factors predicting the perceived effectiveness of politicians' use of humor during a debate

7/30/2019 Factors predicting the perceived effectiveness of politicians' use of humor during a debate

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Factors predicting the perceived effectivenessof politicians’ use of humor during a debate

AMY BIPPUS

Abstract

Prior research on humor in the political context has focused primarily on

people’s reactions to humor about politicians in the form of cartoons or

jokes, or on specific politicians’ use of humor as a rhetorical strategy. This

study provides an empirical test of audience perceptions of the e¤ectiveness

of a politician’s use of humor during a political debate. Data were collected

during the 2004 election cycle; respondents were told a candidate had made

a humorous remark during a recent congressional campaign debate. Partya‰liation of the candidate and the target of the humor (himself vs. his op-

ponent) were counterbalanced. The results indicated that self-deprecating

humor was rated as more e¤ective, and both Democrats and Republicans

saw humor from a Democratic candidate as more e¤ective than from a Re-

publican. Being of the same versus opposite party of the candidate did not

a¤ect respondents’ attributions of the candidate’s motives for using humor

or its overall e¤ectiveness. Overall, the biggest predictor of perceived e¤ec-

tiveness was respondents’ assessment of the quality (timing and funniness)of the humor.

Keywords: Attribution theory; communication; political humor; public

speaking.

In recent years, the humor used by political candidates in their public

statements has been praised and critiqued, from Paul Wellstone’s ‘‘look-ing for Rudy’’ television ads during his 1990 Senate campaign (Candi-



this is not a new phenomenon; the value of humor as a rhetorical strategy

for public figures was noted by the early Greek and Roman philosophers,

with Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria providing perhaps the most specific

advice on appropriate topics and techniques for humor usage in public

speech.

Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that humor may be a wise commu-

nicative strategy for speakers to use (Gruner 1985). For example, Gruner

(1970) found that a speaker who used humor was rated higher in char-

acter than one who did not. A later study supported the positive e¤ect of

a speaker’s self-disparaging humor on audience perceptions (Chang and

Gruner 1981) as long as it does not exaggerate his or her character de-

fects. There is also mixed support for the premise that speeches including

humor are more memorable than those without (Kaplan and Pascoe

1977; Taylor 1964). In the realm of political speech, our understanding

of how and to what ends politicians may use humor has been enriched

by numerous rhetorical analyses focusing on specific politicians (e.g.,

Martin 2004; Meyer 1990; Dahlberg 1945). Analyzing politicians’ own

views, Yarwood (2001) interviewed U.S. Congress members about their

own opinions of the pitfalls and benefits of using humor in their work.

Though this patchwork of research suggests a rich tradition of humorusage by political figures, there has been a lack of empirical research

about its e¤ect on audiences. To that end, this study builds on attribution

theory and previous research on humor in public speaking and interper-

sonal contexts to assess the factors that predict the e¤ectiveness of politi-

cal candidates’ humorous messages.

Interestingly, much of the research on humor in the political context

has been focused on cartoons (e.g., Edwards 2001; Medhurst and

DeSousa 1981; Trahair 2003) or canned jokes about political figures, in-stead of the humor used by politicians themselves. Several researchers

have investigated individuals’ reactions to political cartoons, finding that

socio-demographic and personality factors a¤ect people’s reactions to the

humor expressed (Lowis 2003; Prerost 1993). Examining the influence of

political a‰liation, several studies have found that individuals prefer hu-

mor targeting candidates from the opposite party rather than their own

party (Priest 1966; Priest and Abrahams 1970; Weise 1999).

One of the distinguishing characteristics of candidate’s own use of hu-mor has been the target of the humor used — self vs. other. For example,

106 A. Bippus



campaign, he responded ‘‘I thought that remark accusing me of having

amnesia was uncalled for. I just wish I could remember who said it’’) as

well as his opponents (e.g., his ‘‘There you go again’’ comment to Presi-

dent Carter during the 1980 presidential campaign). But evidence of the

e¤ectiveness of self- vs. other-disparaging political humor has been only

anecdotal.

