Comprehension and Memory for Sexist Jokes
Doug Eamon, Dawn Dent, & Kim Pleva
University of Wisconsin - Whitewater
Dave Kohlmeyer
Marquette University
Method
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
http://facstaff.uww.edu/eamond/research/GJokesDK1/ConsentGJokesDK1.htm
Memory and Text Comprehension
Montpellier, France, September, 2006
Recall
Materials
Twelve matched gender biased jokes that could be “reversed” as in
the examples below and 6 “neutral” jokes.
Biased Against Males
Biased 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!"
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
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
(MBiased against females = 2.94 vs. MBiased 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, (MBiased
against females = 1.87 vs. MBiased against males =
1.76), F(1, 46) = 9.19, p < .01, Figure 2).
Figure 1
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
Figure 2
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,
717-721.
Cantor, J. R., (1976). What is funny to whom? The role of gender. Journal of Communication,
26, 164-172.
Derks, P., Gardner, J. B., & Agarwal, R. (1998). Recall of innocent and tendentious humorous
material. Humor, 11(1), 5-19.
Schmidt, S. R. (1994). Effects of humor on sentence memory. Journal of Experimental
Psychology, 20(4), 953-967.