Volume 20, Issue 1

The present study investigates gender differences in the use of formal features of cartoons, like the amount of text, the number of panels, or the application of color. For the analysis, 300 cartoons (150 each by female and male cartoonists) were selected randomly from the works of 1519 cartoonists. Twenty-one formal features were analyzed. On average, female cartoonists use more text, include text more frequently, and also draw more panels. These differences were expected, because Differential Psychology has shown for a long time in a variety of cultures that, on average, women tend to perform better in tasks testing verbal intelligence whereas men perform significantly better in tasks that require spatial intelligence. We also found a difference in the type of joke: Women more frequently draw cartoons with incongruity-resolution humor, whereas men prefer to draw cartoons with nonsense humor. The results are discussed in relation to gender differences in humor processing and gender differences in general.

Humor can often carry an implicit negative message and thus be potentially dangerous to use. In addition, it is culturally and linguistically complex and sophisticated. Because of these things, it poses a challenge for L2 (second language) speakers and we might expect to see attempts at humor failing and causing offense in intercultural interaction. This paper reports on a study that examined humor in interaction between native and non-native speakers of English and found that humor did not seem to be a cause of conflict because of adjustments speakers made to their speech and their situated interpretations of meaning. In general, taboo topics and potentially dangerous forms of humor were avoided and humor was carefully contextualized. Native speakers reported being careful about the vocabulary they used in creating humor and both sides appeared to approach humor in intercultural communication prepared to accommodate the other and with an attitude of leniency.

The present article discusses the role of laughter in the much cited ‘laughter epidemic’ that occurred in Tanganyika in 1962. Despite its extraordinary nature, the veracity of the event is confirmed, crucially on the basis of similar reports. But most current representations are flawed by their exaggeration and misinterpretation of the role of laughter in the event, relating it to a humorous stimulus, a virus or environmental contaminant, or identifying it as contagious laughter. It is argued that the event is a motor-variant case of mass psychogenic illness of which laughter is one common symptom. Therefore it cannot serve as support for other arguments in humor research.

This research is aimed to identify the relationship between burnout and the variables of lecturers' humor styles, demographic information, occupational conditions, and ability to cope with humor in general. The effects of these variables in relation to burnout prediction were also investigated. Two hundred eighty-three full-time lecturers working at Çukurova University, Turkey, participated in this study. Data was collected through the “Maslach Burnout Inventory,” “Humor Styles Questionnaire,” “Coping Humor Scale” and “Demographic Information and Occupational Conditions Questionnaire.” The results revealed that in terms of age, younger lecturers experience much more burnout, and female lecturers experience more emotional exhaustion than do males. In addition, a significantly negative or low relationship was found between the dimensions of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, personal accomplishment, coping humor scale, affiliative humor, and self-enhancing humor, while there existed a positive but low relationship between the three dimensions of burnout, aggressive humor, and self-defeating humor. Thus, the results suggest that academic status may account for a considerable difference between the dimension scores of emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment. Furthermore, the regression analysis indicates that occupational variables and humor are important predictors of the dimensions of burnout.

Paul Matthew St. Pierre: A Portrait of the Artist as Australian: L'Oeuvre Bizarre de Barry Humphries . Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2004. 364 pp. $39.95. (Lawrence E. Mintz) Gerald Nachman: Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s . New York: Pantheon Books, 2003. 672 pp. $29.95. (Peter Derks) Mary Ann Rishel: Writing Humor: Creativity and the Comic Mind . Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002. 329 pp. $39.95 cloth, $24.95 paper. (Karen O'Quin) Brad Schreiber: What Are You Laughing At? Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2003. 300pp. $19.95. (Art Gliner)