Mobilized Inhibition and the Appreciation of Hostile Humor

Abstract

Singer, Gollob, and Levine (1967) found that Ss who had viewed brutal Goya etchings rated aggressive cartoons as significantly less funny than Ss who had viewed neutral Goya etchings; this effect did not occur with the nonaggressive cartoons. Singer, et al. attributed the decreased humor ratings to the psychoanalytic concept of mobilized inhibitions against aggression. The present study attempted to mobilize these inhibitions by means of a written description of torture. ColIege students (15 male and 15 female) were randomly assigned to three treatment groups. One group read a vivid description of a brutal torture-murder which was introduced in such a way as to condemn the act fully while a second group read the identical description so introduced as to mitigate the enormity of the torture (expected to lessen the inhibition effect). A control group read a nonaggressive passage of equal length. Immediately after reading the passage. all Ss rated 16 cartoons for humor on a four-point scale ranging from not funny to very funny. Eight of the cartoons were nonaggressive and 8 aggressive; the aggressive cartoons depicted beatings, torture, and murder. The cartoons were arranged in random order. A two-way analysis of variance (sex and treatment as main effects) was performed on the difference berween Ss' aggressive cartoon score and neutral score to check for the predicted differential lowering of ratings in the aggressive cartoons. Another two-wag analysis of variance was performed on rhe total humor scores to check for a possible generalized inhibitory effect. Neither test yielded significant results (Ps < 1.00). Although all but two of the 20 Ss reported that the torture description was unpleasant to read, it is quite possible that the treatment did not have the desired potenq. Or, it may have been that inhibitions were mobilized but that a concomitant arousal of aggressive drive neutralized the effect. Dworkin and Efran (1967) demotutrated that aggressive arousal is capable of increasing humor ratings of aggressive humor. It remains for fume research to determine the validity of the psychoanalytic framework by manipulating the degree to which each variable operates.