The Sociology of Humor PDF

The sociology of humor
Giselinde Kuipers
1. Introduction
Humor is a quintessentially social phenomenon. Jokes and other humorous
utterances are a form of communication that is usually shared in social interaction. These humorous utterances are socially and culturally shaped, and
often quite particular to a specific time and place. And the topics and themes
people joke about are generally central to the social, cultural and moral order
of a society or a social group.
Despite the social character of humor, sociology, the discipline that studies society and social relations, has not concerned itself much with humor.
When sociology emerged in the nineteenth century, it focused mainly on the
great structural transformations of the modern times: modernization, industrialization, urbanization, secularization, etc. It was not very interested in the
unserious business of everyday life: interactions, emotions, play, leisure,
private life, and other things not directly related to great developments on the
macro-level of society such as humor. In the course of the twentieth century, sociology became more diverse and increasingly concerned with the
micro-reality of everyday life, but it still remained overwhelmingly devoted
to the study of social problems, great transformations, and other serious matters. As a result, humor came into focus mainly when it seemed problematic
in itself, or was concerned with important social issues: race and ethnicity,
political conflict, social resistance, gender inequalities.
Meanwhile, questions about the social nature of humor were addressed
by many other disciplines. Many of the classical humor theoreticians (Morreall 1983) touch on social aspects of humor. However, these questions were
mostly answered from a more philosophical or psychological perspective.
Anthropologists and folklorists were much ahead of the sociologists in paying serious and systematic attention to the social meanings and functions
of humor (see Apte 1985; Oring this volume). Only after the 1970s can we
speak of a serious emergence of a sociological interest in humor (Fine 1983;
Paton 1988; Zijderveld 1983).
11-kuipers.indd 365
18/06/2008 13:39:14
366
Giselinde Kuipers
In this chapter, I will give an overview of sociological thought about

humor. Sociological thought is defined here broadly (and somewhat imperialistically) as any scholarship concerned with the social functions or social
shaping of humor. Since the authors discussed here have used very different
conceptualizations and definitions of humor, I will simply adopt the various notions of humor used by the authors discussed, and leave the matter of
the definition of humor to other authors in this volume. First, I will discuss
a number of theoretical perspectives on humor, roughly in chronological
order: the functionalist, conflict, symbolic interactionist, phenomenological,
and comparative-historical approach. After that, I will discuss a number of
issues central to todays sociological thought about humor: the relation between humor, hostility and transgression; humor and laughter; and the social
shaping of humorous media and genres.
2. Sociological perspectives on humor
2.1. Pre-disciplinary history
Superiority theory, relief theory, and incongruity are usually described as the
three classical approaches to humor and laughter. These approaches predate academic disciplinary specialization, so most of the classical formulations are subsumed today under the heading of philosophy (Morreall 1983;
1987). The earliest sociologist who discussed humor was the British philosopher/sociologist/political theorist Herbert Spencer. His discussion of laughter can be placed in the tradition of relief theory: laughter, to Spencer, is the
discharge of arrested feelings into the muscular system . . . in the absence of
other adequate channels. (Spencer 1861/1987: 108109) However, Spencer
connected this energy release with the experience of incongruity: laughter
naturally results only when consciousness is unawares transferred from great
things to small only when there is what we may call a descending incongruity. (ibid. 110, italics in original) The discharge of tension is still one of
the main functions humor is believed to fulfill, and as such the relief theory
has had great influence on modern humor scholarship, mostly via the work of
Sigmund Freud (1905/1976). However, pure relief theorists, explaining all
humor and laughter as release of tension or safety valve, cannot be found
anymore in humor scholarship these days.
Of the three classical approaches, superiority theory is the most obviously connected with social relations. This tradition can be traced back to
11-kuipers.indd 366
18/06/2008 13:39:14
367
Plato and Aristotle, and has most famously been formulated by Thomas Hobbes: Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden
conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity
of others, or with our own formerly. (Hobbes 1650/1987: 20) Superiority
theorists state that humor and laughter are expressions of superiority, which
of course reflects a social relationship. However, on close consideration the
classical theorists describe superiority as an individual experience: the communicative or relational aspect of the joking and laughing is generally not
examined in these theories. In other words: while addressing a social event,
superiority theories of humor are not very sociological. As will become clear
in this article, the relation between humor and superiority although referred
to in other terms, such as power, conflict, or hierarchy is still central to social scientific studies of humor.