Self- and other-directed humor may engender di¤erences beyond the

target of humor. It may be argued that humor targeting an opposing can-

didate is inherently aggressive, whereas self-directed humor is not. Direct-

ing humor at others with whom there is at least a publicly competitive

relationship might be couched as good natured teasing, but scholars of

teasing (see Keltner et al. 2001; Kowalski 2004) typically note aggression

as a core component of such behavior. The implications of the perceived

aggression for audience reactions are less clear. More aggressive humor

tends to be perceived as more amusing (McCauley et al. 1983), but previ-

ous research that has found di¤erential reactions to humor directed at

outgroup vs. ingroup members, with regard to sex, ethnicity, and other

reference group distinctions (e.g., Decker 1986; Duncan 1985; LaFave

et al. 1974; LaFave et al. 1973; Priest 1972; Priest and Wilhelm 1974;

Stocking and Zillmann 1976). Furthermore, as LaFave et al. (1976)noted, disparaging another identification class inherently implies the

superiority of one’s own, thus invoking the range of research that

has established di¤erences in humor production and appreciation based

on superiority theory principles. In total, this prior research implies

that individuals will perceive other-directed humor as aggressive or hos-

tile, and will prefer it be directed at a group with which they do not

identify.

In more general contexts, several studies of audience reactions to self-directed vs. other-directed humor used by speakers have produced incon-

clusive results. There has been a pattern suggesting that humor directed at

the audience or a third party corresponds to higher ratings of credibility

(Hackman 1988), intelligence (Stocking and Zillmann 1976), and power

(Ziv et al. 1986) than self-directed humor. However, other results have

suggested that the target of humor has no e¤ect on ratings of speaker

intelligence, and its e¤ect on evaluations of speakers depends upon the

rater’s sex, with women finding self-disparaging humor more appeal-ing than do men (Tamborini and Zillmann 1981). In addition, these

Humor in politics 107



the speaker, instead of perceptions of the e¤ectiveness of the humor

itself — that is, the degree to which humor is seen as being a prudent and

useful communicative choice in the given situation.

Though research specifically gauging how people react to candidates’

use of humor is lacking, some insights may be gleaned from similar re-

search in the interpersonal context. To understand the e‰cacy of humor

as a communicative strategy, some studies have explored the factors that

predicted people’s perceptions of their friends’ use of humor during inter-

personal interactions, including comforting episodes (Bippus 2000) and

conflict (Bippus 2003). Bippus (2003) noted that extant research has sug-

gested myriad reasons why people may use humor, and attribution theory

suggests that receiver’s beliefs about why the speaker used humor should

have a significant influence on their reactions to it. In fact in an earlier

study, attributed motives for humor use during interpersonal conflict were

indeed found to be significant predictors of recipients’ reported outcomes

(Bippus 2003). That is not to say the nature of the humor itself is not

relevant; ‘‘recipients apparently do not give would-be humorists credit

for their e¤orts; they must perceive the humorous message to actually be

funny and appropriate’’ (Bippus 2003: 422). Both the quality of the hu-

mor, and the reasons why receivers believe the speaker chose to use it,shape how they react to the humor.

Taken together, the sum total of political humor seems to be focused

on rhetorical analyses of specific politicians’ use of humor, or studies of

humor about candidates instead of from candidates. Despite a long his-

tory of philosophers and political commentators noting the potential im-

portance of candidate humor, but also the possible pitfalls of misguided

humor, there is a lack of empirical data to validate these claims. The cur-

rent investigation builds upon prior research on humor, both in the polit-ical arena and in more general communicative contexts.

