The Behavioural Effects of Ridicule of Others
by
Leslie Janes
Department of Psychology
Submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
F a c ~ l t yof Graduate Studies
The University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario
May, 1997
a Leslie Madeline Janes, 1997
191
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Abstract
Two experiments tested whether obsenring humour that
ridicules others has an inhibiting effect on the observer's
behaviour. In both experiments, participants observed
videotapes containing either other-ridiculing humour,
self-deprecating humour, or a control videotape.
Participants were then tested on the dependent measures:
conformity, fear of failure, and creativity. In Experiment
2, a lexical decision task was added to assess salience of
potential rejection. Results indicated that participants who
had viewed ridicule of others were more conforming and were
more afraid of failing than were those in the other
conditions. Creativity was not affected. Results supported
the hypothesis that increased salience of rejection was
responsible for these effects, at least for high self-esteem
participants. Implications of these findings are discussed.
iii
Acknowledgernents
There are a number of people 1 would like to thank for their
contributions to this project. First and foremost, 1 would
like to thank my advisor. Jim Olson, for his steady guidance
and encouragement throughout this research project. 1 would
also like to thank my examining committee members - Perry
Kline, Clive Seligman, and Rod Martin - for their time and
attention; and Tony Vernon, for his role as the affable
chair of my examining committee. Special thanks to Rod
Martin for also sitting on rny advisory committee. Finally, 1
would like to thank rny family - Greg, Kayla, and Casey - for
their patience and support.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certificate of Examination
Abst ract
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Appendices
Introduction
Experiment 1
Introduction
Met hod
Results
Discussion
Experiment 2
Introduction
Met hod
Resul ts
Discussion
General Discussion
References
Vita
Page
ii
iii
iv
V
'J 1
LIST OF TABLES
Table
I
Page
Ceil Frequencies for Sex and Ring-Toss Strategy
28
Ce11 Frequencies for Sex and Ring-Toss Strategy(b)
3O
Results £rom Dependent Measures for Both Studies
49
Mean Reaction Time (in seconds) for
Rejection-Related, Acceptance-Related, and Neutral
Target Words
53
Mean Reaction Time (in seconds) of High and
Low Self-Esteem Participants for Rejection-Related,
Acceptance-Related, and Neutral Target Words
56
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix
Page
Appendix A
Appendix B
vii
The Behavioural Effects of Ridicule of G t h e r s
"There is no c h a r a c t e r , h o w s o e v e r good and f i n e ,
b u t it can be d e s t r o y e d by ridicule,
howsoever poor and w i tless . rt
-In Puddtnhead Wilson (Mark Twain, 1893)
"Ridiculen is defined as a form of disparagement humour
that expresses "themes of criticism or persona1 abuse in a
jocular formatn (Wilson, 1979, p.190)
.
The joke form implies
levity, whereas the joke content ia abusive. Freud
(1905/1960) theorized that our enjoyment of this type of
humour is due to the fact that the facade of the humour
atones for the hostility of its content. We can vent
aggressive and hostile feelings in a socially acceptable
manner.
There is little doubt as to the popularity of this form
of humour. Stocking, Sapolsky, and Zillmann (1977) did a
content analysis of humour in prime time television for a
weok. They recorded al1 incidents that they considered to be
intended as humour. An incident was recorded as tendentious,
or hostile, if a person or thing was disparaged. They found
that 69% of al1 humorous incidents
(588)
were hostile. A
similar study examining cartoon humour in popular magazines
a l s o found that most of the humour w a s aggressive (Cantor,
1977) . Gruner (1978) argued that "ridicule is the basic
component of al1 humorous material" (p.14).
orles o f Dis-ment
H
e
Thomas Hobbes, considered by many to be the "fatherw of
modern humour theory, thought that amusement and laughter
are the result of the glory we feel from favourably
comparing ourselves with the inadequacies of others (Hobbes,
1651/1968). The superiority theory of humour is based on
this premise that humour is an opportunity to enhance one's
subjective well-being through comparison with a less
fortunate other (Wills, 1981) .
More recent theoriea, such as the "dispositional
theoryN, have rnaintained this basic premise, but have
incorporated the observation that our enjoyment of the
misfortunes of others is dependent on our affective
orientation toward them. Mirth will increase if the target
is disliked, and decrease if the target is liked (Zillrnann &
Cantor, 1976). Numerous studies have supported this theory
(e.g., Zillmam, Bryant,
&
Cantor, 1974; La Fave, Haddad,
Maesen, 1976; Wickeu, Baron,
&
Willis, 1980) .
&
Disparagement humour is defined as humorous material in
which a target is victimized, belittled, or suffers some
misfortune or act of aggression (Zillrnam, 1983). Sexist or
racist jokes exemplify this type of humour (Hobden & Olson,
1994). Most research on disparagement humour examines it in
relation to -g
individuals who are
Ie.g., women), or else in relation to
of groups (Olson, Maio
&
Hobden,
in press; Zillmam et al, 1974). Ridicule is generally
perceived as being more persona1 in nature (Wilson, 1979).
For the purposes of the current research, therefore,
ridicule refers to derisive joking directed at an
VI-,
concerning some aspect of his or her behaviour
or appearance.
Typically, research on disparagement humour examines
the level of amusement resulting from various manipulations
of the target and/or protagonist of the humour (e.g.,
Zillmann, 1983) . For example, Zillmam et al. (1974) found
that cartoons depicting mild assaults against political
candidates were rated as more amusing by those who opposed
the candidates than by those who supported them. A study by
Zillmann and Bryant (1980) demonstrated that participants
exhibited more amusement when they observed a female
confederate spilling coffee on herself if she had previously
been rude to them than if she had not been rude.
As noted, humour research has tended to focus on the
determinants of amusement or perceived funniness. Some
research has also been devoted to examining the
physiological correlates of amusement (e.g., Langevin
&
Day,
1972), or the role of sense of humour in psychological
adjustment (e.g., Kuiper
&
Martin, 1993). Very little
research, however, has explored the attitudinal or
behavioural e f f e c t s of humour. Givon that h?imour is
extremely common in our culture, i t s effects are important
to examine.
A
number of studies have explored how disparagement
humour affects people's stereotypes of, and attitudes
towards, the disparaged group. One common perception of
disparagement humour is that it strengthens and perpetuates
negative stereotypes of certain groups (e-g.,women) . A
series of experiments by Olson et al. (in press) exposed
participants to disparaging humour about men or lawyers.
Control groups were exposed to nondisparaging humour,
nonhumorous disparaging information, or nothing at all.
After exposure, participants were t e s t e d on a number of
measures, including their ratings of the target group on
stereotypic attributes, attitudes towards these groups, the
latencies of these judgments, and their interpretation of
ambiguous behaviors by rnembera of the target groups.
Results indicated that exposure to disparaging humour
directed at specific groups did not appear to affect
stereotype or attitude extremity or accessibility in
observers. The authors noted that the groups selected as
target groups in this experiment enjoy relatively high
status in our society. It may be the case that stereotypes
of lower status, disadvantaged groups will be more affected
by disparagement humour.
A similar experirnent (Maio, Oison,
&
Bush, in press)
had participants r e c i E (rather than sirnply listen to)
humour that disparaged a target group, in this case,
Newfoundlanders. A control group recited nondisparaging
humour. Participants then completed a questionnaire
measuring stereotypes and attitudes towards Newfoundlanders.
Those participants who had recited disparaging humour
were found to have significantly more negative stereotypes
of Newfoundlanders than did those who recited the nondisparaging humour (see also Hobden
&
Olson, 1994) . The
authors postulated that the joke-tellers may have
experienced cognitive dissonance when their actual attitudes
towards the group conflicted with those that were evidenced
by their jokes. This dissonance rnay have led the joke-
tellers to change their original attitudes to be more in
U n e with those that they espoused.
These studies indicate that siwle exposure to
disparagement humour may not have as strong an effect on
stereotypes and attitudes as is often surmised, but there is
some evidence that active recitation of disparaging humour
rnay have negative effects, likely due to dissonancemotivated attitude change. That i a , these effects are not
due to the disparaging humour per se, but instead are due to
tellina jokes that are inconsistent with one's attitudes.
Corrective
TWO
studies examining the behavioural implications of
humour observation have employed ridicule as an educationa:
corrective. Bryant, Brown, Parks, and Zillmam (1983) had
children observe videotaped messages discouraging certain
actions. On these videotapes, muppet models were corrected
with ridicule, comands, or suggestions when they engaged in
the behaviours that the experimenters wished to discourage.
The children were then observed to see whether they
engaged in these discouraged behaviours. For 6-year ofds,
watching a mode1 ridiculed was significantly more e f f e c t i ~ ~ e
at inhibiting the discouraged behavior than was either of
the other means of correction. These findings did not occur
with 4-year olds. The authors hypothesized that "6-year olds
are apparently sufficiently socialized to recognize and
appreciate the punishing power of derisive laughter. in
contrast, 4-year olds ...may lack the experience to recognize
derision for what it
A
isfl
(Bryant et al., 1983, p. 252).
similar study by Bryant, Brown, and Parks (1981) used
university students as participants. Al1 participants were
students in a lecture-style class. Included in the course
handouts was one of three motivating strategies: ridicule,
insult, and gentle reminder. In the ridicule condition,
students received cartoons that ridiculed students who did
not complete the course readings. Those in the insult
condition received essentially the same information, but it
was not "dressed up" in jokework. The gentle reminder was a
written message stressing the importance of the class
readings. The dependent measure was the performance of the
students on a surprise test on the course readings, during
the next class. Only the ridicule condition produced a
significant increase in test scores.
One of the most interesting aspects of these studies 1s
that ridicule is more effective than insult as a corrective.
There are several reasons why this may be so. First,
ridicule of others is more socially accepted than insulting
others. With humour. a considerable amount of hostility can
be expressed yet still be seen as socially acceptable
(Bryant et al., 1981). Whereas a person who insults others
will probably be publicly perceived in a negative manner
(e.g., as rude or surly), a person who ridicules others may
be perceived as witty and clever (Stocking & Zillmam,
1976). Since ridicule has fewer negative social
repercussiona for the protagonist than insult, it is more
likely to be employed as a rneans of belittling others.
Secondly, unlike insults, humour makes retaliation
inappropriate for the target. If a target becomes angry,
t h e n he or she rnay be perceived as being unable to Yake a
jokew. The target is placed in the predicament of being
perceived as a poor sport by " t r y i n g to regain his dignity
at the expense of the audience's pleasure" (Wilson, 1979,
p.204) if he or she retaliates in a nonhumorous manner.
whether or not the ridicule is viewed as fair or justified,
it will usually evoke amusement (Wilson, 1979).