Incongruity theory the theory that states that all humor is based on the
perception or recognition of incongruity is not as obviously related to sociological questions, since it is mainly concerned with the nature of humorous
texts or other stimuli, or with the mental operations involved in processing
these texts. However, as incongruity theory, in several varieties (Attardo and
Raskin 1991; Oring 1992; 2003; Raskin 1985; Ruch 1998), became the dominant perspective in humor scholarship, it has been incorporated in sociological thought in various ways: how incongruities and their humorous potential are culturally and socially determined (Davis 1993; Oring 1992; 2003);
how the incongruous form permits specific social functions (Mulkay 1988),
and how incongruities get to be perceived and constructed as funny (Douglas
1973).
The first full-fledged theory of humor was developed by Sigmund Freud.
In his Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905) he integrated
elements of relief and incongruity theory, and combined them with his psychoanalytic theory. While Freuds theories on humor (and other topics) are
much disputed, he was the first to systematically address what I have called
here sociological questions about humor, and his influence on the sociology
of humor has been immense. Without attempting to explain Freuds entire
humor theory (see Martin 2006: 3342; Palmer 1994: 7992), let me note
two important themes. First, Freud discussed the importance of social relationships between the teller of the joke, his audience, and (when applicable)
the butt of the joke. In other words: he introduced the social relationship into
the analysis of humor. Second, Freud paid attention to the relationship between humor and socially constructed taboos. Jokes, according to Freud,
were a way to avoid the censor, or the internalized social restrictions, thus
11-kuipers.indd 367
18/06/2008 13:39:15
368
Giselinde Kuipers
enabling the expression (and enjoyment) of drives otherwise inhibited by

society. To Freud, these forbidden drives were mostly sex and aggression.
Freuds theory has been strongly criticized, especially for the claim that all
humor in the end is based on sex and aggression, although, in all fairness,
Freud is more nuanced about this in his discussion of actual jokes than in
the general statement of his theory. Another main point of criticism is the
unfalsifiability of Freuds theory: the references to underlying drives are, by
necessity, veiled and therefore hard to disprove. However, the notion of
jokes as related to, and attempting to circumvent, social taboos has become
very central to humor scholarship.1
The other early theorist of humor with sociological insight was Henri
Bergson. Like Freuds theory, Bergsons Laughter (1900/1999) contains
a number of rather untenable and untestable generalizations (for instance,
that all laughter is a response to something mechanical encrusted on the
living), alongside insightful contributions. For sociologists, his most relevant observations have to do with the social character of laughter. Bergson
described humor and laughter as essentially social and shared. Laughing at
someone, on the other hand, functions as a means of exclusion, and hence as
a social corrective and form of social control.
After Freud and Bergson, the various disciplines of humor studies branched
out, and in the course of the twentieth century, a number of approaches
emerged that are more or less specific to the social sciences: the functionalist approach; the conflict approach; the symbolic interactionist approach; the
phenomenological approach; and the comparative-historical approach.
2.2. The functionalist approach
The functionalist approach interprets humor in terms of the social functions
it fulfills for a society or social group. Especially in older studies of humor,
functionalist interpretations tended to stress how humor (and other social
phenomena) maintain and support the social order. Functionalist studies of
humor are often ethnographic studies, but humorous texts, events, and corpora have also been analyzed from a functionalist perspective.
The earliest functionalist explanations can be found in the work of anthropologists on so-called joking relationships, a a relationship between two
persons in which one is by custom permitted and in some instances required
to tease or make fun of the other (Radcliffe-Brown 1940: 195). RadcliffeBrown interpreted such relationships, which exist in various non-Western
11-kuipers.indd 368
18/06/2008 13:39:15
369
societies, as a way to manage the strain inherent in specific relationships.

They are modes of organizing a definite and stable system of social behaviour in which conjunctive and disjunctive components . . . are maintained and
combined (Radcliffe Brown 1940: 200). This obligatory joking is a way to
relieve tension in possibly strained relationships, thus maintaining the social
order. Later, a number of studies were done of non-obligatory joking relationships in industrialized societies, with similar interpretations about the
tension-relieving function of joking in situations that contained some sort of
structural conflict or contradiction (Bradney 1957; Sykes 1966). Other ritualized forms of humor, such as rituals of reversal (like carnival), and ritual
clowning (Apte 1985) were similarly explained as a safety valve to blow
off social tension.