This project extends and refines prior research in several ways. First, it

examines individuals’ reactions to messages presented as coming from po-

litical candidates themselves, instead of political cartoons and other forms

of humor. Second, it focuses on audience reactions to specific humor mes-

sages used in a campaign debate. While numerous scholars (e.g., Dahl-

berg 1945; Martin 2004) have argued that humor has been an e¤ective

rhetorical device for specific politicians, it is not possible to isolate andassess the role of their humor in general, much less specific humorous

108 A. Bippus



and humor message to remove these extraneous sources of bias and allow

for manipulation of the candidates’ political a‰liation and the target of

the humor. Finally, in a prior study I acknowledged that the use of re-

called humorous messages in the context of an ongoing relationship lim-

ited the accuracy with which specific influences on individuals’ reactions

to the humor could be assessed (Bippus 2003). By removing relational

context and controlling the message variable, this study represents a

‘‘cleaner’’ test of the notion that receivers’ attributions about speakers’

motives predict their reactions to the humor itself.

1. The present study

Bippus (2003) found that individuals recalling a friend’s use of humor

during conflict most strongly felt that their friends were using humor to

improve the receivers’ mood, relieve their own anxiety, establish common

ground between themselves and the receiver, and change the receiver’s

perspective on the conflict issue. The least attributed reasons for their

friends’ humor were a lack of argumentative skills, desire to change

the topic, or sensitivity toward the receiver. It is unclear to what extent

audience members may conform to this pattern in determining why a

politician may use humor during a campaign debate. Besides the di¤erent

demands of the contexts — the politician may be seen as having mixed

motives toward both his opponent and audience — individuals judging

their friends have unique relational history to draw on in assessing their

friends’ motives. The first research question probes the motives attributed

to politicians for their humor usage during a debate:

RQ1: What motives for using humor do participants attribute most

strongly to political candidates?

As noted previously, research has tended to produce mixed results

about people’s reactions to self- versus other-targeted humor (e.g., Hack-

man 1988; Tamborini and Zillmann 1981). This research has been con-

ducted in public speaking and instructional contexts that may not gener-

alize well to the experience of evaluating a political candidate’s humor ina debate. The following research questions are aimed at illuminating the




RQ2: Will individuals rate a candidate’s humor more positively in

terms of quality and e¤ectiveness when it targets himself rather

than his opponent?

RQ3: Does the target of the humor used a¤ect individuals’ attribu-

tions of the candidate’s motives for using humor?

Attribution theory (Weiner 1986, 1995) proposes that individuals’ judg-

ments about the reasons for another’s behavior shape how they interpret

and respond to that behavior. There is copious research supporting the

notion that people respond more positively to humor targeting a di¤erent

reference group than their own (e.g., LaFave et al. 1974), and some havedocumented this tendency specifically with regard to political a‰liation

(Priest 1966; Priest and Abrahams 1970). Based on attribution theory,

when a candidate uses humor, audience members should be more likely

to attribute internal (self-oriented) motives to candidates when they are

not of their own political a‰liation, and external (other-oriented) motives

when the candidate is of their own party:

H1: Individuals will rate a candidate’s humor more positively interms of quality and e¤ectiveness when he is a member of their

own political party than when he is a member of the opposite

party.

H2: Individuals will attribute humor from a candidate of their own

political party less to internal motives, and more to external mo-

tives, as compared to a candidate from a di¤erent party.

Bippus (2003) found that people’s perceptions of the quality of their

friend’s humor were the single biggest predictor of their assessment of

the humor’s impact on the conflict. That is, people who felt a friend’s hu-

mor was well-timed and amusing were more likely to feel that the humor

contributed to progress in the conflict episode, and were less likely to see

the conflict as escalating. The following research question probed whether

this same association would hold for a more global assessment of e¤ec-

tiveness, and in the political context:

RQ4: How are recipients’ perceptions of the quality of the candi-

110 A. Bippus



The final research question probes the overarching issue of how these

factors in combination predict recipients’ evaluations of the humor used

by the candidate:

RQ5: To what degree do individuals’ attributions about the political

candidate’s motives for using humor predict their perceptions

of the humor’s e¤ectiveness?

2. Method

2.1. Participants

Participants (N ¼ 159) consisted of 51 men and 101 women (7 declined to

state), ranging in age from 20 to 45 (M ¼ 22:81, SD ¼ 4:20). Most iden-

tified their political a‰liation as Democrat (n ¼ 63, 39.6%) or Republican

(n ¼ 44 27.7%), with the remainder citing ‘‘Other’’ (n ¼ 29 18.2%), Amer-

ican Independent Party (n ¼ 16 10.1%), Green Party (n ¼ 1, .6%), and six

declining to state their a‰liation.