~inally,ridicule puts people in the position of being
laughed at by others. The aversiveness of this situation was
noted by Thomas Hobbes, "It is no wonder therefore that men
take hainously to be laughed at or derided, that is,
triurnphed overra(Hobbes, l65l/l968, p. 103 )
.
Being laughed at
often isolates the target of ridicule. The audience derives
pleasure £rom the source of the targetfs discomfort, and the
"joint amusement of joker and audience may boost their
rnutual attraction and further isolate the butt from the rest
of the groupu (Wilson, 1979, p.204) .
These studies indicate that the possibility of ridicule
by others is an effective educational corrective. Although
this effectiveneas has been ernpirically demonstrated, the
authors themselves question its usefulness in the classroorn.
"Up
to this point, the consideration of ridicule as a
corrective has ignored potentially dysfunctional aspects of
this type of motivational message. It should be noted that
numerous educators have emphasized detrimental aspects of
ridicule. . . " (Bryant et al., 1983, p.253). The present
stxdies aim to clarify what these other aspects might bel
and the conditions under which they occur.
It is obvious that being the taraet of ridicule will
have an effect on an individual. It is less obvious that the
~bseme
will
~
be affected by seeing
others ridiculed.
However, observation of ridicule of others may invoke a
reluctance to engage in sirnilar behaviours, due to social
learning. Witnessing another person punished through
ridicule might make the observer "apprehensive about the
possibility of persona1 ridicule for the performance of the
ridiculed act and resort to alternative, 'safer' responsesu
(Bryant et al., 1981, p.723)
.
Ridicule, however, is not necessarily directed at a
particular behaviour. For example, it can be directed at a
person's physical appearance or lack of social skills. It is
more difficult for an observer to tailor h i s or her
behaviour to avoid ridicule when the ridicule is general in
nature. The observer might therefore avoid engaging in any
behaviour that could be a target of ridicule. This would
lead to behaviour that is "safeu in that it would put the
individual at little risk of standing out or appearing
foolish in any way.
This '5nhibiti0n~~
ia not necessarily due to any
conscious decision-making process. People often react to
stimuli without conscious awareness (Niabett
&
Wilson,
1977) . Nisbett and Wilson (1977) observed that participants
Yrequencly cannot report on the existence of the chief
response that was produced by the manipulationsw (p. 233)
nor can they " c o r r e c t l y identify the stimuli that produced
the responsetl(p. 233). Thus, these effects are expected to
be non-conscious.
3
The present studies were designed to test the
hypothesis that observation of ridicule has an inhibiting
effect on the observer. This inhibition is characterized by
a reluctance to engage in behaviours that could potentially
be ridiculed. The dependent measures used in Experiment 1 to
reflect the hypothesized effects were conformity, fear of
failure, and creativity.
tv.
Several theorists have proposed that one
of the social Eunctiona of ridicule is to castigate
nonconformity (Martineau, 1972 ; Wilson, 1979). Ridicule is
often used as a social punishment against group rnembers who
fail to conform to social n o m s (Wilson, 1979). It was
hypothesized, therefore, that one of the behavioural effects
of observing ridicule of others would be increased
confonnity. The observer, aware of the possibility of being
a target of ridicule (though not consciously), may behave in
a conforming rnanner to avoid such an event.
To test the hypothesis that observation of ridicule of
others will lead to increased conformity, participants in
the first experirnent viewed either ridicule or another f o m
of humour and then were asked to rate the funniness of a
series of four cartoon strips. Each cartoon had two bogus
ratings already on the page, ostensibly from previous
respondents. These previous ratings were selected to
inaccurately reflect the true humorousness of the cartoon
(e.g., a funny cartoon was given low previous ratings). It
was expected that participants who had observed ridicule of
others would give ratings that were more similar, or
conforming, to these previous ratings.
.-
Although fear of failure has sometimes
been conceptualized as a personality trait (e.g., Yailure-
threatenedw individuals in the achievement motivation
literature; Sorrentino, Hewitt,
&
Raso-Knott, 19921, the
social environment can increase or decrease the
ramifications of failure, leading to more or less fear of
failure in a particular situation. It is possible that a
person who has observed ridicule of others will be
sensitized to the fact that failure can be ridiculed and,
therefore, behave in such a way as to minimize the
possibility of failure.
Research has s h o w that those people who are successoriented tend to choose a moderate level of challenge when
given the opportunity (Sorrentino et al. , 1992) . Those w h o
are failure-threatened typically choose either low levels of
challenge or very high ones. Very easy tasks are unlikely to
produce failure, and very difficult tasks can be failed
without shame.
An early experiment by Atkinson and Litwin (1960) used
a ring toss task to test whether failure-threatened people
would approach risk differently than non-failure-threatened
people. Resuits indicated that those participants who were
failure-threatened were significantly more likely to employ
either a self-handicapping (i.e., giving themselves an
excuse for failure, see Berglas
&
Jones, 1978) or a low risk
(standing close to the peg) strategy than were the nonfailure-threatened participants, who were more likely to opt
for moderate levela of risk.
A ring toss task was used in the first experiment to
test fear of failure. This fear is conceptualized as being
environmentally-induced, as opposed to being a personality
dimension. Participants were instructed to throw 10 rings
ont0 a peg, standing "wherever they felt comfortable~.These
instructions were intentionally ambiguous, so participants
could construe the task according to their own motives.
It was assumed that those participants who stood very
close to the target peg to shoot were opting for low levels
of challenge, whereas those who stood very far away were
self-handicapping. doth strategies are indicative of fear of
failure. Moderate distances should reflect low fear of
failure because the test-takers are realistically
challenging themselves. Individual differences in fear of
failure and in levels of ski11 should also influence
individuals1 decisions, of course, but it is assumed that
these differences will be randomly distributed across
experimental groups.
. .
eativity. The final dependent measure in the first
experirnent was a creativity task. It was hypothesized that
observation of ridicule of others might inhibit divergent
thinking, considered by many to be a factor in creativity
(e.g.,
uses
Guilford, 1956) . The task employed was a "multiple
test" (based on Torrance's
Unusual Uses Test, 19621,
which involves having people consider an abject - - in this
case, a brick
- - and
then wxite d o m as many unusual uses
f o r that object as they can think of w i t h i n a specified time
period.
. .
qeIf -R&ct&
A secondary purpose of this experiment was to test
whether self-deprecating humour might have an opposite,
disinhibiting effect on the observer. Whereas humour that
ridicules others makes the observer
more aware of the
possibility of ridicule by others, self-deprecating humour
might make the observer less concerned about how his or her
behaviour is perceived by othcrs. Observing someone make
light of his or her personal shortcomings may encourage us
to lighten up about our own. This could result in decreased
conformity and fear of failure, and increased creativity.
Social modeling principlea could account for these
different effects. Other-ridiculing humour involves a
protagonist (the joke-teller) and a victim (the target). In
this scenario, the victim's
misfortunes are "served up" for
the amusement of others. The protagonist is clearly
dominant, and the audience is laughing with him/her. The
victim, on the other hand, is being laughed at, which is a
punishing stimulus. Observers may f e e l sympathy for the
target, but they would not likely want to be in a similar
situation, and their behaviour should reflect this.
In the self-deprecating condition, the protagonist and
the victim are the same person. The audience is laughing
both at and with the comedian. By jesting about sorte
persona1 weakness, the mode1 is demonstrating his or her
lack of concern about the s o c i a l consequences of t h e
revealed weakness or f a i l u r e . This may encourage the
audience t o view their own shortcomings as less serious, or
even amusing. The observer, therefore, may be more likely t o
engage i n behaviour that c o u l d be a target of ridicule than
the other-ridiculing or c o n t r o l groups.
Experiment 1
In the first experiment, there were three conditions:
other- ridiculing humour, self-deprecating humour, and nondirectional humour. Participants were randomly assigned to
one of these conditions. They observed one of the humourous
videotapes and were then tested on the dependent measures.
Method
Participants were 61 undergraduate psychology students
at the University of Western Ontario, who received course
credit for participating. Twenty-six participants were male,
and 3 5 were fernale. Seven additional participants were
dropped becauae their first language was not English ( 6 ) , or
because they did not follow the instructions (1).
e r m n t a l -oc
. .
.
-e
The
.
humorous videotape watched
by participants in this condition contained jokes that
ridiculed another person. One male comedian told a series of
jokes about a person referred to as "this guy 1 known. The
jokes were directed at this unseen personls physical
appearance ( e . g . , "His acne was so bad as a teenager, we
used to cal1 him 'pizza fats'"), his l a c k of romantic
success (e.g., "He tried to join a lonely hearts club, but
they s a i d 'Hey, w e f r e not that desperatel"),and various
other misfortunes, physical and behavioural.
a
- Hum~yy.This condition allowed us to
test whether the humour would have a different effect if it
was self-directed as opposed to directed at another person.
The jokes used in this condition were exactly the sarne, and
given in the same order by the same cornedian, as in the
other-ridiculing condition, but they were directed at the
comedian himself (e.g., IlMy acne was so bad aa a teenager,
they used to cal1 me 'pizza f a c e T . Any differences in
behaviour between experimental groups would be attributable
to the direction of the humour, since al1 other aspects of
the humour were held constant.
.
Control Grow C n a. t ion
. In this condition,
participants watched a videotape consisting of humour that
had no target. The same comedian as in the other conditions
told animal jokes (e.g., "He crossed a hyena with parrot so
it could tell him what it was laughing aboutn) or jokes that
used verbal wordplay or surprise to evoke mirth (e.g.,
What has two gills, scales, and warns us about the dangers
of smoking? The Sturgeon Generaim).
This condition had different jokes than the
experimental conditions, but provided a baseline of the
general effects of humour on the dependent variables so that
the effects of the other conditions could be ascertained.
For example, it was necessary to have a control group to
know
whether any differences between the other-ridiculing
and the self-deprecating conditions reflected the latter's
disinhibiting effect, or merely the lack of an inhibiting
effect. Conversely, it was possible that the self-
deprecating condition would also have an inhibiting effect,
althougb less so than the other-ridiculing condition. The
control group provided a context for assessing the
experimental groups' data.
.
Respondents rated four cartoons on a sheet
that had two ratings already written in pen on it. These two
ratings were the same for half of the cartoons (e.g., both
ratings were
"2"
on a 7-point s c a l e ) , and were different by
1 scale point for the other half ( e . g . , ratings of "5" and
"6"). Respondents were
informed that these ratings were
£rom
previous participants in the same condition. This measure
was scored in two ways: (1) by counting how many times, out
of four, the respondent exactly confomed (gave the same
rating as at least one of the bogus ratings) and (2) by
sumrning the absolute differences between each respondentts
scores and the previous scores (a match with any of the
bogus ratings was scored as O)
.