Another function ascribed to humor is social control. Stephenson (1951),
in an analysis of American jokes about stratification, concluded that these
jokes make fun of transgressions of the social order, and in that way reveal
an adherence to a set of values regarded as the traditional American creed
(Stephenson 1951: 574). This reasoning is reminiscent of Bergsons interpretation of humor and laughter as a social corrective: by laughing at something,
it is defined as outside of the normal. A more sophisticated version of this
corrective function of humor was developed by Powell (1988), who placed
humor among other possible responses to things out of the ordinary, and defined it as one of the milder forms of social corrective (stronger forms being,
for instance, declaring someone crazy). Very recently, social control theory
has been revived by Billig, who in Laughter and Ridicule (2005) puts forward
a theory of humor as a social corrective, closely linked with embarrassment,
arguing that ridicule, far from being a detachable negative, lies at the heart
of humor. (Billig 2005: 190; see also Billig 2001b)
From a very different angle, Coser also noted the social control functions
of humor. In one of her two influential and oft-cited microsociological studies of humor in a hospital ward, she looked at the patterns of laughter during the staff meetings (Coser 1960). This study showed how the amount and
direction of joking reflected the social hierarchy. By counting the number of
laughs, she discovered that doctors got significantly more laughs than residents, who got more laughs than the nurses. Moreover, everybody tended to
joke down: doctors tended to joke about residents, residents joked about
the nurses or themselves, and the nurses joked about themselves, or about
the patients and their families. According to Coser, this joking helps to maintain the social order: it keeps people in their place. The hierarchy-building function of humor, with the associated correlation between status and
11-kuipers.indd 369
18/06/2008 13:39:15
370
Giselinde Kuipers
successful humor production, has been noted in various other studies (Pizzini
1991; Robinson and Smith-Lovin 2001; Sayre 2001).
In her second paper on humor, on the use of joking by patients in the hospital ward, Coser explored another function of humor, which also contributes
to the social order: social cohesion. In the more egalitarian and less formally
structured life of the wards patients, humor served to create solidarity, share
experiences, and build an identity within the group. This cohesive function
may seem at odds with the hierarchy-maintaining function. However, hierarchical groups need cohesion too. Joking apparently manages, more than
most other forms of combinations, to combine the seemingly contradictory
functions of hierarchy-building and bringing about solidarity (e.g. at work, in
the military, cf. Koller 1988: 233260). Moreover, Coser describes the use of
humor in two very different contexts: a formally structured situation among
people who know each other versus a more disorganized and egalitarian situation, which is likely to affect the functions humor can, and needs to, fulfill.
In her article on the cohesive functions of laughter, Coser wrote that
to laugh, or to occasion laughter through humor and wit, is to invite those
present to come closer. Laughter and humor are indeed like an invitation, be
it an invitation for dinner, or an invitation to start a conversation: it aims at decreasing social distance. (Coser 1959: 172) One of the reasons for humors
cohesive function is that a joke is an invitation the acceptance of which is
immediately apparent: a laugh or a smile. There are very few forms of interaction that are connected as closely with social acceptance and approval
as laughter (Provine 2000). Also, collective joking takes people outside of
everyday life into a more playful non-serious atmosphere, creating what
the anthropologist Victor Turner called communitas (Fine 1983).
Hence, humor not only is a sign of closeness among friends, it is also an
effective way of forging social bonds, even in situations not very conducive
to closeness: it breaks the ice between strangers, unites people in different
hierarchical positions, and creates a sense of shared conspiracy in the context of illicit activities like gossiping or joking about superiors. The flip side
of this inclusive function of humor is exclusion. Those who do not join in the
laughter, because they do not get the joke, or even worse, because the joke
targets them, will feel left out, shamed, or ridiculed. The excluding function
of humor is often mentioned as the basis for the corrective function described
above (Powell 1988; Billig 2005)
What these three functions relief, control, cohesion have in common is
their focus on humor and joking as contribution to the maintenance of social
order. The insistence that all social phenomena maintain the social structure
11-kuipers.indd 370
18/06/2008 13:39:15
371
has become the focus of much criticism leveled at the (structural-) functionalism of the 1950s and 1960s: it makes functionalist explanations circular
and basically untestable. Social phenomena do not necessarily have the same
function for all concerned, and they may well be dysfunctional, at least from
some peoples perspective.
Despite the demise of functionalism as a theoretical framework after
the 1960s, functionalist explanations of humor still are common in humor
studies. Since the 1970s, sociologists have not employed functionalism as
a complete theory or comprehensive framework, but instead have attempted
to combine functional analysis of humor with analysis of content and context.