2.2. Procedure

Recruitment occurred in mid-October 2004, approximately three weeks

before Election Day 2004, which included presidential, congressional,

and local elections. Respondents were solicited from communication

classes at a large urban university and received extra credit for their par-

ticipation. They were invited to participate in an online survey gauging

their ‘‘reactions to specific messages spoken by congressional political

candidates in recent debates.’’ Upon logging onto the online survey web-

site, they were randomly directed to one of four scenarios. The scenarios

transposed the political a‰liation of the hypothetical speaker (Republi-

can or Democrat) as follows:

Marcus Darchette is the (Democratic or Republican) incumbent U.S.

Representative from the 17th

congressional district in Illinois who isrunning for re-election in November. In a recent campaign debate




The moderator was forced to cut in several times to ask the two men

to lower their volume and to stop talking over each other. At one

point, Mr. Darchette apologized jokingly by saying:

What followed was a joking comment attributed to the speaker. The

nature of the humorous messages that attributed to them was also alter-

nated; the following represented the ‘‘self-targeted’’ message:

I know I can go a bit overboard when I get going. My daughter even

said that maybe the moderator should have music to drown me out

when I go on too long, like they do at the Emmy awards.

In the ‘‘other-targeted’’ humor conditions, the message read as follows:

You must excuse me, but when I am right, I get angry. Mr. Patillo, on

the other hand, gets angry when he is wrong. As a result, we are angry

at each other much of the time.

After reading their scenarios, participants completed several measures

gauging their reactions to the humor used in the scenarios. Upon comple-

tion, participants were told that the candidates were fictitious and that thehumorous comments were derived from quotes by Jay Leno and Charles

de Gaulle.

2.3. Measures

Respondents completed several measures adapted from Bippus (2003) to

represent self-oriented and other-oriented motives the speaker may havehad for using humor during the debate. Twenty-eight items represented

the eight motives (all scale alphas > :68): the internal motives of anxiety

relief , topic change, lack of argumentative skills, and hostility; and the ex-

ternal motives of mood improvement, sensitivity, perspective change, and

common ground . One item was dropped from the sensitivity measure to

improve the internal consistency of this measure. The items representing

these measures, as well as the descriptive statistics for each measure, are

provided in Table 1. Respondents’ perceptions of the quality of the hu-mor were assessed with nine items derived from Bippus (2003) (a ¼ :94).

112 A. Bippus


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/factors-predicting-the-perceived-effectiveness-of-politicians-use-of-humor 9/19(a ¼ :88): ‘‘I don’t think he should have used humor like he did’’ (re-versed); ‘‘I don’t think his use of humor was appropriate’’ (reversed); ‘‘I

Table 1. Humor motive measures

Hostility (per-item M ¼ 3:89, SD ¼ 1:54)

He used humor to show aggression.

He was expressing hostility toward his opponent.He used humor because he was angry at his opponent.

He used humor because he felt hostile toward his opponent.

Mood Improvement (per-item M ¼ 4:60, SD ¼ 1:41)

He used humor to improve the general mood.

He just wanted to create a better mood for everyone.

I think he used humor to try to improve the mood of the debate.

He was trying to lighten up the tone of the debate.

Lack of Argumentative Skills (per-item M ¼ 3:82, SD ¼ 1:33)

I think he used humor because he was afraid he couldn’t do a good job of arguing his

points.He used humor because he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to win the argument.

I think he used humor because he wasn’t confident about what he was saying in the

debate.

Topic Change (per-item M ¼ 3:74, SD ¼ 1:20)

He used humor to try to change the subject away from the issue they were fighting

about.

He used humor to try to avoid having to talk about the issue they were arguing about.

He used humor to try to transition onto another topic.

I think he used humor to because he didn’t want to talk about the issue anymore.

Sensitivity (per-item M ¼ 3:78, SD ¼ 1:30)

He used humor to try to make a serious point without being o¤ensive.He wanted to make a point in a nonthreatening way.