These scoring systems reflect two commonly used methods
of operationalizing conformity: as & m I ~ r e e r n e n t (a
binary method of either accepting or not accepting the
particular n o m ) or as -ramise
(the extent to which
judgments are pulled in the direction of the n o m ) (Campbell
&
Fairey, 1989).
of F h i r p .
This measure involved having
participants complete a ring toss task. Participants were
told to stand wherever they wanted to toss the rings. There
were 15 lines marked on the floor at one-foot intervals,
with a peg at the end. After being handed 10 rings,
participants were informed that we "want to see how good you
are at thism. For each throw, we calculated the absolute
difference between the participant's distance from the peg
and the mean distance of a l 1 participants across al1 throws
(see
Atkinson
&
Litwin, 1960). The m e a n across a l 1
participants (the grand mean) wae assumed to reflect a point
of moderate risk that balanced the relevant motives. We
averaged the 10 absolute difference scores (from each throw)
to obtain a total "fear of failure" score for each
participant.
In addition to the measure used by Atkinson and Litwin
(1960), which calculated scores using al1 10 tosses, we
employed an additional measure using only the first t k o w of
each participant. It was expected that this score reflected
the participant's initial approach to the task, undiluted by
later factors such as success or failure on earlier throws.
A
separate grand mean was calculated for this analysis,
using only the first toss distances for al1 subjects across
al1 conditions.
. .
~ v r u .The scoring for the Multiple Uses Task
(Torrance, 1962) is based on fluency (the number of uses
generated) and divergence of ideas (e.g . , for a brick,
divergence would be characterized by non-building uses for
the brick). Divergent thinking involves breaking out of
typical thinking patterns and generating unconventional
ideas.
Procedure
Each participant was run individually by a fernale
experimenter.
A
cover story about the purpose of the
experiment was devised to allay suspicions. Participants
were told that the experiment was exploring the relationship
between hand/eye coordination and humour appreciation. In
the first part of the experiment, participants viewed an
8-minute humourous videotape. Afterwards, they completed a
questionnaire measuring their enjoyment of various aspects
of the humour. Resuits of this questionnaire were employed
as a manipulation check to ensure that subjects in al1
conditions found the videotape equally amusing.
In the next part of the experiment, participants were
told that we were interested in their reactions to different
types of humour. They were given
4
cartoon strips to rate on
a scale from 1 to 7. On the page containing the cartoon were
two other ratings. Participants were informed that these
ratings were from previous respondents and that the reason
for having al1 participants rate on the same page was to
prevent unneceasary papes usage.
Next, participants were taken to another room to
perform a ring toss task. This part of the experiment was
presumably teating their hand/eye coordination. They were
instructed to stand wherever they felt cornfortable on a 1 5 foot grid, and were told that they could move after each
tosa, if they chose. Participants were led to believe that
the experimenter was intereated in the number of rings that
they hooked on the peg, but actually the principal variable
of interest was how far from the peg they stood. However,
accuracy (how many rings they got on the peg) was also
recorded by the experimenter for the purpose of supplemental
analyses.
In the final stage of the experiment, participants were
asked to complete a multiple uses task. The purpose of this
task was supposedly to test how some other variables (e.g.,
creativity) related to humour preferences. Participants were
given three minutes to complete this task, which involved
generating as many different and unusual uses for a brick as
they could. Participants were then thanked and debriefed.
-
See Appendix A for al1 materials used in Experiment 1.
A 3x2
Results
analysis of variance (ANOVA) tested whether the
three humourous videotapes were considered to be equally
funny by
participants in al1 three conditions, and by men
and women. Participants rated the humorousness of the
videotapes on a scale from 1 ( n o t at al1 fumy) to 7
(extremely funny) .
As
expected, there were no significant differences in
the mean ratings of the other-ridiculing (2.711, the selfdeprecating (2.71), or the contxol group (3.21) videotapes,
E
c
1. Men's (3.08) and women's
(2.71) ratings were not
significantly different. ûverall, the humour was rated 2 - 8 7
on a 7-point scale, indicating that participants felt it was
low to moderately funny.
Results of the 3x2 (condition x sex) ANOVA's
for each
of the principal dependent measures revealed no significant
effects for condition or sex. The only significant sex
difference occurred on a supplementary measure: an analysis
of the raw ring tosa distances indicated that men stood
farther back from the peg (M =
(M
=
8.63 ft) than women
6.48 ft), E(l,55)= 15.838, Q
<
.001.
On al1 of the meaaures, the control and selfdeprecating conditions yielded very sirnilar means. That is,
the effects of non-directional and self-ridiculing humour
appeared to be similar.
~herefore,the hypothesis about the
effects of other-ridiculing humour was tested by piamed
contrasts of the other-ridiculing condition versus the other
two groups combined.
C
o
0
Two meaaures assessed whether conformity
was
affected
by the type of humour observed. The sum-of-differences
analysis showed that scores in the other-ridiculing
condition (5.14) were not reliably different from those in
the self-deprecating (5.86) and control conditions ( 6 - 1 1 1 ,
although the pattern of means w a s in the expected direction
(less di£f erence from the tfpreviousratingsl1 in the otherridiculing condition) .
When confonnity was scored as the number of times out
of four that the participants exactly conformed to one of
the "previous ratings", a significant planned contrast was
found: the mean conformity rating in the other-ridiculing
condition (M = 1.24) was significantly higher than that in
the combined self-deprecating (M = 0.86) and control
(M
=
0.90) groups (combinedM = 0.881, f(60)
=
1.71,
Q
c .O5
(one-tailed).
of F
W
This variable was a l s o measured in two ways. The major
variable of interest was each participant's deviation score
for his or her m
t tons. This score is determined by
calculating the absolute difference between the
participant's distance from the peg (on the first throw) and
the grand mean (the average distance of al1 participants in
al1 groups on the first toss; Atkinson
&
Litwin, 1960). The
grand mean was 7.16 feet from the peg, on a grid of 15 feet.
This indicates that, overall, participants chose to toss
from approxirnately the midway point on the grid.
The planned contrast showed that participants in the
other-ridiculing condition had significantly larger
deviation scores on their f i r s t toss than those in the other
two conditions. Mean scores in the other-ridiculing group
(M
= 2.95
ft) were higher than those in the combined self-
deprecating (M
= 1.84 ft)
and control (M
(combined M = 2.02 ft) , L(6O)
= 1.82,
Q
= 2.19 ft)
groups
c .O5 (one-tailed)
.
Another analysis was performed using the mean deviation
score for al1 ten throws. In this analysis, each
participant's score reflected the average deviation of al1
his or her tosses. The grand mean was recalculated (7.4 ft),
using distances for al1 tosses by al1 subjects across al1
conditions. Means of the groupa in this analysis were also
significantly different. The other-ridiculing group had a
higher mean (M = 2.55 ft) than the self-deprecating
(M
M
=
1.76 ft) and control
(M
= 1.83 ft), ~ ( 6 0 )
= 2.09,
Q
= 1.90 ft) groups (combined
c .OS.
There were no significant differences between groups in
accuracy (number of succesaful throwa) : other-ridiculing
(M
=
3.381, self-deprecating (M = 3.521, control (M
= 3.371,
E(2,SS) < 1. In addition, there were no significant group
differences when participants' average a distances were
analyzed, as opposed to their deviations from the mean:
other ridiculing (M
= 7.781, self-deprecating
control (M
E ( 2 , S S ) c 1.
= 7.461,
(M
= 6.96),
This indicates that
throwers in the other-ridiculing condition stood closer
farther away from the peg than those in other groups. As
reported, there w a s a significant gender difference on this
measure, with men tending to stand farther £ r o m the peg than
women .
For exploratory purposes, participantst raw distance
scores were recoded, labeling as "self-handicappers"those
participants (in any condition) who stood at least one
standard deviation (2.2 ft) further from the peg than the
grand mean
( 7 . 4 ft),
and labeling as Mnon-challengersuthose
(in any condition) who stood at least one standard deviation
c l o s e r to the peg than the mean. Results of a chi-square
analysis of the frequencies of these categories ( s e e Table
1) showed that men were significantly more likely than women
to be self-handicappers, while women were more likely to be
in the non-challenger group,
Q
c.002.
This analysis did not meet the standard criterion of an
expected value of at least 5 in each cell, however. Another
chi-squared analysia was performed, thia time labeling as
self-handicappers or non-challengers those participants who
stood 1 foot farther £rom or closer to the peg than the
Strategy
Sex
Non-Challengers
Self-Handicappers
Female
Male
Nate. 1n this table, "non-challengers" and "self -
handicappers" refer to those whose mean distances are at
least one standard deviation closer to or farther from the
peg than the mean of al1 participants.
grand mean. This analysis (see Table 2) met the criterion
of expected values and was also significant, Q
c
.OOOI.
. .
Creat~vitv
Analysis of the multiple uses task involved scoring
each use for originality/divergence on a scale of 1 to 5,
and summing these values to produce a creativity score for
each participant. Overall creativity scores in the other-
ridiculing group (M =
22.90) did not differ significantly
from those in the self-deprecating (M
(M
= 26.05)
= 23.271
or control
groups. Another analysis summed the non-building
uses generated by each participant. Again, the mean scores
of those in the other-ridiculing condition (M = 7.20) were
not significantly different from those in the selfdeprecating (M = 7.23) or control (M = 7.15) condition.
Creativity appears to have been unaffected by the type of
humour observed.
Pisw-ion
The results of this experirnent provided encouraging
initial support for the prirnary hypotheais. Observation of
ridicule of others appeared to have inhibiting effects on
the observer, as indicated by the conformity and fear of
failure measures. This inhibition, however, did not affect
Table 2
s Stratecnr (b)
Strategy
Sex
Non-Challengers
Female
18
5
2
13
Male
Self-Handicappers
Note. In this table, "non-challengersN and "self-
handicappers" refer to those whose mean distances are at
least one foot closer to or farther from the peg than the
average distance of al1 participants.
participants' creativity, as measured by the multiple uses
task.
We believe that the observation of others being
ridiculed increases observers' awareness (although not
necessarily their conscibus awareness) of the potential
negative consequences of their behaviour.
Presumably, this
increased awareness manifests as conformity because people
want to avoid behaving in ways that cause them to "stand
outw, thus making them a potential target of ridicule. This
increased salience of failure might increase one or both of
the perceived p&&7h,u
tive
c-ceq
. .
of failure and/or the perceived
of that failure (e.g., that it might
be laughed at by others), thereby resulting in greater fear
of failure.
Self-deprecating humour did not seem to affect
observers in these ways, nor did it have the predicted
disinhibiting effect compared to the contra1 condition.
