Comprehension and Memory for Sexist Jokes Doug Eamon, Dawn Dent, & Kim Pleva University of Wisconsin - Whitewater Memory and Text Comprehension Montpellier, France, September, 2006 Abstract After rating sexist jokes disparaging males and females on scales of humorousness, offensiveness, and bias, participants were given an unexpected cued recall test for memory for the punch line and an item of “incidental” information in the jokes. Recall of both punch lines and incidental information was negatively related to offensiveness for females, but not for males. Recall was unrelated to humorousness. These results are consistent with a view of sexist humor having a distracting rather than thematic organizing effect on comprehension. Introduction Jokes may be considered as brief narratives with unexpected “conclusions” - punch lines - typically inconsistent with information preceding them. Many studies have demonstrated the facilitative effects of text coherence and predictability on memory (e.g., Bransford & Johnson, 1972). Are jokes inherently inconsistent and therefore difficult to recall, or do punch lines provide a narrative theme for preceding material, and thereby facilitate memory? Sexist jokes are particularly interesting because they can give rise to strong emotional responses; several studies have linked emotion-inducing materials, including humor, to recall (D’Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2005; Schmidt, 1994). Ratings of humorousness and offensiveness of sexist jokes reveal conflicting results; for example, While Cantor (1976) found females rate jokes biased against women as funny or funnier than men rated them, Herzog (1999) reported females favor jokes biased against men. Research has shown that both humorousness (Maher & van Giffen, 1988, Schmidt, 1994) and offensiveness (Derks, Gardner, & Agarwal, 1998) can enhance recall, but we found no study specifically of memory for gender-biased jokes. Such jokes provide a device for assessing the simultaneous effects of arousal from both humor and tendentiousness on memory. Hypotheses: If punch lines provide an organizing theme, it would be predicted that recall of information within the joke would be enhanced by tendentious punch lines. If punch lines are inconsistent with the preceding material, tendentious punch lines would be expected to interfere with recall This experiment is currently active and available on-line at Recall Punch Lines. A 2 (subject sex) x 2 (joke bias) AOV of the average number of punch lines recalled found a main effect for joke bias, where the number of punch lines for jokes biased against males (M = 65.5%) was greater than that for jokes biased against females (M = 55.6%), F(1, 45) = 4.30, p <.05. We found no effect for sex of participant, nor did the interaction of joke bias x sex of participant reach significance. Incidental Information. A 2 (subject sex) x 2 (joke bias) AOV of the average number of incidental lines recalled revealed no significant effects. Ratings and Recall We conducted four multiple regression analyses with dependent variables: (1) recall of punch lines of jokes biased against females, (2) recall of punch lines of jokes biased against males, (3) recall of incidental information from jokes biased against females, and (4) recall of incidental information from jokes biased against males. For each of these analyses, predictors were sex of rater, rating of offensiveness of the respective jokes and the sex x rating interaction. (1) Punch lines of jokes biased against females. We found a significant negative effect for average rating of offensiveness (ß = -.444, p <.05), as well as an interaction between sex of rater and offensive rating (ß =.815, p <.05). Data showed that the negative relationship occurred for female raters but not for males. (2) Punch lines of jokes biased against males. No significant effects were observed. (3) Incidental information from jokes biased against females. As with the analysis of punch lines, we found a significant negative effect for average rating of offensiveness (ß = -.467, p <.05), and the interaction of sex of rater and offensive rating marginally significant (ß =.717, p =.062). Again, the negative relationship occurred for female raters but not for males. (4) Incidental information from jokes biased against males. No significant effects were observed. Conclusions The overall better recall of punch lines biased against males may be the result of an isolation effect. The negative relation between offensiveness and recall suggests that sexist humor is distracting rather than facilitative, at least for females. Our ratings data are consistent with a dispositional theory of humor (Cantor, 1976), where in-group members favorably regard disparaging remarks directed at out-group members, but unfavorably regard such remarks directed at the in-group. Selected References Bransford, J. D., & Johnson, M. K. (1972). Contextual prerequisites for understanding: Some investigations of comprehension and recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11, Cantor, J. R., (1976). What is funny to whom? The role of gender. Journal of Communication, 26, Derks, P., Gardner, J. B., & Agarwal, R. (1998). Recall of innocent and tendentious humorous material. Humor, 11(1), Schmidt, S. R. (1994). Effects of humor on sentence memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 20(4), Dave Kohlmeyer Marquette University Method Materials Twelve matched gender biased jokes that could be “reversed” as in the examples below and 6 “neutral” jokes. Procedure In an on-line experiment, 19 males and 29 females rated 6 jokes that disparaged females, 6 jokes that disparaged males, and 6 “neutral” jokes on 5-point scales of humorousness, offensiveness, and bias. No subject rated both the against-females and against-males version of any of the jokes; all rated the neutral jokes. Following the ratings, participants were tested in a unexpected cued recall task for punch lines (“Why was the male brain cheaper?”) and other “incidental” information (“How many brains were available?”). After consultation, inter-judge agreement of recall accuracy was greater than 95%. Results Biased Against MalesBiased Against Females A patient was in desperate need of a brain transplant. After a long wait, the brain surgeon phoned with two brains available. One was a man's brain, which would cost $20,000 and the other was a woman's brain, which would cost only $10,000. "Why is the woman's brain only $10,000?" asked the patient. "Well," said the surgeon, "it's been used!" A patient was in desperate need of a brain transplant. After a long wait, the brain surgeon phoned with two brains available. One was a woman's brain, which would cost $20,000 and the other was a man's brain, which would cost only $10,000. "Why is the man's brain only $10,000?" asked the patient. "Well," said the surgeon, "it's been used!" Joke Ratings Humorousness. A 2 (subject sex) x 2 (joke bias) AOV revealed that females rated jokes biased against females as less humorous (M = 2.42) than the same jokes in their against-male form (M = 2.82), but little difference was found in the ratings by males (M Biased against females = 2.94 vs. M Biased against males = 2.66), F(1, 46) = 12.81, p <.001, Figure 1). Offensiveness. An AOV for ratings of offensiveness showed that females rated the jokes in their against-female form as more offensive (M = 2.37) than the same jokes in their against-male form (M = 1.74), but little difference was found in offensiveness ratings by males, (M Biased against females = 1.87 vs. M Biased against males = 1.76), F(1, 46) = 9.19, p <.01, Figure 2). Figure 1 Figure 2