Volume 30, Issue 3 -

This article takes the notion of rebelliousness as the starting point for an analysis of eighteenth-century Dutch political humor. In several recent publications from humor scholars, the rebellious image of political humor in today’s world is questioned. This skepticism towards the idea of humor as a form of rebellion is connected to four sources of political humor that were published as part of the conflict between the reformist Patriots and the conservative Orangists, that took place in the Dutch Republic during the 1780s. It is shown that, comparable to the situation in contemporary political humor, the rebellious outlook of these sources is to a large extent a matter of rhetoric and convention. Their crossing of social and cultural boundaries and their attacks on the powers that be are part of a long cultural tradition, of which the actual social impact is doubtful. Also, the humor used in these sources contains obvious disciplinary tendencies, that emasculate their rebellious potential in yet another way. The new insights regarding political humor of the past that are thus produced prove the scholarly relevance of connecting theoretical perspectives based on the study of contemporary humor to historical cases of humor.

Despite humor’s promise as an educational tool in language learning contexts, questions of appropriateness, cultural sensitivity, and student expectations cannot be ignored. This is especially the case in a culture such as Japan where the time and place for humor is often dictated by the social norms of “ warai no ba ” or “laughter places.” In order to better understand the role of humor from the Japanese language learner’s perspective, the researchers conducted a survey of 918 university students across Japan to elicit their views on such areas as the importance of humor for language learning and proficiency as well as its significance in understanding cultural differences. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the results indicate that most participants strongly favored inclusion of humor as part of the classroom experience but that cultural differences must be carefully considered by instructors. Furthermore, while variables such as gender and academic discipline did not have a significant effect on the results, the English proficiency of the participants did, with more proficient learners indicating a greater degree of comfort and cultural understanding from use of in-class humor than those with lesser ability.

Research on culture-related violence has typically focused on honor cultures and their justification of certain forms of aggression as reactions to provocation. In contrast, amusement and humor as the preferred reactions to provocation remain understudied phenomena, especially in a cross-cultural context. In an attempt to remedy this, participants from an honor culture (Poland), dignity culture (Canada), and face culture (China) were asked how they would react and how they would like to react to a series of provocative scenarios. Results confirmed that aggression may be the preferred reaction to provocation in honor cultures, while the preferred reaction to provocation in dignity cultures may be based on humor and amusement. The third kind of provocation reaction, withdrawal, turned out to be more complex but was most popular in dignity and face cultures. Furthermore, results confirmed that the way individuals think they would behave is more culturally diversified than the way individuals would like to behave.

This study examines the impact of a humorous intervention designed to increase mothers’ intentions to talk to their child about sex ( N= 442). Mother-adolescent sexual communication has been linked to positive sexual health outcomes for the child, but little is known about how to motivate mothers to engage in this communication. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior, the experiment tests the impact of humor and amusement on attitudes, norms, self-efficacy, and likelihood of future sexual communication. Results reveal that mere exposure to humor can have a negative effect on participants, unless they report being highly amused, in which case their communication attitudes, norms, and intentions are increased. Results are discussed in light of implications for understanding the persuasive effect of humor and amusement on future mother-adolescent sexual communication.