Perhaps self-deprecating hurnor that gently pokes fun at
universal hurnan shortcornings would be more successful at
producing disinhibition in observera. The self-deprecating
humour used in this experiment was self-ridiculing in
n a t u r e , so as to parallel the other-ridiculing condition.
Only one of the two conformity analyses yielded
significant results. One possible explanation for the lack
of strength of this effect is that the present conformity
measures did not unequivocally reflect
conformity.
Someone who is made conscious of the possibility of being
ridiculed should be more likely to conform in a situation
that is public, rather than private. The cartoon-rating task
was not really public in nature, although it was not fully
private either. The experimenter collected the sheets from
participants upon completion. A conformity masure that was
explicitly public might have been more powerful.
There are certain limitations to the external validity
of this experiment, sorne of which argue for a
effect of ridicule than we actually obtained, Real-life
ridicule is often quite caustic, whereas the ridicule in
this experiment was fairly innocuous. Many of the jokes were
too absurd to be sincere (e.g., "He w a s so ugly as a child
that his parents had to tie a porkchop around his neck to
get the dog to play with hirnIt), and therefore may not have
been regarded as abusive,
Also, there was no real threat of ridicule toward the
observers from the videotaped comedian in this experiment.
In public situations, observers are never sure whether the
ridiculer will turn on them next. Also, there are often
other people present in situations of real-life ridicule,
who may serve as a laughing audience. These other elements
probably enhance the effects of ridiculing humour.
The results of this experiment indicated that the
effects of ridicule occurred even when there was no overt
likelihood of the observer being ridiculed or laughed at.
This fact suggests that the effects would extend ta
televised ridicule, which is likely the most comrnon source
of exposure to ridicule for moat people. Research suggests
that hostile humour is extremely common on prime time
television (Cantor, 1977) .
Experiment 2
Experiment 2 addressed some of the methodological
problems of Experiment 1.
A
weakness of the first study was
the benign nature of the humour; it was often too
exaggerated to be serious. Another factor that may have
weakened the potential effects was tne fact that the target
of the other-ridiculing humour was not shown on the
videotape. Therefore, the experimental stimulus in the first
study lacked any sense of public humiliation, which is often
characteristic of ridicule of others. We believe that otherridiculing humour has inhibiting effects because it makes
salient to the observer that he or she could also be the
target of ridicule. Factors such as the innocuousness of the
ridicule, or an absent target, would be expected to weaken
these effects.
Experiment 2 addressed these problems by showing the
target of the ridicule, as well as a laughing bystander, on
the videotape. It was expected that observing a scenario
where one person is ridiculed by another, and laughed at by
a third person, would increase the salience of potential
ridicule in the mind of the observer.
Results of the manipulation check in Expriment 1
revealed that respondents did not find the humour
particularly funny. Overall, the humour was rated as 2.87 on
a scale ranging from 1 (not at al1 funny) to 7 (extremely
funny). This lack of amusement rnay have been due to overly
high expectations of humorousness due to Experiment 1's
ostensible focus on humour appreciation. This focus on
humour also limited the type of ridicule that could be used.
The necessity of hurnorousness for both the other- and selfridicule conditions led to the exaggerated quality of the
ridicule. Study 2 included the ridicule as a peripheral
aspect of the stimulus, not as the focus of it. Therefore,
the ridicule could be more caustic than funny without
violating participants1 expectations of humorousness.
Conformity waa one of the predicted
behavioral responsea to observing ridicule of others. The
rneasure in Experiment 2 was similar to the one used in the
first experiment, except that it was more public. If
conformity to n o m s is due to fear of ridicule, then it
should be more likely to occur in situations where one's
behavior is visible to others.
Participants were asked to assess the stimulus
videotape on a number of dimensions. They were informed that
previous respondents had already rated the tapes on the same
sheet. These bogus flpreviouswasseasments, which exhibited
high consensus, served as n o m s . Pretesting had indicated
that these bogus assessments were very inaccurate. The
ratings sheets were posted on t h e wall of the experimental
room, thereby exposing the participant's assessments t o the
scrutiny of others.
F e a r of fa-.
The ring-toss measure in Experiment 1
was designed to measure environmentally-induced fear of
failure. The second experiment again included the ring t o s s
task but also attempted to measure the enhanced awareness of
the consequences of failure in another rnanner. A research
paradigm that ha3 become increasingly popular in social and
cognitive psychology is the lexical decision task. In this
type of task, participants read a string of letters which
appears on the cornputer screen and identify, as quickly as
possible, whether these letters are a word or a nonword.
Respondents' reaction times f o r correct identification of
the target words are the dependent measure.
Previous social paychological research has shown that this
task can be used to "reveal the associative links between
elements of social knawledgeu ( ~ a l d w i n& Sinclair, 1996; p.
6). For example, a study by Gaertner and ~ c ~ a u g h l i(1983)
n
demonstrated that people who had been primed with Whites
were quicker to identify the word
had been primed with
A series
&J
. t i. o u than those who
m.
of experirnents by Baldwin and Sinclair (1996)
demonstrated that prirning high and low self-esteem
participants with auccess or failure contexts affected the
speed of recognition of apcppta-
and
piw-
target
words for low self-esteern respondents but not for high selfesteem respondents. These results were hypothesized to be
due to a chronically-accessible scherna, whereby low selfesteem individuals associate succcess and failure with
acceptance and rejection, respectively (Baldwin & Sinclair,
p.13).
A
lexical decision task was used in Study 2. If
observing ridicule of others does, in fact, increase the
salience or accesaibility of possible ridicule and
rejection, then this increased salience should be
demonstrable by quicker recognition of words associated with
rejection. This experirnent employed a design similar to that
of Baldwin and Sinclair, except that instead of priming
success or failure contexta, the various ridiculing
conditions served as primes.
In Baldwin and Sinclair's
study, only low self-esteem
individuals were differentially affected by the primes-
~lthoughwe believe that the inhibiting effects of ridicule
are a general effect, not limited to those people with
certain personality characteristics such as low self-esteem,
it seerned worthwhile to assess participants' levels of selfesteem as this might moderate some of the predicted effects.
Therefore, Rosenberg's
(1965) self-esteem scale was
administered to each participant at the beginning of the
experiment .
. .
ivlty. Although Experiment 1 did not reveal any
differences in creativity between groupe, this might have
been due to the object (a brick) used for the task. For some
reason, a brick elicited a large number of destructive
wuses" on the multiple uses task (e.g., "could be used to
smash a windoww)
.
Perhaps a paperclip, with the minimal
violent imagery generally associated with it, would be a
more appropriate object to use in this measure.
Method
Participants were 100 undergraduate students at the
University of Western Ontario, who received course credit
for participating. Twenty-six participants were male, and
were female. Four additional participants were dropped
74
because their first language was not English ( 2 ) or because
they did not follow instructions (2).
There were slightly different sample sizes for some of
the rneasures aue to data that were dropped or missing. For
exarnple, t h e r i n g toss data for seven participants were
dropped because they indicated suspiciousness during the
debriefing: some participants had read about the first study
(6)or had already participated in a study employing a ring
toss rneasure (1) and were aware that tossing rings from the
midpoint would reflect favourably on theml. They appeared to
have no suspicions regarding the other dependent measures,
so we retained the rest of their data. Word recognition data
were missing in some cases because the experirnent began two
days before the lexical decision task equipment was fully
operational.
. .
conditions
- . .
S
T.
h e videotape observed by the
participants in this condition showed three students ( t w o
males and a female) working on a task: changing a flat tire
Prior to running Experiment 2 , the author was interviewed
about Experiment 1 by a media liason person from the University. A
story about Experiment 1 appeared in a campus newspaper just after
Experiment 2 began. T h e only thing that those participants who had
read of the first study recalled was that they should stand at the
rnidpoint of the grid when completing the ring tosa task.
on a bicycle. One of the males performed the task (e.g.,
gluing on a patch) while the other male assisted hirn ( e . g . ,
handing him materials). The female acted as narrator,
explaining to the audience the steps involved in the task.
The male who demonstrated the task made a number of mistakes
(e.g., pinching his finger in the pump) and the assisting
male made ridiculing jokes about these mistakes (e.g., I I I
guess thattswhy they cal1 it a foot pumpn), as well as
other, mare general, jokes directed at the demonstrating
male (e.g., IlIf a loser like him can f ix a tire, you can
tooN). The narrating female laughed at the ridicule offcamera .
.
The videotape in this
condition contained the same scenario as the otherridiculing condition. However, in this condition, the
demonstrating male engaged in self-ridicule about his
mistakes and personality. In both cases, the ridicule was
exactly the sarne. The only difference was in who was
delivering it. As in the other-ridiculing condition, the
female narrator laughed off-carnera at the ridicule.
. .
m
.
In this condition, the videotape
was the same as the others in al1 respecta except that the
ridiculing humour and laughter were l e f t out completely.
.-
Respondents were asked to rate the
instructional videotape on
4
different dimensions: clarity,
enjoyment of the tape, explicitness, and overall educational
value. Participants were asked to give their ratings of
these dimensions on the fifth space of a ratings sheet
posted on the wall. The first four spaces, out of 10, were
already filled out. For each dimension, the bogus ratings
had t w o different scores, each of theae given by two of the
four "previoua participantsw. The dimension of clarity, for
example, had two bogus ratings of 1 on a scale of 1 to 7 and
two ratings of 2.
Conformity was assessed by measuring how closely
participantsn responses matched the previous four. A s in
Experiment 1, this was scored in two ways: (1) by counting
how many times, out of four, each respondent exactly
conformed to one of the bogus ratings (conformity was
defined as rnatching either of the previous ratings) and (2)
by summing across the four items the ratings difference of
each respondentlsscores and the previous scores (a match
with either of the bogus ratings was scored as O).
o f .-F
A ring toss was used to assess fear of
failure as in Experiment 1. The same scoring metho&
were
used in both experiments.
i e n w o f R e w c t i o n . This measure tested the
accessibility of rejection-related words. Participants
perfonned a lexical decision task, whereby they had to
decide, as quickly and as accurately as possible, whether a
string of letters displayed on a computer screen was a word
or a nonword. Letter strings were displayed on the screen
for 500 ms, and participants indicated whether it was a word
or nonword by pressing the uyesl'button or the "nou button
on a button box.
There were 40 nonword trials and 40 word trials. Ten of
the word trials were rejection-oriented words (e.g,
humiliated, mocked) ten were acceptance-oriented words
( e .g . ,
accepted, approval) and the rest were neutral words
(e.g., estimate, write) . Nonwords were generated by changing
one letter of cornrnon words (e.g., commert, invute) . This
word list is presented in Appendix B. The order of
presentation vas counterbalanced among subjects to ensure
that order effects were not a problem.