Humor obviously fulfills important social functions, but more recent studies
tend to stress the multiple functions of humor, which can be a threat as well
as a contribution to the social order: cohesion, control, relief, but also the
expression of conflict, inciting resistance, insulting, ridiculing or satirizing
others (Holmes 2000; Martin 2006; Mulkay 1988; Palmer 1994).
Martineau (1972), in an early attempt to move away from one-dimensional functionalism, constructed a model connecting the functions of humor with
specific social relations. He distinguished esteeming and disparaging jokes,
within and outside a group, targeting people within or outside the group.
Depending on the conditions, he expected humor to solidify social bonds,
demoralize, increase internal or external hostility, foster consensus or redefine relationships. Powell and Paton (1988) edited a volume concentrating
mainly on the complex interplay between resistance and control functions of
humor, summarized under the heading of tension management, but illustrating a variety of other, positive and negative, functions along the way.
The functions humor fulfills can be psychological as well as social. Black
or sick humor, for instance in disaster jokes, has often been explained as
a way to cope with unpleasant experiences, both individually and collectively, and more generally to distance oneself from negative emotions such
as fear, grief, or shame (Dundes 1987; Morrow 1987. For a critique, see
Oring 1987). Sociologist Peter Berger (1997) stressed the psychological effects of humor, describing (some forms of) humor as consolation, liberation,
and transcendence. Thomas Scheff described humor and laughter as catharsis
(Scheff 1980) and anti-shame (1990). As in the social functions stressed
by humor scholars, psychological functions ascribed to humor tend to be
beneficial. Scholars focusing on the dark side of humor will be discussed
below.
Robinson and Smith-Lovin (2001), in an excellent recent paper, attempted
to test functionalist explanations by looking at the use of various types of
11-kuipers.indd 371
18/06/2008 13:39:15
372
Giselinde Kuipers
humor in task-oriented groups in slightly differing social constellations. They

discern four main social functions of humor: meaning making (derived from
the symbolic interactionist perspective described below), hierarchy building,
cohesion building, and tension relief. In their study, which looked at groups
consisting of strangers in task-oriented interaction, they found most support
for the hierarchical and (slightly less so) cohesive functions. They replicated
Cosers finding that high status group members get more laughs and make
more jokes. The cohesive functions of humor were shown to depend both on
the type of humor (cohesive versus differentiating, outward vs. inward -directed), on the status of the joker, and on the composition of the group. In
other words, the functions of humor are not fixed, but very much dependent
on type of relation, social context, and on the content of the joke.
2.3. Conflict approach
Conflict theories see humor as an expression of conflict, struggle, or antagonism. In contrast with the functionalist theories described above, humor is
interpreted not as venting off and hence avoidance or reduction but as an
expression or correlate of social conflict: humor as a weapon, a form of attack, a means of defense (Speier 1998). Conflict theories of humor have been
used especially in the analysis of ethnic and political humor, both cases where
the use of humor has a clear target, and tends to be correlated with conflict
and group antagonism.2
This approach is clearly indebted to the Hobbesian tradition of humor
as sudden glory. However, the literature about humor and conflict suffers
somewhat from conceptual unclarity: in writings about the use of humor as
a weapon hostility, aggression, superiority, and rivalry are often used interchangibly, and are not clearly distinguished or delineated. Superiority implies the (experience of) a higher position, a form of social ranking which is
not necessarily related to the urge to hurt someone, which forms the basis of
hostility and aggression. As Cosers findings in the psychiatric ward suggest,
there can be superiority without conflict although some conflict sociologists would contest this, claiming that all inequality entails conflict.3 Conflict,
on the other hand, typically implies hostility. However, superiority (power,
hierarchy) is an important moderator of how a conflict plays out.
In 1942, Obrdlik published a paper on the gallows humor in Czechoslovakia under the Nazi regime (in place at the time of publication). He interpreted this form of anti-Nazi joking in two ways: as resistance and morale
11-kuipers.indd 372
18/06/2008 13:39:15
373
booster for the Czech (which resembles the relief theory), but also as having a disintegrating influence on the Germans occupiers. Moreover, Obrdlik pointed out that such humor was an index of the strength of the oppressors: if they an afford to ignore it, they are strong; if they react wildly, with
anger. . . they are not sure of themselves, no matter how much they display
their might on the surface (Obrdlik 1942: 716). Thus, humor has positive reinforcing functions for the ingroup, but in the context of intergroup relations
humor was more like a weapon: an expression of aggression and resistance.