He was trying, in a nonconfrontational way, to bring up something that might be a

sensitive topic.

Perspective Change (per-item M ¼ 3:68, SD ¼ 1:37)

He was trying to propose a di¤erent perspective to look at the conflict from.

He was trying to show a di¤erent way of looking at the issue they were arguing about.

He used humor to propose a di¤erent way of seeing the issue they were fighting about.

Anxiety Relief (per-item M ¼ 4:97, SD ¼ 1:02)

He used humor because he was getting stressed during the conflict.

He used humor to relieve his own anxiety or stress.His own distress during the argument caused him/her to use humor to deal with it.

Common Ground (per-item M ¼ 4:39, SD ¼ 1:31)

He used humor to bring up something he had in common with the audience.

He used humor to show some common ground between him and the audience.

He used humor to show how he was similar to the audience.

He joked to make it so the audience could relate to him.

He was trying to create common ground between him and his opponent.




3. Results

The first research question probed the relative prevalence of the motives

individuals attributed to the candidates for their use of humor. Inspection

of the means for each of the humor motive measures (see Table 1) re-

vealed that the most strongly attributed motive was anxiety relief; that

is, respondents believed the candidate was getting stressed and used hu-

mor to di¤use his own anxiety. The next two highest means were on the

measures of mood improvement (i.e., the candidate was trying to improve

the general mood of the audience and lighten the tone of the debate) and

common ground (the speaker wanted to show that he had something in

common with the audience and/or his opponent). None of the other

measures of attributed motive had means falling above the scale median

of 4.0.

Given that (a) the scenarios involved only Republican and Democratic

candidates, (b) these two parties were the best represented in the sample,

and (c) these are traditionally thought of as ‘‘opposing’’ parties, only

those individuals who identified their a‰liation as Democrat or Republi-

can were included in analyses in which a‰liation was a factor. Research

Question 2 explored whether candidates’ humor would be rated more orless positively when it was self-directed rather than targeting the oppo-

nent. Hypothesis 1 posited that respondents would rate humor from a

candidate of their own political a‰liation more positively than a candi-

date’s from the opposite party. To address these issues, a 2 (candidate

a‰liation) Â2 (participant a‰liation) Â2 (humor target) MANOVA

was computed on the dependent variables of humor quality and e¤ective-

ness. While there were no significant interactions among the independent

variables, there were significant main e¤ects for the target of the humor,F ð2; 88Þ ¼ 13:87, p < :001, Wilk’s l ¼ :76, partial h2 ¼ :24, and the can-

didate’s political a‰liation, F ð2; 88Þ ¼ 3:64, p < :03, Wilk’s l ¼ :92, par-

tial h2 ¼ :08. Univariate analyses revealed that humor was rated higher in

e¤ectiveness, F ð1; 89Þ ¼ 12:34, p < :001, partial h2 ¼ :12, when it was di-

rected at the candidate himself as compared to his opponent. However,

there was no significant di¤erence between self-directed and opponent-

targeted humor on humor quality.

While the lack of an interaction between candidate a‰liation andrespondent a‰liation failed to support hypothesis 1, univariate analyses

114 A. Bippus



F ð1; 88Þ ¼ 4:46, p < :04, partial h2 ¼ :05, when used by a Democratic

candidate as compared to a Republican. In fact, Republican respondents

rated the humor of Democratic candidates higher on both measures than

even Democratic respondents did (see Table 2).

