Thinking fast and slow in the experience of humor
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Larry Ventis
Larry Ventis is a Professor of Psychology at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. He earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. His research has largely focused on the psychology of humor and the psychology of religion. His previous humor research included an examination of the use of humor to counter fear. Recent research on religion has focused on implicit religious attitudes and the development of the Christian Humanist Implicit Association Test (CH IAT).
Abstract
The present work theorizes that the experience of humor relies on distinct roles for each of the two thought modes identified by Kahneman (2011): Intuitive and Reflective Thought. A listener’s Intuitive Thought early in a joke is hypothesized to increase the probability of experiencing incongruity. Reflective Thought is hypothesized to be the mechanism for resolving the incongruity in a joke. If the latter hypothesis is valid, measures of Reflective Thought should be more closely associated with Humor Cognition (Feingold 1983) than would intelligence. SAT Total score was used to represent tested IQ (Frey and Detterman 2004), and the Cognitive Reflection Test (Frederick 2005) and SAT Critical Reading score were used to represent Reflective Thought. Participants consisted of 148 university students, 79 females, 67 males, and 2 undesignated. Partial correlation analysis revealed that controlling for SAT Critical Reading, SAT Total had no relationship to Humor Cognition (r=–0.04, n.s.). However, controlling for SAT Total, SAT Critical Reading and Humor Cognition remain significantly correlated (r=0.33, p<0.001).
About the author
Larry Ventis is a Professor of Psychology at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. He earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. His research has largely focused on the psychology of humor and the psychology of religion. His previous humor research included an examination of the use of humor to counter fear. Recent research on religion has focused on implicit religious attitudes and the development of the Christian Humanist Implicit Association Test (CH IAT).
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©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- From the Editor
- Thinking fast and slow in the experience of humor
- Humor in intercultural interaction as both content and process in the classroom
- Humorous communication, verbal aggressiveness, and father–son relational satisfaction
- A gender study of personality and humor in comedians
- Humoring the audience: performance strategies and persuasion in Midwestern American stand-up comedy
- On the role of vigilance in the interpretation of puns
- Book Reviews
- Friedrich W. Block and Rolf Lohse: Wandel und Institution des Komischen
- Rebecca Krefting: All joking aside: American humor and its discontents
- Marcello Cesa-Bianchi, Giovannantonio Forabosco, Carlo Cristini, Giovanni Cesa-Bianchi, and Alessandro Porro: Umorismo, creatività e invecchiamento
- Scott Balcerzak: Buffoon men: Classic Hollywood comedians and queered masculinity
- Simon Dickie: Cruelty and laughter: Forgotten comic literature and the unsentimental eighteenth century
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- From the Editor
- Thinking fast and slow in the experience of humor
- Humor in intercultural interaction as both content and process in the classroom
- Humorous communication, verbal aggressiveness, and father–son relational satisfaction
- A gender study of personality and humor in comedians
- Humoring the audience: performance strategies and persuasion in Midwestern American stand-up comedy
- On the role of vigilance in the interpretation of puns
- Book Reviews
- Friedrich W. Block and Rolf Lohse: Wandel und Institution des Komischen
- Rebecca Krefting: All joking aside: American humor and its discontents
- Marcello Cesa-Bianchi, Giovannantonio Forabosco, Carlo Cristini, Giovanni Cesa-Bianchi, and Alessandro Porro: Umorismo, creatività e invecchiamento
- Scott Balcerzak: Buffoon men: Classic Hollywood comedians and queered masculinity
- Simon Dickie: Cruelty and laughter: Forgotten comic literature and the unsentimental eighteenth century