The jokes described by Obrdlik are reminiscent of political humor in many
oppressive regimes, such as the Nazi regime (Stokker 1995) or the former
Communist regimes (Benton 1988; Davies 2007). Typically, the direct voicing of dissent in such regimes is impossible or very dangerous, and even
joking may be a risky enterprise, as was memorably (though unscholarly) described in Czech novelist Milan Kunderas The Joke (1967). While this form
of humor is clearly correlated with conflict and antagonism, there has been
considerable disagreement about the effects of such humor. Humor in repressive circumstances is usually clandestine they were called Flsterwitze or
whispered jokes in Nazi Germany (Speier 1998). This would imply that
the internal morale-boosting functions are more important than the effects
on the powerful outgroup that the jokes target. Because such humor from
below remains backstage or anonymous, many humor scholars conclude
that the effects of such humor are relatively marginal.
The 1988 collection of Powell and Paton on humor as resistance and control is organized around the interplay of these resistance and control functions of humor. Most of the authors in this volume adhere to some version
of the conflict theory of humor, focusing on conflictive or unequal situations
that range from political humor under Communist rule to the much less dramatic example of humor in the workplace. Generally, the authors conclude
that the control function is the more important, and that resistance through
joking provides mostly temporary relief but stabilizes potentially conflictive
situations. As Benton states in his contribution on jokes under communist
rule: the political joke will change nothing. Its the relentless enemy of
greed, injustice, cruelty and oppression but it could never do without them.
It is not a form of active resistance. It reflects no political programme. It will
mobilize no one. Like the Jewish joke in its time, it is important for keeping
society sane and stable. It cushions the blows of cruel governments and creates sweet illusions. . . . its impact is as fleeting as the laughter it produces.
(Benton 1988: 54). Or, as Speier (1998: 1395) succinctly put it: Accommodation, however much one peppers it with scorn, remains accommodation.
11-kuipers.indd 373
18/06/2008 13:39:15
374
Giselinde Kuipers
However, other authors have more faith in the subversive potential of

humor, and have argued that such weapons of the weak (Scott 1985) may
be important in making people reflect critically on their situation, allow them
to express hostility against those in power, create an alternative space of resistance, or even give people the courage to take up more concrete actions
(Gouin 2004; Hiller 1983; Jenkins 1994; Stokker 1995). Goldstein, in her
provocative ethnography of poor women in a Brazilian shantytown, which
she organized around the subjects and places of these womens laughter, argued that While the humor of the poor may not necessarily lead directly to
rebellions and political revolutions, it does open up a discursive space within
which is becomes possible to speak about matters that are otherwise naturalized, unquestioned, or silenced. (Goldstein 2003: 10).
This debate on the subversive or conservative nature of humor is partly
the result of underlying theoretical disagreements that cannot be resolved
by empirical considerations. However, the dynamics of humor in conditions
of conflict, and hence humors revolutionary potential, strongly depends on
the power division and status relations between jokers and their targets. To
illustrate this using the case of political humor: in very repressive or unequal
conditions, the humor of those without power tends to be clandestine and
relatively toothless. Downward humor by those in power in such situations
easily becomes aggressive to the point of cruel. A recent example, described
by Paul Lewis (2006) is the cruel joking by American prison guards in Baghdad. Such humor by the mighty has received relatively little scholarly attention, but as Speier remarked in his essay on wit and politics: Jests from
above, from those of higher status, rather than those from below, that is,
jokes born of triumph instead of resistance, may be the prototypical political
jokes. (Speier 1998: 1353).
In more open societies and conditions power differences tend to be less
marked, and the dynamics of humor and conflict is quite different: there are
fewer restrictions on humor, and joking is more likely to transcend boundaries or mobilize people. Open societies generally have a wide range of institutions, persons, genres and publications devoted (in part) to satire and
political humor (Lockyer 2006; Shiffman, Coleman and Ward 2007; Speier 1998). Such institutionalized humorous genres are free spaces where
those in power can be mocked and ridiculed: within their assigned spaces
and clear limitations, much is allowed, and politics can be criticized or addressed quite clearly (Palmer 2005). On the other hand, political humor in
the private sphere tends to have much less of an edge than political humor in
repressive regimes a familiar complaint in former Communist countries is
11-kuipers.indd 374
18/06/2008 13:39:15
375
that, while everything else has become better, humor has worsened since the
fall of the Wall.