The primary focus of thia lexical decision task was
respondents' speed of recognition of rejection-~riented
words. Acceptance-oriented words were included in this task
to ascertain whether it is rejection that is more salient,
or whether bath positive and negative outcornes are more
salient to the observer of ridicule.
. .
.Creativity was assessed as in Experiment 1,
using a Multiple Uses task (Torrance, 1962). Experiment 2
used a paperclip instead of a brick, however. Scoring is
based on fluency (the number of ideas generated) and
divergence (the unusualness) of ideae.
Procedure
Each participant was run individually by a female
experimenter. Participants were infonned that the experiment
was examining the effect that different instructional styles
have on mernory retention for the material. They learned that
they would be watching one of aeveral educational
videotapes, each teaching the same scenario, but with a
different "instructional styleN. Participants were randomly
assigned to one of the three humour conditions.
Each participant read and signed the consent fonn, and
t h e n completed Rosenberg's (1965) 10-item self-esteem scale,
measuring general feelings of self-worth. Participants then
watched an 8-minute videotape demonstrating how to change a
flat tire on a bicycle. After viewing the video, each
participant completed a 7-item memory questionnaire, which
tested recall for the information presented. The purpose of
this questionnaire was to maintain the cover story of the
experiment . However, results of the memory questionnaire
were
analyzed to ensuïe that subjects in a l 1 conditions paid
equal attention to the videotapes.
After completing the memory questionnaire, participants
were asked to rate the videotape on a number of different
dimensions. Four ratings sheeta were taped to the wall
behind them, each containing a rating scale for one
dimension (e.g., clarity) . Each sheet contained 10 ratings
scales, and the first four scales were already filled out,
ostensibly by previous participants. It was pointed out to
each respondent that participants in the same condition were
being asked to rate on the same ratings sheets sa that there
were not "hundreds of sheets of paper, with only one rating
on eachn. Participants were asked to fil1 out each rating
sheet in the fifth spot.
After they had rated the videotape, participants were
infonned that the first experiment was finished. They were
asked if they would be willing to take part in some
unrelated tasks, since the first experiment was so brief
(approximately 20 minutes) . Al1 of the participants agreed
to continue. The purpose of these tasks, supposedly, was to
determine the role that hand/eye coordination played in
speed of word recognition. Participants were asked to
perform a ring toss task and a word recognition task. The
order of these tasks was counterbalanced in case the e f f e c t s
of the stimuli diminished over time.
For the ring toss task. participants were taken to
another room. As in Experiment 1. they were handed 10 rope
rings and were asked to stand wherever they felt most
comfortable to shoot from. They were told that they could
stay in one spot to shoot, or could move after any shot,
whatever they wished. Each was told, "We want to see how
good you are at this." Again. the principal variable of
interest was where each participant stood to shoot.
The lexical decision task was completed in another room
containing a cornputer terminal. Each participant was briefed
on how to complete the task and then sat at the terminal,
where explicit instructions were displayed an the screen. To
familiarize participants with the lexical decision task,
they first completed 10 practice trials in which they were
shown a letter string and asked to decide if it was a word
or nonword. After the practice trials. participants
completed the 80 critical trials. This task took
approximately 10 minutes to complete.
After the lexical decision task, participants returned
to the original testing room, where they were asked to
complete a multiple uses task. An object, a paperclip in
this case, was placed on the table, and participants were
asked to corne up with as many interesting and unusual uses
for a paperclip as they could in 3 minutes.
After completing thia task, participants completed a
short questionnaire aaaessing how funny they found the
videotape, and how much they identified with the actors. The
purpose of this was to ensure that there were no significant
differences in levels of amusement for each of the ridicule
videotapes. After completing this questionnaire,
participants were extensively debriefed and thanked. See
Appendix B for al1 materials included in this experiment.
Results
c
As
in Experiment 1, participants were asked to rate the
hurnorousness of the videotapes on a scale from 1 (not at al1
funny) to 7 (extremely fumy) . Results of an ANOVA indicated
that the means for the three groups differed significantly:
other- ridiculing (1= 2.67), self-deprecating (M
= 3.721 ,
controi (M = 1.971, E(2,95)
=
12.827,
Q c
.001. ~ o t
surprisingly, post hoc analyses indicated that participants
in the control (no humour) condition found the instructional
videotapes less funny than did those in self-deprecating
condition; L(95)
=
2.59,
Q <
comparisons were significant.
(M
=
.02. No other pairwise post hoc
Men
(M
=
2.70) and women
2.77) found the videotapes equally humorous, E(1,95)
c
1, naAn
analysis of the results of the memory questionnaire
revealed no significant differences. Participants in the
other-ridiculing (M = 5.94), the self-deprecating
(M
=
5.931, and the control (M = 5.86) conditions did
equally well on the 7-item questionriaire, E(2,93)
< 1,
u.
This indicatea that any differing evaluations of
humorousness did not affect participants' attentiveness to
the videotapes.
.
sex)
Results of the
3x2
(condition by
M O V A ' S for each of the dependent measures revealed two
significant sex differences. Men had lower conformity scores
than women on one of these measurea, a finding which will be
discussed later. Also, men had higher deviation scores on
the ring toss measure that used al1 10 throws, a finding
which will be raised in the discussion section.
As
in Experiment 1, means for the self-deprecating and
control conditions were very similar. Therefore, the
hypothesis that ridicule has behavioral consequences was
tested by planned contrasts of the other-ridiculing
condition versus the other two groups combined. Table 3
presents the means for the three conditions on each
principal dependent measure except the lexical decision
task. For comparison purposes, the means from Experiment 1
are also presented.
The personality variable of self-esteem was used as a
factor in al1 analyses. It had no significant effects on any
findings except the lexical decision task, in which case ir
moderated the effects of the manipulation. Therefore it will
not be discussed as a variable of interest except in the
section on lexical decision results.
Conformity masures. As in Experiment 1, two measures
were used to assess whether conformity was affected by the
type of humour observed. When conformity was assessed as the
number of tirnes, out of four, that participantst ratings
matched one of the bogus ratings (acceptance or rejection of
norms), planned cornparisons were found to be significant.
Those in the other-riduculing condition conformed
significantly more often (M = 1.56) than did those in the
Table 3
Condition
Dependent Measure
Other-Ridiculing
Self-Deprecating
Conformi ty
Accept/Reject
Study l*
Study 2 *
Compromise
Study 1
Study 2
Fear of Failure
F i r s t Toss
Study i*
Çtudy 2*
Al1 T h r o w s
Study l*
Study 2
Creativity
Overall Score
Study 1
Study 2
Number of Uses
Study 1
Study 2
*
22.90
25.30
7.20
8.55
Plamed cornparisons were significant,
Q
<
.O5
Control
self-deprecating (M
combined (M
= 1.09)
= 1 . 8 , 9
or control (M
= 2.07, Q c
= 1.26)
groups
.05.
In the sum-of-differences (compromise) analysis, no
significant differences between groups were found.
As in
Experiment 1, the means were in the expected direction,
however, with mean scores in the other ridiculing condition
(M
= 5.25)
closer to the bogus scores than those in the
self-deprecating (M = 6.06) and control (M
= S . 80)
conditions. Men (M = 7.31) were significantly less likely to
conform than women (M = 5.14). E(1,93) = 12.296, Q
= -001, a
f inding which is generally aupported by the Ilterature (sec
Eagly, 1983).
g .
The most relevant measure of
fear of failure was the deviation score for each
participants' h r s t toss on the ring toss task. As
previously mentioned, this score reflected the participant's
initial approach to the task, undiluted by later factors
such as success or failure on earlier thxows. The grand mean
(average distance of first tosses for al1 participants
across
al1 conditions) was 6.91 ft. Planned contrasts of the
other-ridiculing condition versua the self-deprecating and
control conditions combined revealed significant
differences. Mean deviation scores in the other-ridiculing
condition
(M
= 2.26
deprecating (M
ft) were higher than those in the self-
= 1.60
ft) and control (M
conditions (combined M
=
1.741, L(96)
= 1.88 ft)
= 1.79,
Q
c
.Os (one-
tailed) .
A
second analysis calculated each participant's average
deviation score for al1 ten throws, using the grand mean of
6.49 ft. for this analysis. There was a significant sex
di£ference, with men (M = 2.46 ftl having larger deviation
scores than women (M
= 1.52 ft), E(1,87) = 15.18,
Q
c .00L
Resuits of the planned comparisona between conditions were
not significant, although separate analyse8 for each sex
indicated that wornen's mean deviation scores w e r e higher in
the ridicule condition (M = 1.84 ft) t h a n in the selfdeprecating (M
=
1.49 ft) and control (M
conditions cornbined (M
= 1.35
= 1.21
ft)
ft), f ; ( 6 7 ) = 1.86,
Q <
-05
(one-tailed). Men's means did not differ significantly:
other-ridiculing (M = 2.30 ft), self-deprecating (M
ft) , and control
(M
= 2.43 ft)
= 2.67
.
Furthemore, when analyses were perfonned using both
men and women but only the ring toss data that w
d
-e
d
the
lexical decision task (the two tasks were counterbalanced),
p ï a ~ e dcomparisona revealed significant overall differences
(across al1 ten throws) between the ridicule group
(M
= 2 . 1 9 ft)
and the self-deprecating (M = 1.55 f t ) and
control (U = 1.43 ft) groups combined (M = 1.49 ft), L(48)
2.23,
Q
<
=
.
.OS (one-tailed) Not surprisingly, results from
the first toss rneaaure remained significant when only the
ring t o s s data prereding the lexical task were analyzed.
As i n
Experiment 1 , an analysis of accuracy (number of
successful throws) revealed no significant differences
between conditions, E(2,87) = 1.77, u.The pattern of
gender differences for raw ring toss distances was sirnilar
to that found in Experiment 1. ûverall, men (M = 8 . 0 6 f t )
stood farther from the peg than did women (M = 5.95 ft),
E ( 1 , 87) = 25.104, g
< 001.
We also explored gender
differences in self-handicapping versus inaufficiently
challenging oneself as in Experiment 1, but found no
significant differences.
mean reaction tirnes were calculated for rejection-related
target words, acceptance-related target words, and neutral
target words. Analyses indicated that there were no
significant differences in reaction times for the
differently-valenced words, although the pattern of means
presented in Table 4 is consistent with Baldwin and
Sinclair's (1996) observation that acceptance-related words
Table 4
ated.
c e - r e b t e d . a d N e i i t r a l T u c r e t Wordg
Condition
Rej e c t ion
Other-Ridiculing
-60
Self-Deprecating
Control
Acceptance
Neutra1
57
-56
.63
.59
.56
-63
.S9
.S6
O
were recognized more quickly than rejection-related words.
