ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH
Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802
Humorous Consumption
A. Peter McGraw, University of Colorado, USA
Caleb Warren, Bocconi University, Italy
Humor is an important but overlooked topic in consumer research. We explore the antecedents of humor by empirically comparing the
ability of humor theories to explain perceptions of humor across a range of consumption experiences, including YouTube videos,
sports plays, products, and everyday events.
[to cite]:
A. Peter McGraw and Caleb Warren (2013) ,"Humorous Consumption", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 41,
eds. Simona Botti and Aparna Labroo, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research.
[url]:
http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/1015380/volumes/v41/NA-41
[copyright notice]:
This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in
part, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at http://www.copyright.com/.
When Do Consumers Experience Humor?
Caleb Warren, Texas A&M University, USA
A. Peter McGraw, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
Humor is a psychological response characterized by the positive emotion of amusement, the appraisal that something is funny,
and the tendency to laugh (Martin 2007; McGraw et al. 2012; Veatch
1998). Consumers seek humor in products, activities, and relationships, because humor is enjoyable and contributes to psychological
and physical well-being (Martin 2007). Despite its benefits in consumption contexts, marketing research has focused largely on humor
in advertising (e.g., Eisend 2009; Gulas and Weinberger 2006; Woltman et al. 2004). Focusing only on humor in an advertising context,
however, may be inhibiting the development of broader theoretical
and practical insights. Thus, we turn our attention to the important
topic of what drives perceptions of humor in consumption contexts.
The most popular humor theories suggest that humor occurs
when one perceives an incongruity (Morreall 2009; Nerhardt 1970;
Woltman Elpers et al. 2004). The literature, however, has not defined
or operationalized incongruity consistently. Some define incongruity
as something unexpected (i.e., surprise), whereas others define it as
something that is different than what typically occurs (i.e., atypicality) or as a contrast of concepts or ideas that do not normally go
together (i.e., juxtaposition). Moreover, some versions of incongruity theory suggest that humor occurs only when an incongruity is
resolved, or made sense of, in some way (Suls 1972; Woltman Elpers
et al. 2004). Although the variants of incongruity theory have led to
useful insights in the perception of humor in jokes (e.g., Suls 1972;
Shultz 1972) and advertisements (e.g., Alden, Hoyer, and Lee 1993;
Woltman Elpers et al. 2004), we contend that they have difficulty
explaining the perception of what is funny (and what is not funny) in
many consumption experiences.
We empirically compare the different variants of incongruity
theory (surprise, atypicality, juxtaposition, and incongruity-resolution) to an emerging theory that suggests that humor occurs when
one simultaneously appraises something as both a violation and as
benign (McGraw and Warren 2010, McGraw et al. 2012; Veatch
1998). A violation is anything that threatens one’s sense of how
things should be, including physical threats (e.g., tickling), identity
threats (e.g., teasing), and behaviors that break cultural (e.g., inappropriate attire), social (e.g., flatulence), moral (e.g., bestiality),
conversational (e.g., sarcasm), linguistic (e.g., a strange accent), or
logic norms (e.g., absurdities). A violation is benign if it also seems
sensible, acceptable, or okay in some way.
There are a number of similarities between the variants of incongruity theory and a benign violation account. In many cases,
benign violations are surprising and portray a resolved incongruity.
Furthermore, benign violations are necessarily atypical and involve
juxtaposition. There are, however, also situations in which the benign
violation theory and incongruity theories make diverging predictions. Our studies examine whether the benign violation theory better
explains perceptions of humor across different types of consumption
experiences than four variants of incongruity theory: surprise (study
1), atypicality (study 2), juxtaposition (study 3), and incongruityresolution (study 4).
Study 1 (N=47) examines perceptions of humor in a Youtube
video in which an amateur athlete attempts a pole vault. We crossed
participants’ expectations with the actual outcome of the pole vault
attempt. Consistent with the benign violation theory but not with
incongruity theories rooted in surprise, participants who observed
a violation (a failed attempt) found the video more humorous than
participants who did not observe a violation (a successful attempt)
irrespective of whether they expected the attempt to succeed or fail
(MExpectedViolation=3.95, MUnexpectedViolation=3.06, MExpectedSuccess=2.33, MUnex=2.26).
pectedSuccess
Study 2 examines whether the presence of a benign violation
or an incongruity (operationalized as atypicality) better explains differences between humorous and non-humorous sports plays. Participants (N=101) either described a humorous sports play or one of
three types of non-humorous plays: a routine play, a tragic play, or an
amazing play. After describing the play, they rated whether the play
seemed atypical (i.e., incongruous), worse than normal (i.e., a violation), and to have either a positive effect or no effect (i.e., benign).
Incongruity was incapable of distinguishing humorous plays from
non-humorous tragic or amazing plays. Although most humorous
plays were atypical (87%), amazing plays (93%) and tragic plays
(68%) were equally likely to seem atypical. In contrast, humorous
plays were far more likely to contain benign violations (43%) than
the routine (4%), amazing (0%), or tragic plays (9%).
Study 3 examines whether juxtaposition in general or the specific juxtaposition of a benign violation better explains perceptions
of humor in consumer products. Marketing students (N=86) identified a product that juxtaposed features in a useful way (juxtaposition
without violation), juxtaposed features in a useless way (benign violation), or did not juxtapose features (no juxtaposition). Juxtaposition
alone did not produce humor, as products that juxtaposed features in
a useful way were not perceived to be any more humorous than products that did not juxtaposed features (M = 2.43 vs. 2.50). In contrast,
products in which the juxtaposition featured a benign violation were
more likely to seem humorous (M = 3.71). Incongruity, when defined
as juxtaposition, may be an important ingredient in humor, but it is
not a sufficient explanation because many products involving juxtaposition seem innovative rather than humorous.
Study 4 examines whether the presence of a benign violation or
a resolved incongruity better explains differences between humorous
and non-humorous everyday consumption experiences. One group
of participants (N=29) objectively described a funny experience, a
tragic experience, and a normal experience. Another group (N=19)
coded either whether the experiences contained a resolved-incongruity or whether they contained a benign violation. Both incongruity
resolution theory and the benign violation theory discriminated humorous experiences from normal experiences. However, incongruity resolution was unable to explain differences between funny and
tragic experiences (17% vs. 20% contained a resolved incongruity,
respectively), whereas the benign violation theory was able to (25%
vs. 10% contained a benign violation, respectively).
Although the benign violation theory did not perfectly explain
humor across different consumption domains, it provided a better explanation than leading humor theories based on incongruity. We hope
our research encourages the field to continue to explore the question
of what makes consumption experiences humorous.
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