“Despite the possibility of mixed feelings of disgust and amusement hardly anything is known about the relationship between these emotions.” Prompting researchers from Western Illinois University and the University of Toronto to investigate – and in so doing constructing what maybe the only formal psychology study to have centred around the work of transgressive cult […]
Tag: Humor
Cost assessment of bad joking
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 […]
Political Science: Bippus’s breakthrough
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 effectiveness of a politician’s use of humor during […]