We algo analyzed only that data which preceded the ring-toss
task (they were counterbalanced) but this analysis was also
non-significant.
ANOVA's analyzing speed of recognition of each category
of target words across conditions failed to reveal any
significant differences for rejection-related, acceptancerelated, or neutral words.
n T r ç e l f - E s t e e m . The
primary analysis of interest was whether rejection-related
words were recognized more quickly in the other-ridiculing
condition than in the self-deprecating or control
conditions. Although we found no significant differences in
reaction times across conditions, we had proposed, a priori,
that self-esteem might moderate these effects. Therefore, we
analyzed the data using self-esteem as a factor. We
performed a tertile split, dividing participants into low,
medium, and high self-esteem groupa based on their responses
to Rosenberg's (1965) self -esteem scale. Then we perfomed
planned contrasts within the low and high self-esteem groups
(dropping the moderates; see Sorrentino
&
Short, 1977) ,
comparing means in the other-ridiculing condition with those
in the self-deprecating and control groups combined.
The results, presented in Table 5, indicate that
participants in the high self-esteem group recognized the
rejection-related target words significantly more quickly in
the other-ridiculing condition than in the other two
conditions combined, L(291
= 2.00, Q c . O 5
(one-tailed).
There were no significant differences due to condition in
the low self-esteem group.
Interestingly, the means for al
co-t
. ions
.
in the low
self-esteem group were almost identical to the mean of the
ridicule condition for high self esteem participants. It
appears that the chronlc tendency of low self-esteem
participants to recognize rejection-related words quickly
was
situationally invoked in high self-esteem participants
by the other-ridiculing condition.
Separate analyses were a l s o performed on the
acceptance-related and neutral words. Planned contrasts of
the other-ridicule means and those of the other groups
combined indicated no significant differences. Therefore,
differences in recognition time due to condition arnong high
self-esteem participants were found only for rejectionrelated words.
. .
iviu.
As in Experiment 1, analyses of the
multiple uses task involved scoring each use for originality
Table 5
e (rn seconds) o f H ~ u hand L o w Self-Esteem
. .
lclsants f o r Re e c t ~ o n - R e w d .Acce~tance-Re1
ated. and
d
Word Valence
RejectionRelated
Acceptance
Neutra1
-Related
Self -Esteem
Condition
Low
High
Low
High
Low
High
Other-Ridiculing
.60
.SB
.S7
.55
.55
.SS
Self-Deprecating
.60
.64
.55
S 9
.53
.57
Contxol
-61
.70
-58
.65
-57
.59
Total
.61
-63
.57
.59
.54
.57
on a scale from 1 to 5, and summing these values to produce
a creativity score for each participant. This analysiç
failed to reveal any significant differences between
conditions: other-ridiculing (M = 25.30), self-deprecating
(M
= 24-97],
control (M = 26.36).
Another analysis, measuring the number ûf divergent
uses (e.g. , not holding paper together) , also found no
significant differences between the other ridiculing
self-deprecating (M
(M
= 8.55),
(M
= 8.44) conditions, E(2,95) < 1,
= 8.221,
and control
m.
Experiment 2 attempted to replicate the findings of
Experiment 1, using different ridicule stimuli and more
substantive dependent measures. The videotaped ridicule for
this experirnent was quite caustic, and the victim of this
ridicule appeared on screen. Participants were unawxe of
the f o c u s of the experiment, believing that the ridicule or
self-deprecation were part of a particular "instructional
style"
.
The dependent measures included the conformity, fear of
failure, and creativity measures that were assessed in
Experiment 1. Additionally, a lexical decision task was
employed, primarlly to aasess whether
of possible rej ection is responsible for the
behavioral effects. Participants observed one of the
stimulus videotapes and then completed the dependent
measures.
Overall, the results of this experiment supported the
primary hypothesis. Observing ridicule of others appeared to
have inhibiting effects on the observer, as indicated by the
conformity and fear of failure measures. Observing ridicule
did not appear to have any effects on participants'
creativity.
Only one of the two conformity measures in Experiment
was significant (the binary measure), although the pattern
of means for the other (compromise} measure was in the
expected direction. Increasing the publicness of the
conformity measure in Experiment 2 w a s expected to
strengthen the results, but this did not occur. Results were
very similar in both studies. It is possible that any
in sensitivity due to increased publicness of the
-re-
measure waa negated by a corresponding fisea-
in
effectiveness, due to the nonambiguous*natureof the
measure .
In Experiment 1, ratings for cartoon stripa served as
.
the normative judgments As noted by Burger (1987), humour
is an ideal stimulus for conformity measures because it is
ambiguous. This arnbiguity means that there really are no
right or wrong responses; humour judgments are luinthe eye
of the beholderw. It is safe to conform.
In Experiment 2, the conformity taak involved rating an
instructional videotape on a number of dimensions ( e . g . ,
clarity) . The normative judgments were inappropriate
Ifprevioust1
ratinga for these dimensions. Although these
dimensions were ambiguous to some degree, they were still
more objective than the humour stimulii. The bogus ratings
appeared to be
-.
It may be that participants were
deterred f r o m conforming because to do so would make them
appear foolish. Therefore, it is possible that the increased
publicness improved the sensitivity of the measure, but the
decreased ambiguity weakened it.
A
ring toss taak was used to assess fear of failure in
this experiment, as in Experiment 1. A sex difference found
in Experiment 2 (but not in Experiment 1) was that men's
deviations scores were significantly higher than those of
women (in the measure using al1 10 throws) . That is, across
conditions, men1a distances deviated from the grand mean
more than those of women. A possible explanation for this
finding is that women (n =
74)
greatly outnurnbered men (n
=
26) and, therefore, the grand mean was more reflective of
women's distances than of men's.
The results of these measures, especially for
participants1 first toss, suggested that those participants
who nad observed ridicule of others approached the task with
increased fear of failure: by either standing farther away
from the peg than was typical (self-handicapping)or by
standing closer than the mean (insufficiently challenging
oneself) .
We hypothesized that increased salience of potential
rejection was responsible for these effects. This hypothesis
was equivocally supported by the data in Experiment 2.
Although there were no clear effects of condition on latency
tirnes for rejection-related words, it appeared as though
observing ridicule caused high self-esteern participants to
react similarly to low self-esteem participants. These
findings are inconsistené xith Baldwin and Sinclair's (1996)
findinga, whereby the low self-esteern participants were most
affected by the success or failure primes.
It is logical, however, that low self-esteem people
would experience chronically high levels of salience of
rejection, whereas high self-esteem individuals would
experience this salience only if the environment cued them
to potential threat (as in the other-ridiculing condition).
Although the mechanism responsible for the effects is still
unclear, the effects themselves appear to be genuine, though
weak.
General Discussion
The hypothesis tested by these experiments was t h a t
observing ridicule of others has an inhibiting effect on the
behaviour of the observer. This hypothesized "inhibiting
effectm was conceptualized as increased conformity,
increased fear of failure, and reduced creativity. Two
experiments were conducted, each with different ridicule
stimuli and somewhat different methodologies. In each study,
participants observed one of three stimulus videotapes
(other-ridiculing,self-deprecating, or control) and then
completed t h e dependent measures.
In both studies, participants in the other-ridiculing
conditions were significantly more conforming and more
afraid of failing than were participants in the selfdeprecating and control conditions. Although only the binary
measure of conformity (agree vs. disagree with judgment)
yielded significant findings, the pattern of means was in
the expected direction for the other, compromise measure
(judgments pulled in direction of n o m ) in both studies.
To our knowledge, these experiments are the first to
measure environmentally-induced fear of failure via a ring
toss task. Given their apparent effectiveneas in
discriminating between failure-threatened and non-failure-
threatened individuals (see Atkinçc~& Litwin, i960), it
seemed reasonable to assume that they would differentiate
between those who were either afraid of failing or not due
to situational factors.
The data supported the hypatheais, overall, in both
studies. The f i r s t toss measure, which we felt would be a
p u e r measure of the relevant motives, demonatrated that
people in the other-ridiculing condition stood either closer
to, or farther away from the mean than those in the selfdeprecating and control conditions, combined. The measure
using al1 tosses w a s significant in the first study, but was
significant only for
in the second study, when
separate analyses were performed on men and women. However,
results were significant for fi participants when only data
from those ring toss t a s k s
the lexical decision
task were used.
It is possible that the type of humour used may have
affected how each sex responded to the stimulus. In the
first study, a male comedian told ridiculing jokes directed
at a male (either the comedian, himself, or another male) .
The content of the ridicule was generally more applicable to
men than women ( e . g . , "He has an alcohol problem: two hands.
one mouthll). In the second study, moet of the ridicule was
directed at a male's a m i t u &
while performing a
wmasculine~l
task (repairing a bicycle) . Perhaps women did
not feel particularly threatened by the ridicule in the
fizst study, whereas the ridicule in the second experiment
m a y have
seemed more threatening because women might expect
to do poorly on such tasks. Conversely, the men may have
been more threatened by the first study's ridicule, since it
#
was more clearly applicable to them.
There is some support for the theory that men and women
were differentially affected by the stimulus videotapes.
Specifically, another experiment (Brink, l997), which
replicated the first study, found significant differences
between conditions on the ring toss task for men, but not
for women. The data from the ring toss measure in Experiment
1
were re-exarnined to test this hypothesis. Men's deviation
scores in Experiment 1 were more strongly influenced by
condition than were woments, although this finding
was
not
significant. This raises the possibility that effects will
occur only when the observer bas some sense of personal
vülnerability to the ridicule.
Neither study found that ridicule had any effect upon
participants' creativity. However, it may be that fear of
ridicule would inhibit people from f
creative ideas as opposed to qenerating them. In these
experiments, participants were asked to write down as many
interesting and unusual uses for an object (a brick or a
paperclip) as they could. There was little risk of appearing
foolish. If, instead, they were asked to contribute ideas in
a group setting, perhaps those who had observed ridicule
would be more reluctant to volunteer highly divergent or
unusual ideas.
Meta-analyses were performed on the data, since both
experiments employed very similar, or identical, dependent
measures. For conformity, not surprisingly, the
accept/reject rneasure remained significant in the metaanalysis (Z = 2.63,
Q = .0043),
whereas the compromise
measures, which were non-significant in both experiments,
became significant when cornbined in the meta-analysis; z
=
1.65, Q = ,0495.
Similarly, the fear of failure measure that used the
first toss remained significant in the meta-analysis (Z =
2.51, Q = .006), and the measure using al1 ten throws (which
was significant in Experiment 1 only) was significant in the
meta-analysis;
z
= 2.35, Q =
-0094.