In open societies, the morale-boosting and resistance functions of political humor can be played out more openly. Many political organizations,
factions and social movements have used humor to manifest themselves and
make their point, at times forcing politicians to seriously address topics raised
humorously. Political humor in such conditions becomes part of the political landscape: it highlights social rifts and disagreements because political conflicts are performed and dramatized in the humorous realm. And in
such cases, humor can sometimes spill over into serious political discourse
(Lewis 2006, esp. chapter 3; Lockyer and Pickering 2005b; Wagg 1996).
Finally, humor also can play a more direct role in politics when it is used
within political conflict and debate, for instance to criticize or ridicule political opponents. This form of humor seems increasingly important in todays
media democracies, and has again different dynamics: unlike the professional
comic genres, it is not played out in a free space, and the connection with
actual, serious antagonisms and disagreements can be very real (Morreall
2005). Although the way such humor is used varies strongly, such humor
between political adversaries may contain very visible forms of aggressive
and defensive joking while at the same time, politicians using such humor
play to the public with their wit (Speier 1998).
Besides political humor, the other type of humor frequently analyzed from
a conflict perspective is ethnic humor, which is by far the most contested
form of humor in modern Western societies (Lockyer and Pickering 2005a).
The earliest studies of ethnic humor were done in the United States in the context of racial segregation, which highlighted the relationship between jokes
and acute racial conflict and inequality. Burma (1946), in an article on the
use of humor as a technique in race conflict, concluded from his analysis
of jokes Whites told about Blacks, and vice versa: From the huge welter of
humor, wit and satire which is current today, both written and oral, it is possible to isolate and examine a not inconsequential amount of humor which
has as its primary purpose the continuation of race conflict. Even more common is the borderline type: its chief purpose is humor, but it has secondary
aspects which definitely can be related to racial competition and conflict and
the social and cultural patterns which have arisen from them. (714) This
quotation aptly illustrates the problem of ethnic humor. While some of it
may be geared to the continuation of ethnic conflict, the complicated aspect
is the not inconsequential amount of humor that is primarily intended as
humorous, but it is concerned with groups that have a hostile or antagonistic
11-kuipers.indd 375
18/06/2008 13:39:15
376
Giselinde Kuipers
relation such as Whites and Blacks in the highly segregated United States
of the 1940s. Burma interprets ethnic humor, even when primarily for fun, as
a technique, and hence a weapon in racial conflict.
After Burma, there have been many studies in which corpora of ethnic
jokes, the repertoire of comedians, or other standardized forms of humor
were linked with ethnic conflict, hostility, or some other problematic social
relationship (Draitser 1998; Dundes 1987; Dundes and Hauschild 1983; Gundelach 2000; Kuipers 2000; Oshima 2000). Generally, these studies attempt
to link the existence of ethnic humor, as well as the particular ethnic scripts
(Raskin 1985) about these groups to the conflictive or strained relationship between joke-tellers and their targets. However, not all cases are as obviously related to conflict and inequality as the jokes described by Burma. As
Davies (1990, 1993, 2002) has pointed out, there are many ethnic joke cycles
that are not related to conflict or hostility, whereas there are other very conflictive relationships that are not reflected in jokes. Moreover, there are several reported cases of groups who very often joke about themselves, the most
famous example of course being Jewish humor. This complicates the notion
that ethnic humor is necessarily the result of inter-ethnic conflict or hostility.
Another approach to the relationship between ethnic humor and ethnic
conflict is by looking at peoples appreciation of ethnic humor, and the way
this is related to their ethnic background or their opinion of the ethnic group
targeted. Middleton (1959) found that, while (as expected) Blacks have higher
appreciation of anti-White jokes than Whites, these groups didnt differ significantly in their appreciation of jokes targeting Blacks. This led him to conclude that identification with a superior group (or the social order as a whole)
is more important than ethnic affiliation in the appreciation of humor. A line
of research inspired by Middletons findings explores the role between the
appreciation of ethnic humor and identification. The studies conducted by
LaFave (1972) show that people tend to appreciate jokes more when they
target a group that people do not identify with. Such identification classes
do not have to correspond to ones own background, and especially low status groups may prefer jokes targeting their own group. For instance, some
studies have reported that women prefer jokes targeting women to jokes targeting men, or that ethnic minorities tend to prefer jokes targeting their own
group to jokes targeting the dominant ethnic group (LaFave, Haddad and
Marshall 1974; Nevo 1985). In a related line of research, Zillman (1983; Zillman and Stocking 1976) explored disparagement humor, concluding that
people generally most enjoy humor that disparages groups they dislike or do
not identify with. However, the conclusion that people like jokes more in the
11-kuipers.indd 376
18/06/2008 13:39:15
377
context of conflict or hostility does not mean that humor is conflict or hostility. After all, the same studies also show that people can very well like jokes
that target groups they like and identify with (just maybe not as much).
