Humorous Items Research Articles

Laughing when the Lights Go Out: Humour and the Electricity Crisis in South Africa

As a dire consequence of complex problems, the centralised, state-owned power utility in South Africa, Eskom, has implemented so-called “loadshedding.” This is the name for a regime of scheduled power-cuts that has persisted since 2007, causing significant economic and psychological damage among South Africans. Nevertheless, despite the severity of the Eskom debacle, South Africans have produced an unending stream of social media humour in response to it. In this article, we ask what such humour might tell us about the nature of the collective South African psycho-social mindset. We collected 380 humorous items relating to the portrayal of Eskom in South African popular culture. These took the form of comic strips, comical memes, and satirical reels from various social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, Twitter, and YouTube. The humorous responses, primarily in English as South Africa’s lingua franca, were produced by a range of content creators—from celebrities like Trevor Noah and other regular content creators to unknown beneficiaries of virality—representing a diversity of cultures, humour styles, contexts and audiences. We created a comprehensive list of all the humorous items that readily lent themselves to interpretive analysis in terms of an anthropomorphic portrayal of Eskom as the abuser in an ongoing abusive relationship with the South African citizenry suffering from a victim mentality. The main aim of the article is to demonstrate the pervasiveness of this portrayal, the significance of which lies in its capacity to open up avenues for further philosophical reflection and sociological research.

Humour in the management of multiple sclerosis: a scoping review

Background. Although investigations of the use of humour in the management of people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS) are not numerous, some significant findings have created the need to go deeper into the topic.Main research question. What are some of the potential benefits of humour in the management of PwMS, given the current state of scientific knowledge?Materials and methods. A scoping review was conducted using the PRISMA-ScR methodology. Information for the literature review was collected from the PubMed and Embase databases using the keywords “humour” and “multiple sclerosis”. Overall, 10 scientific investigations were analysed, grouped, interpreted, and generalized.Results. The research revealed: humour-based stress reduction for PwMS; the relationship between executive function and humour coping in PwMS; the distinctive influence of humour on employment status among individuals with relapsing-remiting multiple sclerosis (RRMS); the relationship between humour and personal long-term prognosis in PwMS; and the differences in perception of humour in PwMS.Conclusions. Appropriate use of humour (among other factors) can significantly improve the neuropsychological status in persons with RRMS and help them staying employed. Executive function and personalized long-term prognosis for PwMS are to some extent related to humor. Group analyses revealed lower scores in RRMS patients on humoristic visual tasks compared to scores on verbal tasks, and PwMS had impaired comprehension of figurative and humorous items compared to their comprehension of the literal items of simple medical responses.

The cognitive architecture of verbal humor in schizophrenia

Previous literature showed that people with schizophrenia have difficulties in humor comprehension and might differ from controls in the appreciation of humor, i.e., in perceived funniness. However, the cognitive architecture that underlies humor impairment in this population remains unclear, with humorous items sometimes assessed in the context of the communicative-pragmatic profiling and sometimes included in Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks. Here we enrolled 116 people with schizophrenia and 116 healthy controls, who were administered a task including jokes based on sound aspects and jokes based on mental aspects (Phonological and Mental Jokes task). Both comprehension accuracy (ability to select the funny ending of the joke) and appreciation (ratings of funniness) were evaluated, together with other linguistic, cognitive, and clinical measures. Results highlighted a diffuse impairment in humor comprehension in schizophrenia compared to controls, with mental jokes being more difficult for both groups. Humor comprehension was robustly associated with the patients’ global pragmatic and linguistic profile, while the association with ToM was negligible. Another remarkable finding was the increased appreciation of humor in individuals with schizophrenia, who rated jokes (both correctly and incorrectly completed) as funnier than controls did. Funniness ratings were not predicted by any measure, pointing to a dimension untied from cognition or psychopathology. Overall, this study offers evidence – on a considerably large sample – of altered humor understanding and appreciation in schizophrenia, sketching a cognitive architecture where humor impairment stands together with communicative impairment, rather than with social cognition. This has implications not only for the assessment of humor but also for how to treat it in patients to improve their ability to navigate the social world.