Effect sizes were calculated for each of the conformity
and fear of failure measures. For conformity, the
accept/reject measure had an effect size of
.05
for both
experiments, whereas the compromise measure had an effect
size of .O3 in Experiment 1, and .O2 in Experiment 2. The
first toss fear of failure measure had an effect size of
.OS
in Experiment 1, and . O 4 in Experiment 2. The all-tosses
measure had an effect size of .O7 in the first experirnent,
and .O2 in the second experiment.
That these effects would occur at al1 in a situation
where, realistically, the threat of ridicule is very small
seems surprising. One can imagine that these inhibitory
effects would be much stronger in a situation where the
ridiculer was live, instead of videotaped.
ti o m
One implication of these findings is that the
possibility of being ridiculed by others is really quite
aversive for most people. Although we often enjoy observing
ridicule of others, and the positive downward comparisons
that this type of humour affords (Wills, 1981), it may make
us uncomfortably aware of our own vulnerability.
This enhanced awareness may limit us; it may iead
ES
to
behave in ways that are safe rather than self-expressive. T t
is easy to see how peer pressure can becorne intense in
environments where ridicule is a common occurrence (e.g., in
high schools) . Very likely, it is the threat of punishment
(e.g., being ridiculed), as opposed to any potential
rewards, that comprises the most powerful aspect of peer
pressure. A survey involving high school students found that
fear of being ridiculed was the most common response that
students gave when asked to list their principal fears
(Shapiro, Baumeister
&
Kessler, 1991).
Another relevant issue is that the "inhibition"
produced by ridicule may not necessarily always be a
negative thing. The educational studies described in the
introduction demonstrated that fear of ridicule is an
effective motivator (Bryant et al., 1981). Ridicule is often
used to castigate nonconformity to social n o m s (Wilson,
1979). Unfortunately, the ridicule that occurs in real life
is often not directed at negative behaviours. On the
contrary, ridicule is often directed at socially positive
behâviours. Ask a ch il^ why lie or she does not want to Wear
a bicycle helmet and it is likely that fear of ridicule
pla,ysa role. Among adolescents particularly, ridicule is
often resenred for those who act in a responsible manner.
The most vociferous ridiculers tend to be those who have
some adjustment problems. "More than two thirds of bullies
corne from broken homes, lack adequate supervision at home,
have more access to guns and other weapons . . . " (Rincover,
1997). They also score more highly on psychoticism scales
(Slee & Rigby, 1993). Yet they tend to be the ones who
determine what is and what is not acceptable adolescent
behaviour through ridicule.
S e l f-Jle~recatbgEU~QU.Z
In both studies, the self-deprecating and control
conditions had very similar effects. The secondary
hypothesis regarding possible
S
.
asi-itirig
.
effects of s e l f -
deprecating humour was not borne out. A possible
explanation, as previously mentioned, is that this
experiment utilized self-ridicule as opposed to a more
gentle, universal form of self-deprecation. At its best,
self-deprecating humour can help us to confront the
insecurities that beset us, and deflate them with humour.
Freud (1905/1960) thought that the ability to laugh at
one's own problems was a sign of healthy emotional
adjustment. Self-deprecating humour, he suggested, allows us
to triumph over adversity by minimizing its importance. By
ridiculing the adversity, we take it less seriously.
Thomas Hobbes, who is considered to be the father of
modern humour theory, had this to say about selfdeprecat ion:
"Laughing without offence, must be at
absurdities and infirmities abstracted from
persons, and when al1 the Company may laugh
together: For laughing to ones self putteth
al1 the rest in jealousie, and examination of
themselves."
(Hobbes, 1651/1968, pp.101-103).
At its best, self-deprecating humour involves laughing at
"absurdities and infirmitiesn that plague & of us, and by
laughing at these insecurities we reduce their power over
us. This form of self-deprecating humour may indeed have
disinhibiting effects on the observer. The necessity of
holding conditions constant across experimental groups did
not permit us to adequately test this hypothesis.
The Social EnvironrnenL
Another possible implication of this research is that
the influence of fear of ridicule may be underestimated in
psychological research. For example, in attitude research
there is surprisingly "little emphasis on the structure of
the social environment relative to the considerable ernphasis
on psychological structure and processes, especially of the
cognitive varietyM (Eagly
&
Chaiken, 1993; p. 682). Having
particular attitudes and expressing them publicly are two
different things, yet often these are not differentiated in
social psychological research. Although it is difficult to
construct a realistic social environment whereby al1 the
factors governing the ex~ressionof attitudes are accounted
for, at least this shortcoming should be acknowledged.
Similarly, there is insufficient recognition of the
role that fear of ridicule plays in altruism. A common theme
in the altruism literature is that people are reluctant to
offer assistance in situations that are ambiguous (Latane
&
Darley, 1970). That is, the decision to help or not help is
often a function of whether the perceiver understands that
his or her help is needed (Clark & Word, 1972). Often,
though, people will not help in ambiguous situations because
they are afraid of appearing foolish by offering assistance
when it is not necessary. The possibility of perceiving an
emergency situation where one does not exist V a n make any
individual uncomfortably aware of what a £001 he will look
for behaving as if it is" (Latane & Darley, p. 15).
In conclusion, being ridiculed by others is an
extremely unpleasant event. Generally, we want to avoid it
at al1 costs. Because of this, factors that increase the
salience of possible rejection are apt to influence our
behaviour. These studies have given some support to the
hypothesis that observing ridicule of others will increase
the salience of potential ridicule and will, therefore, have
an inhibiting effect on our behaviour.
Appendix A
Al1 Materials Included in Experiment 1.
The Yniversiry of Kescern Ontario
Departnent of P s ~ c n Logy
o
teslie Janes
C l i v e Seligman on behalf o f che Ethics and Subjecc Pool Commircee
R e : E t h i c r r l reviev of " Humour appreciation and hand-eye
coordination"
Protocol rY95 11 07
To :
from:
-
-
Approved
Approved conditional to making changes Listed belaw
( p l e a s e f i l e changes wirh your applicarion CO u s e t h e subjecc
subjecc pool)
Please make t h e changes Listed belov and resubmic f o r review
SIGN-UP POSTEB
1NFO-
-
UiUïTEW
B r i e f 1y describe &ne cask required of su3j e c t s
Do n o t "hype" t h e a d v e r t i s i n g of your study
Use lOcpi o r 12cpi. w i t h standard l e c c e r s i z e , f o r description
Other ( s e e atcached s h e e t )
COWSQ!n' S
-
m
B r i e f l y describe t h e cask t h e subjeccs are agreeing t o p e r f o m
Promise chat t h e daca v i l 1 be kepc c o n f i d e n c i a l and used f o r
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Promise that audio and/or video tapes w i l l be e r a s e d , in parc or
e n t i r e l y , ac t h e s u b j e c t s ' wishes a t any tirne
Scace how many c r e d i t s che subjeccs v i l 1 r e c e i v e f o r participacion
Scace t h s t s u b j e c t s may terminace t h e experimenc a& any cime
withouc l o s s of promised credic (s)
Stace chat t h e r e a r e no knovn r i s k s co parcicipacion o r scace che
risks
Stace chat subjeccs w i l l reccive w r i t t e n feedback a t che end of
t h e s e s s i o n o r s t u d y and/or rhac s u b j e c t s have had an opportunity
co ask questions abouc t h e study
Other ( s e e actached s h e e t )
FEEDBACE
mmc . Oison
lW09.e t h ]
Elaborace your feedback
Rewrite your feedback a c a l e v e l chac i s understandable CO a
Psychology 020/023 student
Add a few r e f e r e n c e s a t t h e end and/or your name and how you can
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See accached comments
Humour A p p t e c z a t l o n and HandXye C o o r d i n a t ~ o n
Consent to Partici~atein Research
Dr. James H. Olson and Leslie Jants o f
Psychology request your partzcipation
LA a
the Department
of
study. In this studg,
you u i l be asked to uatch a LO minute videotape of humour, whrch
you vil1 ba asked to rata. After campleting your ratinq
of
the
tapa, you vil1 ba askad to rate four cartooa strips. A short usesof-objecta task v i l 1 follow. The final portioa o f this experiment
will consist of a ring tosr tark, t o asrars hand/eyo coordination.
The entira seasion will take approximateLy 50 minutes to complete,
and yau will racoivo ona credit for participating.
Participation in this study will not involve you in any known
risks, and
il1
data gathared in the study vil1 ba confidential and
for research purposas only. If you have anp questions during the
session, feeL frea t o a s k t h a exparimonter.
As is the practica o f the Department, you are free to withdraw
from the study a t any tima f o r any reason uithout loss of credit.
(date)
(signature
of
participant)
*Jideo 2 a t i n p
74
Blesse rate the humour videotape that you just vatcbed on a rcaie
o f 1 to 7 ( 1 indicates that you did not enjoy the humour at a l l ; 7
indieates that y o u greatly enjoyed i t ) C i r c l e t h e a p p r o p r i a t e
rating.
L.
Hou amurinq did pou f i n d the jakes?
1
2.
2
3
4
S
6
7
Hou amuaing uar the actor'r derneanor?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
%
3.
Hou funap d i d you f i n d t h e jokas that were b r i e f ( i e . one1i n o r a ) ?
1
4.
3
4
5
6
7
How amusing d i d pou f i a d the longer, story-like jokes?
1
5.
2
2
3
4
S
6
7
Overall, p h a r e provido pour rating o f th. vidaotape.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
(1 Mat*
tht you did not r i j e y th, art-
a t 811,
a d r 7 indiatw
:kat
? l e a s e sri=@ 5ovn as 3ar.y interescizg and :r.usuai
uses f o r =ke
abject o n y o u r lesk as p c s s f b l e . 'Lou have 3 ainutes to c o n p i e t e
this t a s k .
%a& yau again foc participatinig in t h u study. I f you ara intrreted in
1Q
mre about tbU itudy, th. rrnirb o f th r t d y , or abaut celarad
t o p s a , p l e u e do not huitatm to c a t a c t e i t h u of ur iir th. psycblo(lp
d e p u o r a t . Aiso, th refarm~~ll
l i r t d balou m y provo to b. intmrrrtrnq i f y o u
hant to lemcr abaut th.t b o c e t i a l hckqrarrnd to this s t d y . m D UIU WITK
YQUEI r n I E S !
Jancr M. Qlscn, Prof.uor o f Psychalogy
SX,
679-2111, ext. 4657
Lmlie Juur, t4.A. ~ t u d i i tRom 6328,
Roam 4218, SSC
Brcwn. 0. 6 P a r k S. L. (1981). Ridicule u an ducatianal
corrective. Ja
O
m
, 3,722-727.