The conflict approach is by far the most contested approach in sociological humor studies. It is used mainly to explain and analyze potentially offensive forms of humor, and thus is directly connected with societal controversies about ethnic, sexist, or political humor (Lockyer and Pickering 2005b).
Moreover, debates about the relations between humor and conflict, both in
Academia and the real world, address the very nature of humor: its non-seriousness, which makes every humorous utterance fundamentally ambiguous.
The central criticism leveled at the conflict approach is that it takes humor too
literally, ignoring humors basic ambiguity, which means that a joke can be
enjoyed for many different reasons. Also, conflict theories generally cannot
explain why and when people in situations of conflict decide to use humor
rather than more serious expressions of antagonism. Since the matter of jokes
at the expense of others is such a central issue in humor studies (and real life),
the various perspectives on this matter will be addressed further below. The
question why and when people use unserious modes of communication rather
than straightforward serious talk has been taken up by the next two theoretical traditions: symbolic interactionism and phenomenology.
2.4. Symbolic interactionist approach
The symbolic interactionist approach to humor focuses on the role of humor
in the construction of meanings and social relations in social interaction.4
Symbolic interactionist studies generally are detailed studies of specific social interactions, using ethnographic data or detailed transcripts of conversations. In this approach, social relations and meanings, and more generally
social reality are not seen as fixed and given, but as constructed and negotiated in the course of social interaction. Humor, while not very central to big
social structures and processes, plays an important role in everyday interaction, and its ambiguity makes it well-suited to negotiations and manipulations
of selves and relationships. Within humor studies, the micro-interactionist
approach gave a strong impetus to small-scale ethnographic studies of humor,
as an alternative to the analysis of standardized forms of humor, joke ratings
from questionnaires.
In this approach, whether something is defined as humorous or serious
is not a given, but something constructed in the course of interactions. The
11-kuipers.indd 377
18/06/2008 13:39:15
378
Giselinde Kuipers
shift from serious to joking conversation becomes an act of conversational

cooperation, which can succeed, be withheld, or fail, and this shift creates opportunities for specific types of communication. For instance, people who say
something in jest usually have more freedom to transgress norms and bring
up taboo topics (something also noted in functionalist analyses of humor).
Emerson (1969) analyzed how this shift to joking and the consequent freedom to transgress norms is accepted, or challenged. She described this process as negotiating the serious import of humor.
Goffman (1974) used the notion of framing to describe this process of
shifting from one type of interactional logic to another. Humor is one of the
most common forms of framing used in everyday conversation. A humorous
frame redefines everything someone says: it is not supposed to be taken
seriously anymore. As many conversation analysts have shown, this shift
to serious conversation if often marked by laughter, which often occurs at the
beginning of a humorous utterance. Similarly, listeners may laugh as a sign
of acceptance of this shift of frames (Jefferson 1979; Sachs 1974). This perspective has made laughter a central theme in sociological humor studies, not
only as an automatic response to a humorous stimulus, but as a form of communication on its own. Recently, Hay (2001), a sociolinguist, has given a sophisticated account of this process, describing it as the garnering of humor
support in the course of social interaction.
Symbolic interactionist studies have not only looked at the negotiating,
but also at the conversational effects and uses of this ambiguity or non-seriousness of humor. Humor and joking are important in negotiations over the
meaning of things: the construction of norms, the debate about what is going
on in a particular situation (Robinson and Smith-Lovin 2001). As Emerson
noted, humor is used to bring up themes and topics that are taboo; or to feel
out other persons (Mulkay 1988). Both Sachs (1974) and Fine (1983; 1984)
noted how among teenagers humor is employed to bring up sexual topics, and
can get to function as some sort of test of sexual knowledge. Among adults,
too, sexual humor is very common in flirtation, which also is a form of testing (Fine 1983; Walle 1976). Humor always provides a way out: both the
joker and the audience can ignore any potential serious import of the joke.
Similarly, humor can also be used to bring up and negotiate the meaning of
a wide variety of other possibly sensitive topics, such as political opinions,
money matters, or complaints about bosses or colleagues (Paton and Filby
1988).
Moreover, conversational joking plays a role in the construction of social
relationships. Fine (1983) described how humor can be used to create and
11-kuipers.indd 378
18/06/2008 13:39:15
379
define a group culture not only by providing social solidarity in the functionalist sense, but by the use of ingroup humor, repeat jokes, and specific
humorous styles and tastes that literally get to define a group, and be used to
demarcate its identity. However, this creation of a group culture also provides
a strong outside boundary: humor includes and excludes at the same time.
