Humor in Task-Oriented Group Discussions

Robinson, Dawn T., Smith-Lovin, Lynn. (2001). Getting A Laugh: Gender,

Status, and Humor in Task Discussions*. Social Forces, 80, 123-158.

Background and Purpose: The general purpose of this study is to show how humor operates in task-oriented group discussions. The researchers used the opportunity to study the dynamic occurence of humor during group conversations. The researchers are using the functions of humor to come up with ideals about who it is that actually does the joking (male or female), and when and where this joking takes place. The hypothesis suggests an image of joking as dealing with status in a society, the male sex, people who are very participatory and those that are frequent interrupters (or interrupted often themselves) to all show status-related patterns of humor use. The researcher’s further have a theory that if they know about the way people engage in humor, then they will be able to predict who will do so, and in what environment or circumstances.

Through various methods and procedures, there were more theories generated dealing with: the content of humor episodes and time dependence. (Findings are found in the Findings /Results section below).

Methods and Procedures: To carry this study out, they used event history techniques in order to analyze humor attempts and successes. They did this using groups of 6 people each. They further used their results with their insights on status and emotion to develop a new theory (talked about in the Background and Purpose section above). Once this theory was developed, they examined what they had from the additional data from the group discussions. Many ways that they came up with their findings in the research was by using bar graphs to plot their knowledge.

Findings / Results: In looking at the humor episodes, they found that a higher portion of men’s than women’s humor is differentiating, while a higher portion of women’s than men’s humor is cohesion-building. A frequent claim is that men tell more jokes than women and in describing feminine speech style, Robin Lakoff suggested in the abstract that women “have no sense of humor”, and also that they never effectively tell nor “get” jokes. They found that the gender/joking difference is noticeable in children by the young age of 6 years old.

With time dependence, they found that there was a lot of it in humor use. They note the timing is everything. As far as timing in conversation goes, and the concept of the pressure value (humor releasing pressure/tension), Robinson and Lovin comment that the highest rates of humor then should be during that latter part of the conversation when