The third research question addressed the e¤ect of humor target (self

or opponent) on participants’ attributions about why the candidate used

humor. An independent samples t-test compared those scenarios in which

the candidates used a self-deprecating humorous remark to those when hemade a comment targeting his opponent, with the required alpha adjusted

for number of tests ð:05=8 ¼ :006Þ. Humor directed at the candidate’s

opponents was rated significantly higher on the motive of hostility

ðtð147Þ ¼ 8:53, p < :001Þ, while humor directed at self was attributed

significantly more to mood improvement ðtð150Þ ¼ À5:56, p < :001Þ

and common ground ðtð149Þ ¼ À6:36, p < :001Þ. The two targets of

humor did not garner significantly di¤erent scores on the remaining

motives.The second hypothesis proposed that individuals would rate the candi-

date’s use of humor higher on measure of internal motives, and lower on

external motives, when he was of the opposing party rather than their

own party. A 2 Â2 MANOVA failed to yield a main e¤ect for either can-

didate political a‰liation or participant a‰liation on the measures of in-

ternal motives. More significantly, there was not a significant interaction

between the factor of candidate a‰liation and participant’s own a‰lia-

tion. A 2 Â2 MANOVA failed to yield any main e¤ect for candidate po-litical a‰liation or participant a‰liation for external motives measures.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics for humor quality and e¤ectiveness by candidate and respon-

dent political a‰liation

Respondent political a‰liation

Republican Democrat

Quality E¤ectiveness Quality E¤ectiveness

M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)

Candidate political

a‰liation

Republican 3.83 (1.53) 3.53 (1.70) 3.97 (1.27) 4.07 (1.54)

Democrat 5.15 (1.25) 5.09 (1.32) 4.40 (1.44) 4.34 (1.69)




The final two research questions asked to what degree individuals’ per-

ceptions of the quality of the humor and attributions about the candi-

date’s motives for using humor predicted their perception of the humor’s

e¤ectiveness. Since the candidate’s political a‰liation and the target of

the humor were shown in the analysis for Research Question 1 and Hy-

pothesis 1 to be significantly associated with e¤ectiveness, these variables

were entered into the equation as dummy codes, along with the humor

quality measure and the eight measures representing motives for using

humor. The adjusted R2 for the final model was .75, F ð11 109Þ ¼ 33:42,

p < :001. Humor quality ð b ¼ :72Þ was by far the biggest predictor

in the model, alone accounting for almost half of the variance in ef-

fectiveness, followed by the target of the humor (dummy coded to re-

flect self-targeted) ð b ¼ :18Þ with the attributed motives of sensitivity

ð b ¼ :16Þ, and di¤erent perspective ð b ¼ À:12Þ also emerging as signifi-

cant predictors.

4. Discussion

The study provided partial confirmation of some prior research, but alsoproduced some surprising counterintuitive results. A candidate’s humor

was seen as more e¤ective when it was directed at himself as compared

to his opponent. Furthermore, humor directed at the candidate’s oppo-

nent was attributed more to hostility, while humor he directed at himself

was attributed more to mood improvement and common ground. While

these results may seem self-evident, a wealth of prior research has found

that humor targeting others, as compared to self-deprecating humor, gar-

ners higher ratings of intelligence, credibility, and power (Hackman 1988;Stocking and Zillmann 1976; Ziv et al. 1986), all of which would seem to

be closely aligned with this investigation’s global measure of e¤ectiveness.

However, this finding would undoubtedly be lauded by the stream of pol-

iticians who have poked fun at themselves or their images on television

shows, such as Late Night with Jay Leno, the David Letterman Show,

and Saturday Night Live. Using such self-disparaging humor warranted

more benign assessments of motive and outcome than did a jab at the

opponent.Contrary to what was hypothesized, respondents did not follow a

116 A. Bippus



higher on average than Republican candidates by respondents of both

parties; most surprisingly, Republican respondents rated the humor of

Democratic candidates higher on both measures than did Democratic re-

spondents. It is unclear why respondents in general, and Republicans in

particular, would find a Democrat’s humor to be more e¤ective. Because

the data collection took place during an election cycle, it seems prudent to

consider that it may be a history e¤ect. Perhaps given the dominance of

Republican candidates in both the Congressional and Presidential races

during the 2004 election, respondents felt that the Democrat’s use of hu-

mor was a particularly necessary strategy for an ‘‘underdog’’ to use

(though the speaker in all cases was described as the incumbent). Further

investigation is necessary to determine whether this is a stable trend.