The Social, Political, and Psychological Affordances of Pandemic Humor and Satire in the United States of America and Iran

This essay compares and contrasts the responses of U.S.-American and Iranian citizens to the current health crisis by investigating a corpus of humorous items, collected through a survey tool on the website of the University of Amsterdam between March and July 2020, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis shows that humor was used as a coping and adaptive strategy in both contexts. Individual coping is more evident in the United States, where political criticism is frequently relegated to the media and press. This difference is partly due to censorship and similar impediments to the freedom of expression in Iran where the (traditional) media and press are either run or strictly regulated by the government. Two more themes were conspicuously more prevalent in U.S.-American humor: first, racism and xenophobia, especially directed against Asians; second, hoarding and scarcity of basic commodities, particularly toilet paper. While U.S. Americans and Iranians were frustrated by the inadequate responses of public officials, they found different strategies and outlets to express their frustrations. Economic and cultural differences also influenced the unfolding of the health crisis and its consequences in these two contexts, which explains the prominence of certain themes and motifs in the corpus.

Impairment in oral medical comprehension in multiple sclerosis.

In multiple sclerosis (MS), medical comprehension of website information and informed consent is reported to be impaired. The aim of the present study was to investigate oral medical comprehension of literal, figurative and humorous language in MS through videos of physician-patient exchanges. A group of 35 MS patients was compared to a control group (38 healthy participants). Participants were shown twelve filmed sketches consisting of a patient's question followed by the doctor's response and had to choose the meaning of the physician's response among three possibilities. Group analyses (non-parametric tests, Mann-Whitney) revealed significantly lower scores for MS patients compared to controls for figurative and humorous items. The opposite was observed for literal items. At the individual level, 17% of MS patients were impaired in their comprehension of figurative items and 32% for humorous items. Among them, 20% were impaired in both categories, 20% selectively in figurative comprehension and 60% selectively in humorous comprehension. These preliminary results suggest that a high proportion of MS patients (40%) may be impaired in the non-literal comprehension of simple medical responses. The better performances obtained for literal items suggest a more concrete linguistic decoding in MS. On a theoretical level, the double dissociations shown between figurative and humorous items in patients are not compatible with a serial model of linguistic processing.

Vigilante disparaging humour at r/IncelTears: Humour as critique of incel ideology

This paper gives a comprehensive account of a humorous practice on the IncelTears subreddit, whose aim is to poke fun at, and give a social commentary on, the notorious online community of incels (hateful involuntary celibate men). Based on a representative corpus, the predominant categories of user-generated multimodal items are teased out relative to their form and stance. The central characteristics and socio-pragmatic aims of these humorous practices are discussed, together with the ideological meanings they communicate. Apart from disparaging and critiquing what they consider to be indicative of the pernicious incel ideology, the subreddit community members derive pleasure from the humorous items and forge solidarity links. Overall, this study offers valid conclusions about the (dis)affiliative and informative functions of creative humour on social media represented by the subreddit which humorously addresses a socially relevant, serious problem.

Caveat emptor: boycott through digital humour on the wave of the 2019 Hong Kong protests

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the topic of social media users’ polyvocal political activism facilitated by participatory culture and expressed through multimodal digital humour (including humorous memes) in the context of a threat of a regime. The focus of attention is political humour on the r/HongKong subreddit, specifically the posts pertinent to the ongoing boycott movement of multiple companies consequent upon their actions in response to the 2019 protests in Hong Kong. Apart from presenting the multimodal characteristics of the creative digital data through the lens of Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, the central aim is to discuss the functions of users’ political humour online, offering various socio-pragmatic conclusions about the polyvocal participatory practice at hand. It is argued that this digital humour resides solely in the attention-grabbing form, with the otherwise serious posts performing informative and persuasive functions as they convey community members’ socio-political critique. While disparaging the ‘butts’, online users do bonding through collectively expressing their political dissent (which also gives them psychological relief) and sharing subversive ideologies. The humorous items inform and warn potential punters and tacitly call for a boycott of the companies that bow to the regime, all in an act of solidarity with Hong Kong protesters.

