From Jest to Antipathy: Disparagement Humor as a Source of Dissonance-Motivated Attitude Change

Abstract

Abstract In disparagement humor, a target individual or group is victimized, belittled, or insulted. This experiment tested whether freely telling disparaging jokes about a target group might, under certain conditions, generate less favorable attitudes toward that group as a result of cognitive dissonance. Subjects read 12 disparaging jokes about lawyers into a tape recorder under conditions of either high or low choice. They were led to believe that aversive consequences might result from making the tape. Subjects' attitudes toward lawyers were then assessed under either public or anonymous conditions. Results showed that subjects in the high-choice condition expressed less favorable evaluations of lawyers than did those in the low-choice condition. If anything, this effect was stronger when subjects expressed their attitudes anonymously than when they expressed them publicly. These findings suggest that disparagement humor can be the source of dissonance-motivated attitude change.