Bryant. J.. Br-.
D., Parkr, S. L. b ZilLmnn. D. (1983). Qiildrai's m u t a t i o n
o f a r=diculd rripd.1. X u n n Cammicatian Rcrrarcb. M. 243.255.
Burger, S. M. (1987). Desire toc cantrol a d confomuty to a p e r c e i v d nom.
jovnal o f ?ersonalitv andSecial ~svchoLoqy,U, 355-360
9ryarit. J..
Appendix B
A l 1 Materiais
Included in Experiment Two
-
,O
:
:rom--
sums
LesLie ;anes
C2ive Seligman on behaLf of rhe EcAics and Subjecc ?oui C o m r z z e e
Re:Erhical rwicw of ' fnstr-uccional s t v l e aiid aemrirp''
Prococo1 ir46 0 9 35
-
Approved But sse belApproved condicional t o making
( p l e a s e f i l e changes v i r h your
pool wich Helen Harris i n Rm.
Please &e
che changes l i s c e d
changes l i s c e d b e l w
application CO use che s u b j e c c
7304)
b e l w and resubmic for r e v i e v
B r i e f l y describe che cask required o f subjeccs
Do noc "hype" t h e advercising o f pour scudy
Use lOcpi o r 12cpi. wich standard lecter s i z e , for descriprion
P1-e
r-e
ch. referencu to lengcb of oideocapr and
questiomilaire. Ue do not v a t p o t m t i d s u b j e t s Co si@-up b r s d an a guess
chat the erperiiaratt is short. Thanlr you.
C;OISEWT S
m
B r i e f l v describe t h e t a s k che s u b j e c t s are agreeing CO perform
promis; chac t h e dota v i l 1 bs k e p t confidencial and used f o r
researcn purposes o n l y
Promise chac audio and/or video tapes v i l 1 be erased, i n parc or
e n t i r e l y . ac t h e s u b j e c t s ' wishes ac any cime
Scace how many c r e d i t s che subjeccs v i l 1 receive f o r parcicipacion
Scate t h a t s u b j e c t s may terminate che experimenc a t any rime
withouc l o s s o f prornised c r e d i t {s)
Scace that t h e r e are no b u w n risks CO parcicipacion o r scare che
risks
Stace chac s u b j e c t s v i l 1 r e c e i v e writcen feedback ac che end o f
the session or study and/or char subjeccs have had an opporcunicy
t o ask quescions about the scudy
Ocher ( s e e ac tached sheec)
-
-
[ W 2 2 .ech]
Elaborace your feedback
Rewrite your feedback ac a l e v e l chac i s underscandable ro a
Psychology 020/023 scudenr
Add a f e v r e f e r e n c e s ac t h e end and/or your name and how you can
be reached
Ocher { s e e acrached sheec)
Znstructional s t y L e and Xemcry
a3
CONSENT FOR??
Yr. Sames M.
Oison and Lesiie Janes of the Deparraent
?sycholoqy request your participation in a study . tn this study,
you w i l l be asked to vatch an
v i l 1 t h e n complet.
8-minuta instructional videotape.
a short questionnaira assessing your nemory of
the material. You vil1 alro be askrd to rate the videotape on a
numbrr of dimensions, In addition, you may ba asked to p a r t i c i p a t e
in othar tasks to fulfil your tirna raquiramant. Thi antira session
wàll take approximatoly one h o u and you w i l l recaiva one credit
for particfpating-
participation in this study willnot involva you in any knovn
risks, and al1 data gatherd in the study v i l 1 ba confidantial and
for raraarch puxposor only. If you have any puastions during the
sassion, fee1 fria to ask th0 axparhanter.
As
is the practica of th.
Dopartlaent, you ara ira* to vithdrav
from the study at any tim for any raaron vithout l o s s of credit.
(data)
(dgnatura o f participant)
Xernorï Questionnaire
rere described Cor the t a s k .
-
True
L.
Seven s t e p s
2.
S t e p # 4 described hov ta Locata the hole in the innertube.
Trua
3.
Falsa
In tha vidaotapa, tha rapairperson rafillod t h tira
reattachinq it to tha bicyela.
4.
Th.
Tnie
innartuba ir removad tram the rim
locatad.
S.
taise
Trua
aftu
Falsa
the holœ ir
Falsa
The tire can easily ho detachoâ froa tâa rest o f thr bicycla
vithout t o o l s .
Trua
Palsa
6. Tha hola ir located by submarging tha innertuba
Truo
in water.
Falra
7. Step # 2 d e s c r i b d hou to remove th0 imortube tram the tire.
Trua
8.
False
Aftar vatching Uiir videotapa, you fael capabla of chanqing a
flat tira on a bicycle.
Tna
Falra
please rate the claritv of t h i s video on a scale of 1 to 7.
( A rating of 1 indicatea that you did not find it clear at all, and
a rating of 7 indicates that you found it very clear)
Participant #
3
4
5
INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOTAPE f 4
37
please r a t e how much you a i o v e 4 this video on a scale of 1 to 7.
( A rating o f 1 indicates t h a t you did n o t enjoy it at a l l , and a
rating of 7 indicates t h a t you enjoyed it very much)
Participant #
(1)
1
2
3
4
5
INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOTAPE # 4
P l e a s e rate t h e overall instructional value of t h i s video o n a
scale of 1 to 7 .
( A rating of 1 indicates that'you did n o t find it instructional at
a l l , and a rating of 7 indicates that you found it very
instructional)
Participant #
INSTRUCTIONAL VIDFOTAPE
f
Q
. .
please rate the w l ~ c r t n e s gof t h i s video on a scale of 1 to
7.
( A rating of 1 indicates that you d i d n o t find it e x p l i c i t at all,
and a rating of 7 indicates that you found it very explicit)
Participant #
(1)
1
2
3
4
5
6
INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOTAPE #
4
Please rate the emlicitness of t h i s video on a scale of 1 to 7.
( A tating of 1 indicates that you did n e t find it explicit at all,
and a rating of 7 indicates t h a t you found it very e x p l i c i t )
participant #
(1)
zndemtake,N o t
skending ,Not
foregarning,Not
daduction, Not
worthip, Not
ta1 t ,Not
dering,Not
tasquerade,N o t
wandel ,N o t
invute,Not
crive, Not
prab ,N o t
commert ,Not
thruw,N o t
carrw,N o t
drite,Not
beild, N o t
swate,Not
plabed,N o t
ralking,Not
reasing,Not
wtipe,Not
sleeb,Not
spean, Not
perkeive,Not
wilking,Not
greas,N o t
oyserve,Not
descrine,Not
??esse vrite
d a m as zany iriterestizq 3r.d x u s u a l uses f o r r k e
abject o n y o u r d e s k as ?cssibLe. ?ou kava 3 sinutes ta c s n p l e c e
:bis task.
NOTE TO USERS
Page(s) not included in the original manuscript are
unavailable from the author or university. The manuscript
was microfilmed as received.
YOU ~ a v a:use parciciprcmd Ln
r0cL.l p.YchcLogrcal 0 r p a r ~ a . n ~ :.n d o ~ n p
so, you zavm c3ntrrbut.d to o u t knowl.dq0 of buman b a h a v ~ a t . Also,
your
rc:pac t a n Ln pmychoLagrc81 carmatch Sh0uld b 8 an . d u c & t ~ o n aelx p e t ~ e nm.e T h ~ r
: e t t e r W A L L 2opofully
show
uhy y o u r p 8 t t i c ~ p 8 t L o nu4a valuabla.
?or oxraiplo, Ln t h i i orp.riaont, u. u m aunlpulatlng t h a c m o f r i d f c u l a
vtdaotapmm. 300. obrat90 t t d f c u l a
t h a t p a t t f c f p u i t i o b m a m f n th. i n m f n i c t i o ~ &
o f othora, momm o b m a m r o l l - e l d i c u l o r uid otharm o b m o m no sidiculm. Aftmr t h t a
manipulatton, w rra obao-ing
uhothor thmm L 8 u\y dlffaranco Ln Lavala of
conforiility, cta.tlvLtyr .nb LOU of C8iLin t b tu- t i d l c u l o tondttfonm. Wo
t h i n h t h a t aoatng o t h o r a ? i d l c u l d -0
-1.
8 w u m t u t t h y might not rmach
m t u i d u d r o t a m u u i c a o r bahAvt0~Uld, th*t@lOrm, +bat thy mlght ba ttdlcuLaâ
o r r o ) m t . d thaaolvam. Thum,
p ~ O d i @tth A t thOw
uho obaomm e t h o r i
balnq rtdteu1.d w i l l k arom caiormi.a9, h i a Cmatim. &nû w r a &Frai4 oC
f a l l u r a that t h a o t h a r -oup..
wh.riiomr fm 0thim to occur bacaura
m
) uhm ua obaamm ochata
r a j o e t î o n b o c a m m ~ b r a04mLLy wlad C
~ @ ) . C t L O a - n 1 4 t O d - d a -sa qulckfy
ridieuAoâ. Tharmlogm, thay mhould
Lt i8 hpo*mt -aura
thay
th- th. 0 t h . ~ Q ~ O U ~ O .f i t h o n t a a u l f a
Lnbtcata t h r t r i d i e u l a o f othmrr w y ha- .n LnhLbltlng mtfaet on obaorvera.
W a rrautm you tUc 811 your taagonaar Ln t h i a axg.tia#at uiLf k tzaatoâ r a
conf i d a n t t a l . Your p u t i c l p a t i o a Lm menymum. r)rrnlr you aqala Fot p u t t c i p a t i n g
tir thlm itudy, T i yeu 8ra l n t a m i t d l n L o u a b q sorm 8&ut t h t r atudy, t h e
rmmulta o f thm atudy, o r about r a l a t d topiea. pla.80 do nOt haa&tato to contaet
a t t h a r oC ua ln t h o paychology d m n t . Alm. th0 rmimsmncmm L l a t i b balou may
psovo t o bo tntotmmtlnq i t you w . n t to l a u n m
o
m about t h 0 t h . o r o t t c a l
s
GOQO LUCI US= Y0011 STUDfESl
backqrounb to t h ~ atuby.
S Fncoraly,
a y a n t . J., Iroua,
corrmcz~~a.
O.,
6
Qu-,S.L.
(1901). n l d i c u l a a8 .n .ducatLonal
P
ut 722-727.
o f & r f d l c u l . 6 modal.
,
243-295.
HoMan, K.L. 6 Olmn, J.H. (
w
t Diapuaq.rnt
am 8 mourco og di8ronuieraiotivatmd a t t i t u d e churq..
huiioc
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o f Emerirnental Social
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