Contact: Nancy Bell, Assistant Professor of English, 208-883-9683, nbell@wsu.edu
Offering Up Bad Jokes a Good Way to Draw ‘Friendly Fire,’ WSU Researcher Shows
PULLMAN, Wash. - Offering up a joke - at least one of that isn't
politically incorrect or "off-color" - is rarely considered
particularly risky socially. But a recent study at Washington State
University suggests jokesters do risk receiving a surprising amount
of derision from their audience - particularly when it's made up of
those they love most.
Begun in 2007, the WSU research on failed humor supports earlier
findings suggesting a lot of face-saving goes on among all parties
whenever a joke is told. But the new research also demonstrates
that the failure to deliver on the promise of humor can lead to
surprisingly harsh responses from listeners - particularly when
those listeners are family members or close friends.
According to WSU Applied Linguist and Assistant Professor Nancy
Bell, people subjected to misfired efforts at humor respond most
often with remarks aimed at denigrating either the hapless joke
teller or the joke that went bad.
In fact, Bell said the verbal responses of nearly half of those
subjected to an intentionally bad joke in the WSU study ranged
somewhere between rude and downright offensive.
"The predominant verbal reaction to failed humor in our study was
oriented exclusively toward attacking the speaker," Bell said.
"These were basically attacks intended to result in the social
exclusion or humiliation of the speaker - punctuated on occasion
with profanity, a nasty glare or even a solid punch to the
arm."
Bell attributes this tendency to want to "punish" the offender when
an attempt at humor goes awry to a numbers of factors, all of which
relate to the assumptions and conventions that normally govern our
interactions with others.
To begin with, she said, humor - and particularly joke telling -
often disrupts the natural flow of conversation.
"Ordinarily we tolerate that disruption because the payoff is
entertaining," Bell explained. "But when we pause for a joke that
fails to deliver an entertaining payoff, it's just a disruption,
which is upsetting to us."
Jokes that fail to deliver on the promise of humor are also a
violation of a social contract, or set of unspoken rules we share
with others about how we are going to treat one another, she said.
Punishing the joke teller can be understood as a way of
acknowledging that contract violation and discouraging the speaker
from displaying similar behavior in the future.
Another reason is that failed humor - and non-spontaneous jokes in
particular - insult the listener by suggesting that he or she might
actually find it funny, Bell said. When it isn't, the insult is
complete, and a nasty response is one way of saying to the speaker
"Do not do that to me again."
But why is it that intimates, such as spouses, siblings and
long-time friends, are the ones most likely to treat an errant
jokester the most harshly?
Bell said it's essentially because - unlike people you work with or
know only casually - family and close friends know they're the ones
who are stuck with you.
"With intimates you have a long-term investment, she said. "Your
sister can't fire you, so your mean response to her lousy joke says
'Guess what, I don't want to spend the next 10 years listening to
those kind of jokes.'"
In addition to intimacy, Bell said age can be a major factor in
determining how readily and how harshly your ill-conceived efforts
at humor are attacked.
"The younger you are and the closer you are in age to your failed
humorist, the more likely you are to attack," Bell said.