Humor quality was by far the biggest predictor of perceived e¤ective-

ness, consistent with Bippus’ (2003) findings. This may be particularly

true in the political context, where the audience likely has higher expect-

ations for the planning that went into the communicative event and the

oratorical skills of the speaker than in an interpersonal context. In the

case of politicians, it may be particularly true that it is not be enough to

try to be funny — they must actually succeed.

Beyond humor quality and the target of the humor, only the attributedmotives of sensitivity and perspective change were significant predictors

of individuals’ perception of the e¤ectiveness of candidates’ humor. Nota-

bly, these same two motives in Bippus’ (2003) study predicted respond-

ents’ perceptions that they had made progress in an interpersonal conflict

episode, underscoring the constructive nature of these attributions. It is

also interesting to note that none of the respondents’ most strongly attrib-

uted motives for the candidate’s decision to use humor (relieving his own

anxiety, improving the mood of debate, establishing common ground)significantly predicted their perceptions of its e¤ectiveness. Perhaps peo-

ple generally expect these motives and so they are not particularly salient

to their judgments of the impact of the humorous message. However, the

pattern of findings may be a methodological artifact. In Bippus’ (2003)

study of humor used by friends, it was impossible to know what relation-

ship or personality factors were contributing to respondents’ attribution

of motive. This study is limited by a di¤erent methodological issue: based

on no relational history or foreknowledge of the candidate, respondents’attributions may be more ephemeral and therefore unstable predictors.




was used to represent each of the self-targeted and other-targeted condi-

tions, the content di¤erences between the messages may have contributed

to the results as much as the target of the message. The self-targeting mes-

sage was more of a ‘‘folksy,’’ spontaneously-recalled anecdote referencing

the speaker’s daughter, whereas the opponent-targeting message was a

more polished and concise witticism. In order to confirm these results,

future research should incorporate multiple messages representing each

type of humor. Alternatively, it may be possible to generate humorous

messages that could be kept consistent while interchanging the target;

that is, the same joke could be leveled by the speaker at himself or his

opponent. Also, counterbalancing the power role of the speaker between

incumbent and challenger would help to clarify the observed reactions to

self-disparaging humor. It is possible that incumbents are seen magnani-

mous by targeting themselves, but mean-spirited and small when joking

at the expense of an opponent; on the other hand, challengers may risk

calling into question their as-yet-unproven competence and character

with self-targeted humor, but benefit from using humor as a memorable

and entertaining form of attack on their opponents. A second issue of

concern is that reading the text of the humorous messages may not evoke

the same response as hearing them from a live person. The scenario moreclosely approximated reading a short ‘‘news bite’’ about a candidate’s

comment during a campaign event in the newspaper or an online news

site — certainly an increasingly common experience for most people dur-

ing an election cycle as our sources of news evolve (Pew Research Center

for the People and the Press 2004). Listening to or viewing the comments

as performed by a confederate would provide a more realistic experience

and ensure that respondents were experiencing the humor in uniform

manner — and not interpreting tone and delivery in idiosyncratic waysthat may a¤ect their reactions to it. Finally, the sample demographics

were not representative of the entire voting public. For example, research

demonstrating age di¤erences in humor appreciation (Ruch et al. 1990)

certainly encourages cautious interpretation given this study’s largely

young adult sample. Further validation is warranted with more diverse

samples obtained through varied sampling approaches.

In summary, it appears that politicians during a debate may be advised

to stick with self-deprecating humor, which audiences would tend to be-lieve they were using to create a positive mood and establish common

118 A. Bippus



by whether he jokes about himself or his opponent, the funniness and tim-

ing of the humor, and the audience’s belief that the candidate used humor

to make a serious point in a sensitive way or to provide a di¤erent per-

spective on an issue in the debate. Being of the same versus opposite party

to the speaker does not appear to influence people’s attributions of the

speaker used humor for either internal (self-oriented) or external (other-

oriented) attributions. And perhaps the most valuable piece of informa-

tion for Democrats trying to win back votes in the ‘‘red states’’: Humor

used by Democratic candidates is especially e¤ective, particularly in the

opinions of Republican members of their audience.

California State University, Long Beach

Note

Correspondence address: [email protected]

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