Translating Humorous Elements in Children’s Books – Astrid Lindgren’s Bill Bergson Books in English and German

Research in the translation of humorous elements in children’s books is a complex subject, which cannot be reduced to studies of wordplay and of other highly humorous items. The translation of slightly humorous items can also influence the whole literary work if such elements are used frequently. This article analyses the ways in which such funny instances were dealt with in the English and German translations of the Bill Bergson books (original name: Kalle Blomkvist) by the Swedish author of children’s books Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002). More specifically, it discusses the translation of several funny words and expressions, repetitions and exaggerations.It is shown that the humorous effects in the English translation are sometimes less obvious than in the German translation, even if both translated texts rendered the majority of humorous instances in a very funny way.

Globalisation and ethnic jokes: A new look on an old tradition in Belarus and Estonia

Christie Davies, the renowned humour researcher and a passionate propagator of the comparative method in studying jokes, stressed the necessity of establishing a relationship between two sets of social facts: the jokes themselves on the one hand, and the social structure or cultural traditions wherein they disseminate on the other (Davies 2002: 6). He also inspired others to examine the differences and similarities in the patterns of jokes between different nations, social circumstances and eras. By doing this and building falsifiable models and generalisations of joking relationships, he changed the way we look at and analyse ethnic jokes.This study returns to earlier findings of Estonian (Laineste 2005, 2009) and Belarusian (Astapova 2015, Zhvaleuskaya 2013, 2015) ethnic jokes and takes a look at new trends in fresh data. Starting with the jokes from the end of the 19th century and ending with the most recent jokes, memes and other humorous items shared over the Internet, the paper will give an overview of how social reality interacts with the rules of target choice, above all describing the effect of globalisation on jokelore.

English

Humor is the type of expression and writing representing the humorous aspect of life by adorning with jokes and wit. The main objective of humor is to criticize, ironize, and correct the flaws and hideousness in life. Humor develops the sensitivity, the empathizing ability and social facts’ multi-dimensional perception of individuals. Humor enlivens life, entertains people, positively contributes to social relationships, and improves the imagination of individuals. This research has been conducted in order to determine the usage level of humor by secondary school Turkish teachers, and their attitudes and opinions regarding humor. The attitude scale prepared for the research was given to 128 Turkish teachers in total. The data obtained from the results of the research was interpreted by calculating its percentages, frequencies, arithmetical means and standard deviations. In order to determine the differences in the sample group’s responses -for the attitude scale- as per their genders, the “independent sample t test” was applied and interpreted. And in order to determine the differences of the subject’s responses –for the articles of survey- as per their seniority in their profession, the “one way ANOVA” test was applied and interpreted. According to the results of this research, humor may be used as an effective form of communication and socialization tool. Through humor, the learning environment may be made more attractive, and the linguistic skills and vocabulary of the students may be enriched. It is possible to use humor in order to motivate the students for the course, to make the course more interesting, to increase the academic success of the students, and to improve the solution generation skills of the students. As per the results of the research, it was determined that there was no significant difference among the opinions of teachers –regarding the use of humor in secondary school Turkish courses- in respect of their seniority in the profession. In the same manner, it was determined that there was no significant difference among the opinions of the teachers –regarding the use of humor in secondary school Turkish courses- in respect of gender variables, and that the humorous items used in the Turkish textbooks are wholly insufficient. Key words: Humor, Turkish education, opinions of teachers, language skills.

A New Association Evaluation Stage in Cartoon Apprehension: Evidence from an ERP Study

The aim of this study was to investigate the temporal cortical activation patterns underlying different stages of humor comprehension (e.g., detection of incongruity stage, resolution of incongruity stage, and affective stage). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured when 16 subjects were apprehending cartoon pictures including humorous, non-humorous and unrelated items. Results showed that both humorous and unrelated items elicited a more negative ERP deflection (N500-800) than non-humorous ones between 500 - 800 ms, which might reflect detection to incongruent element during humor apprehension. Then, both humorous and non-humorous items elicited a more positive ERP deflection (P800-1000) than unrelated ones between 800 - 1000 ms, which might reflect a classification process preliminarily evaluating whether there were attainable cues in the pictures used to form possible association between context and picture (we named it “association evaluation” stage). Furthermore, humorous items elicited a more positive slow wave than non-humorous items which also elicited a more positive wave than unrelated items between 1000 - 1600 ms, during which this component might be involved in the forming of novel associations (resolution of incongruity). Lastly, between 1600 - 2000 ms, humorous items elicited a more positive ERP deflection (P1600-2000) than both non-humorous and unrelated items, which might be related to emotion processing during humor apprehension. Based on these results, we deeply subdivided the second stage (resolution of incongruity) into two stages: association evaluation and incongruity resolution.

