crucial for social development. Despite this, very few studies have examined the neurodevelopment of humor in very young children, and none to date have used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to study this important cognitive construct. The main aim of the current study was to characterize the neural basis of humor processing in young children between the ages of 6–8 years. Thirty-five healthy children (6–8 years old) watched funny and neutral video clips while undergoing fNIRS imaging. We observed activation increases in left temporo-occipito-parietal junction (TOPJ), inferior-parietal lobe (IPL), dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and superior parietal lobe (SPL) regions. Activation in left TOPJ was positively correlated with age. In addition, we found that coherence increased in humor viewing compared to neutral content, mainly between remote regions. This effect was different for boys and girls, as boys showed a more pronounced increase in coherence for funny compared to neutral videos, more so in frontoparietal networks. These results expand our understanding of the neurodevelopment of humor by highlighting the effect of age on the neural basis of humor appreciation as well as emphasizing different developmental trajectories of boys and girls.

How cognitive, social, and emotional profiles impact humor appreciation: sense of humor in autism spectrum disorder and Williams syndrome

Humor is a complex and multi-faceted phenomenon composed of a variety of cognitive, social, and emotional processes. This paper will discuss humor appreciation in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and individuals with Williams syndrome (WS), a rare genetic disorder mainly characterized by intellectual disabilities, high social approach tendencies and high positive emotions. Drawing on research on the comprehension and appreciation of humor in individuals with ASD, this paper aims to better understand how the particular cognitive, social, and emotional profile of individuals with WS might affect their appreciation of humor and how such research could ultimately lead to a greater understanding of the nature of humor.

Turnover among medical clowns early in their career

In recent years, several investigations of the medical clowning profession have appeared in the literature. However, few studies have focused on factors associated with turnover among medical clowns early in their careers. The current study examined whether individual differences in humor disposition predicted turnover behavior. Participants were 111 medical clowns in a three-phase longitudinal study. Humor disposition was measured in the first week of their training, clowns' job satisfaction two months later, and turnover six months after that. Results showed that humor appreciation decreased actual turnover through the mediating role of job satisfaction, whereas individual differences in humor creation directly decreased turnover. In addition, previous traumatic experiences moderated the associations between humor appreciation and turnover. Overall, our research findings support the notion that humor disposition can help predict which clowns remain in the hospital.

At whose expense? System justification and the appreciation of stereotypical humor targeting high- versus low-status groups

Many popular comedians tell complicated jokes that involve multiple levels of interpretation. The same joke may be perceived as criticizing or reinforcing the societal status quo, depending on perceivers’ assumptions about the target of the punchline (e.g., whether the joke is at the expense of high- or low-status groups). We focused on how such jokes are experienced by listeners who are psychologically prone to justifying (vs. challenging) the status quo. In a sample of Mechanical Turk workers (N = 179), we explored whether individual differences in system justification would be associated with the appreciation of group-based (stereotypical) humor, depending on the perceived target of the joke. As hypothesized, high system-justifiers found jokes targeting low-status groups (e.g., women, poor people, racial/ethnic minorities) to be funnier than low system-justifiers did. In some cases, low system-justifiers found jokes targeting high-status groups (rich people, European Americans) to be funnier than high system-justifiers did. These results expand upon previous demonstrations that humor appreciation is linked to relatively stable ideological dispositions and suggest that different individuals may perceive complex group-based humor in divergent ways.

How Do Observers React to Companies’ Humorous Responses to Online Public Complaints?

The current research examines the way that observing consumers react when companies use humor to address online public complaints on social media. Drawing on, first, a field study using companies’ humorous responses on social media and, second, on two main scenario-based experiments, we use benign violation theory to capture simultaneously the unfavorable effect (i.e., inferred negative motives) and the favorable effect (i.e., humor appreciation) of employing humor in a public complaining context. The results reveal that online observers respond more favorably (in terms of likes, retweets, and purchase intentions) when firms use affiliative humor (e.g., laughing with the complainer) rather than aggressive humor (e.g., laughing at the complainer). Also, affiliative humor and an accommodative recovery (e.g., apologies and compensation) provide equal results in terms of observers’ purchase intentions. Because observers infer more negative motives of companies, affiliative humor compensates over an accommodative recovery by being funnier. Finally, our last study presents a reversal effect depending on brand personality; while sincere brands should always favor affiliative humor, aggressive humor elicits higher purchase intentions when performed by exciting brands. This research gives managerial insights about observers’ reactions to humorous responses to online complaints and the importance for humor to fit with brand personality.

What Makes Things Funny? An Integrative Review of the Antecedents of Laughter and Amusement

Despite the broad importance of humor, psychologists do not agree on the basic elements that cause people to experience laughter, amusement, and the perception that something is funny. There are more than 20 distinct psychological theories that propose appraisals that characterize humor appreciation. Most of these theories leverage a subset of five potential antecedents of humor appreciation: surprise, simultaneity, superiority, a violation appraisal, and conditions that facilitate a benign appraisal. We evaluate each antecedent against the existing empirical evidence and find that simultaneity, violation, and benign appraisals all help distinguish humorous from nonhumorous experiences, but surprise and superiority do not. Our review helps organize a disconnected literature, dispel popular but inaccurate ideas, offers a framework for future research, and helps answer three long-standing questions about humor: what conditions predict laughter and amusement, what are the adaptive benefits of humor, and why do different people think vastly different things are humorous?

Comic styles and their relation to the sense of humor, humor appreciation, acceptability of prejudice, humorous self-image and happiness

The present study investigates the relationships of eight comic styles (fun, benevolent humor, nonsense, wit, irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism) with acceptability of prejudice (laughing at different groups and topics), humorous self-image (funniness and frequency of laughter), humor appreciation (funniness and aversiveness of cartoons with different structures and contents), and happiness. A representative Chilean adult sample (N=857, 60.8% women; age M=40.50, SD=17.28) was recruited in face-to-face interviews and online surveys. They completed self-reports of all variables as well as a humor appreciation test. Most of the comic styles related to finding the cartoons funnier. Furthermore, the darker styles were more strongly related to laughing at a variety of topics and groups. Also, happiness was positively related to fun and benevolent humor and negatively to cynicism. This study provides evidence of the criterion validity of the Comic Style Markers in Latin-American cultures and highlights differences between lighter and darker styles.