Volume 20, Issue 2

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 a political debate. Data were collected during the 2004 election cycle; respondents were told a candidate had made a humorous remark during a recent congressional campaign debate. Party affiliation of the candidate and the target of the humor (himself vs. his opponent) were counterbalanced. The results indicated that self-deprecating humor was rated as more effective, and both Democrats and Republicans saw humor from a Democratic candidate as more effective than from a Republican. Being of the same versus opposite party of the candidate did not affect respondents' attributions of the candidate's motives for using humor or its overall effectiveness. Overall, the biggest predictor of perceived effectiveness was respondents' assessment of the quality (timing and funniness) of the humor.

Legal humor is a topic of perennial appeal, and has long been a prolific source of books, articles, and scholarly commentaries which are avidly consumed by popular and professional audiences alike. However, although a number of scholars have analyzed the use of humor in judicial opinions, there is no comparable body of scholarly examinations of lawyers' use of humor in their role as legal advocates. This omission is significant, because in the American legal system, humor and wordplay serve as highly-valued evidence of forensic skill which is deemed appropriate for display both within and outside of the courtroom. Accordingly, this paper attempts to fill the gap in the existing literature by examining attorneys' use of humor as persuasive advocacy in two widely divergent settings, informal court-mandated mediation and oral argument before the United States Supreme Court. In these data, the attorneys use humor aggressively to ridicule the plaintiffs' claims, depicting them as laughable and unworthy of serious consideration, while placing themselves at the center of a comic performance which allows them to display their linguistic skills. These data thus demonstrate that humor can be a potent weapon in an attorney's arsenal.

This paper shows how banter helps forge organizational culture by facilitating socialization of work group members and presents original research conducted in three IT companies. Informants identified their style of humor as “taking the piss,” a colloquial term meaning to use jocular abuse to deflate someone else's ego to bring them to the same level as others. The IT organizations studied were young, creative and energetic and the banter was lively and almost always enjoyed. Six main functions of banter were identified: making a point, boredom busting, socialization, celebrating differences, displaying the culture, and highlighting and defining status. Banter occurred more readily when it involved popular and well-liked colleagues that were fully socialized into the organizational culture. Personal characteristics and traits—such as ethnicity, gender, age, height or dress style—were the target of much banter. Much of the literature discussing banter has focused on the negative effects of jocular abuse at work. This paper emphasises how banter helped facilitate functioning cultural systems in the organizations studied. However, for those not socialized through the banter into the in-group, banter was often experienced as painful, exclusionary and even insulting.

This paper is an exploratory study examining humor differences among four regions of the United States and the managerial implications of such differences. The results indicate significant differences between the regions regarding affiliative and self-defeating humor, the creation and performance of humor, the use of humor in coping and in social situations, and attitudes toward humor. Managerial implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed.

Christie Davies: The Right to Joke . Research Report 37. The Social Affairs Unit, n.d. 41 pp. £6. (Elliott Oring) Jokes and Groups . Monograph Series No. 47. The Institute for Cultural Research, 2005. 30 pp. £5. (Elliott Oring) Michael Billig: Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour . London: Sage, 2005. 264 pp. £19.99. (Christie Davies) Ronald A. Berk: Humor as an Instructional Defibrillator: Evidence-based Techniques in Teaching and Assessment . Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2002. 268 pp. $24.95. (Peter Derks)