A randomized trial of humor effects on test anxiety and test performance

AbstractThis investigation tested the hypothesis of humor effects on test anxiety to improve test performance. A pretest-posttest control group design was employed to determine differences between humorous and serious versions of the same test content. One graduate biostatistics course of 98 students participated. Based on three independent test administrations, ANCOVAs were computed to isolate the effects of humorous directions only, humorous items only, and the combination of both on emotional/physiological and worry/cognitive anxiety symptoms and biostatistics achievement. Humorous directions had a statistically significant (p < .05) impact on constructed-response item performance for the first test (descriptive statistics), with an effect size of .43. Multiple-choice test performance correlated negatively with the two pre-anxiety subscales (r = −.46, p < .001), explaining up to 21% of the variance. The limitations of very low pre-anxiety levels and very high test performance precluded any other significant effects. The contributions of the humor technique used in the study and the value of measuring situation-specific anxiety immediately before and after a real testing condition were discussed.

Lateralization in appreciation of humor: sex differences vs stimulus effects.

The finding that women rate funnier humorous items with left-ear input, while men give higher ratings with right-ear input has been cited as evidence for a biological basis for sex differences in appreciation of humor. However, in 1991 Gallivan did not find this effect and suggested that the earlier finding could have been due to the use of 'male-oriented' stimuli. In this study, 72 subjects rated the funniness of 32 'female oriented' comedy excerpts, presented monaurally. Women gave higher ratings with right-ear input but men's ratings were not affected by ear of presentation. These findings represent another failure to replicate the earlier-reported hemispheric effect and support the conclusion that it may have been due to the stimuli used.

Video Essay: Teaching and Learning with Alternative News Presentations

In television journalism, the video serves as an alternative to the traditional narrative, or voice-over, mode of presentation. The term photo essay or photo traditionally refers to a story or article that features or comprises photographs (Weiner, 1990). Its counterpart in broadcasting, the video essay, features picture and sound combinations in which the two elements reinforce each other, or what Zettl (1990) calls an audiovisual montage. Video essays follow an underlying story line and present information entirely by video, accompanied by natural sound recorded on videotape, including sound bites or music. In this type of story format, both auditory and visual channels may emerge as carriers of story line information, causing viewers to attend closely to the story's due to lack of narration. Television professionals recognize the use of the video in television news as a valid method of presenting the and of an event. Video essays exemplify Mayeux's (1996) sentiment: Pictures provide details, illustrations, and visual information that may be too complex to put words or too emotional to capture effectively in news copy only (p. 247). Consequently, the video also serves as a way to get viewers involved with a story, especially if a videographer uses the subjective camera approach, which transforms viewers from event-spectators to event-participants (Zettl, 1990). Video essays allow videographers to use sights and sounds of an event to bring the viewer into a story. In other forms of news, such as the anchor voice-over or reporter package, someone else tells the story to the viewer, leaving the viewer to play the passive role of mere bystander. Teaching this alternative form of news to future news professionals serves as a first step to universal acceptance of this new mode in the profession. In addition, we assert that in the TV news industry, the treatment of the video as a form of news presentation also increases the amount and variety of reporting techniques broadcast journalists can use. To date, published research concerning the video as a teaching tool and its effects on viewers' recall of news information is virtually non-existent. Here we address this by examining the merits of the video as a conveyer of audio and visual information, as a vehicle to relate both hard and soft news stories, and as a way broadcast educators can teach students journalistic as well as aesthetic skills. To this end, we will define the video as a genre, offer suggestions for using it as a teaching tool, and discuss its merits as an alternative means of news presentation. Video as genre As Rucker (1991) asserts, videotape gives photojournalists, or videographers, more breathing space (p. 51), and allows them to express thoughts and feelings in their visuals (p. 52). News videographers usually reserve the video for light stories, such as human interest features, humorous items, or unusual happenings. Photo essays commonly deal with a day in the life of an entertainer, children making a snow man, a kite-flying contest, or a St. Patrick's Day parade, for example. Occasionally, video essays cover hard news (a nuclear protest march or a presidential inauguration), and intensely emotional stories and images (such as CNN's video on the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which presented video of the bombing's aftermath accompanied by a musical score). Whether the video covers a feature story or hard news, the same standards of journalistic ethics are uniformly employed. Rules against staging shots and events apply to all forms of journalism, regardless of the form of presentation. When producing a video essay, videographers take over the roles of story producer, reporter, and videotape editor. Because of this increased responsibility, videographers must pay close attention to their own actions in the field to assure a realistic and objective portrayal of an event. …

EFFECTS OF INCORPORATING HUMOR IN TEST ITEMS

Two matched forms of a 50 item multiple‐choice grammar test were developed. Twenty items designed to be humorous were included in one form. Test forms were randomly assigned to 126 eighth graders who received the test plus alternate forms of a questionnaire. Inclusion of humorous items did not affect grammar scores on matched humorous/nonhumorous items nor on common post‐treatment items, nor did inclusion affect results of anxiety measures. Students favored inclusion of humor on tests, judged effects of humor positively, and estimated humorous items to be easier. Humor did not lower performance but was sought by the students. Potential for more valid and humane measurement is discussed.

Humor and anxiety: Effects on class test performance

Measures of trait anxiety, state anxiety, and achievement were obtained on a sample of undergraduate students, half of whom received additionaal humorous items in the achievement test. In a regression analysis, the trait anxiety × test version interaction was a significant predictor of achievement. Subsequent analyses revealed a disordinal interaction in which highly anxious students had lower achievement on the humorous test than on the nonhumorous test, and students with low anxiety had higher achievement on the humorous test than did students with high anxiety. The results do not support the popular assumption that humor is a positive factor in reducing high anxiety associated with academic evaluations.

Humorous lectures and humorous examples: Some effects upon comprehension and retention.

versions of a humorous lecture. The three versions of the humorous lecture included humorous examples related to the concepts in the lecture (concept humor), unrelated to the concepts (nonconcept humor), or a combination of concept and nonconcept examples (mixed humor). A test of comprehension and retention was given twice: immediately after the lecture and 6 weeks later. Results indicated that immediate comprehension was not facilitated by the use of humorous examples. Upon retesting, however, retention of concept humor material was significantly improved by viewing a lecture with humorous examples illustrating concepts. Earlier research findings are accounted for in terms of these results. The advice to use humor for communica, lated to the persuasive or educational mestion enhancement has been considered in sage. several empirical studies (Berlo & Ku- Another difficulty with the research on mata, 1956; Gruner, 1965, 1966). Only a humor and learning has been the method handful of studies, however, have focused of evaluating learning. No experimenter upon the efficacy of humor for lectures in a stated exactly from where in the message teaching situation. Although several stud- that test items were taken. Because of ies have shown that humor can increase this, two important questions become obattention and interest in a topic (Gruner, vious: Did any test questions assess recall 1970; Markiewicz, 1974), comprehension of material presented immediately before and acceptance of a message have not been or after a humor item? Was humor associdemonstrated to improve when the mes- ated in some way with the major points on sage includes humor (Gruner, 1967, 1970; which a listener was to be tested? KnowKennedy, 1972; Markiewicz, 1974; Taylor, ing how the humorous items in a message 1964). corresponded to subsequent test questions One problem with humor studies that would allow a more accurate appraisal of focus on learning is determining the na- hum0r's effect on learning. ture of the humor the investigators used. The purpose of the present study was to Subjects' ratings of the perceived humor- explore the effect of two types of humor : ousness of a message were taken in only a upon learning in a lecture situation. The minority of studies (Gruner, 1967, 1970; two types of humor are humor related to Kennedy, 1972; Lull, 1940). Most reports the concepts presented in the lecture (or omit discussions of fundamental ques- humorous examples) and humor unrelated tions, such as how the humor was chosen to the lecture's content. The primary conin the first place and how the humor re- cern is to determine how varying correspondence of humor with the topics of a classroom lecture moderates the compreA similar version of this article was presented at _ hension and retention of lecture material. the meeting of the Western Psychological Associa- It is our hypothesis that people have