Many micro-interactionist studies have highlighted the ambiguous role of
humor in social relationships (Holmes 2000; Kothoff 2000; 2006; Mulkay
1988; Robinson and Smith-Lovin 2001). On the one hand, joking creates
closeness and solidarity and is important marker of being on the same wavelength. On the other hand, humor has a strong power dimension, resulting in
a relation between social status and humor initiation, as well an oft-reported
tendency for people to joke down rather than up. Norrick (1993) has
pointed out some of the mechanisms at work in the relationship between conversational humor and power. He calls humor a form of conversational aggression, because it disrupts the regular turn-taking pattern of conversation,
and because the shift from serious to joking conversation means a drastic shift
in the mode of conversation. Thus, any attempt at a joke implies a conversational coup on the part of the joker, who both breaks the serious frame and
the turn-taking pattern.
The relation between humor and gender has emerged as a central theme
in micro-interactionist studies of humor: how are masculinity and femininity formed and performed in the course of interaction? Until recently, most
studies found that men joked more and initiated more humor, which confirms older findings, such as Cosers, that those in high status tend to joke
more. More generally, initiating humor seemed to be associated with masculinity, whereas women were expected to laugh at mens jokes (Crawford
1995; 2003; Hay 2000; Holmes 2006; Kothoff 2006; Kuipers 2006a). Many
studies in the symbolic interactionist tradition have analyzed the way people
perform gender, thereby creating and reinforcing gender roles as well as
power divisions. These studies on gender and conversational joking also illustrate the larger implication of small-scale interactions: showing how social
differences on a macro-level are created and perpetuated in interaction. Also,
changes in society at large manifest themselves in small-scale interactions: as
Kothoff (2006: 13) observes, recent studies increasingly show women initiating jokes, which marks historical changes in the cultural role of humor in
communication (cf. Holmes 2006).
In the small-scale studies of symbolic interactionists, humor, joking, and
laughter are no longer marginal and frivolous. Rather, they are at the heart
of social analysis, crucial to the shaping of meanings, situations, selves, and
11-kuipers.indd 379
18/06/2008 13:39:16
380
Giselinde Kuipers
relationships. Critics of this approach have pointed out that symbolic interactionist studies tend to be overly descriptive and particular, and hence hard to
generalize. In sociology, symbolic interactionism appears to have gone out
of fashion after the 1980s. Since then, this line of humor research has been
very successfully explored by sociolinguists (many of whom are cited here).
Within sociology, symbolic interactionist understandings of humor have
been incorporated in phenomenological studies of humor, described below,
and in the sociology of emotions, which will be discussed in the section on
laughter.
2.5. Phenomenological approach
The phenomenological approach to humor conceptualizes humor as a specific outlook or worldview or mode of perceiving and constructing the
social world. This humorous outlook is generally considered to be one option
among several in the social construction of reality. This approach to humor
emerged after the 1970s, and is eclectic in terms of methodology, combining textual analysis, historical data, and micro-interactionist studies to show
how humor constructs and at the same time entails a particular worldview.
The phenomenological approach to humor builds on a much older philosophical tradition about humor and laughter, which never made it into the canon
of three classical theories. However, the notion of a humorous outlook
on the world, or laughing at the world, dates back to irreverent ancient
philosophers like Diogenes, and can also be discerned in the philosophical
writings of Friedrich Nietzsche or in the postmodern embrace of irony and
ambiguity.
The sociologist Zijderveld (1982; 1983) defined humor as playing with
meanings in various domains of social life. To Zijderveld, such playing
with meanings is not trivial, but essential to the construction of meaning
and everyday life, because it enables social experimentation and negotiation.
Moreover, it allows people to become aware of the constructedness of social
life itself: humor is a looking glass allowing us to look at the world and ourselves in a slightly distorted, and hence revealing, way. He likens humor to
sociology: both debunk and denaturalize the world, showing us the relativity and sometimes even the ridiculousness of what we do. Davis (1993), taking this argumentation a step further, sees in this capacity of humor to expose
the underlying structure of reality a strong subversive potential, concluding
that humor can be an assault on reality.
11-kuipers.indd 380
18/06/2008 13:39:16
381
In his 1982 book Reality in a Looking Glass Zijderveld applies his perspective to a particular form of humor: the traditional folly of carnivals and
court jesters. According to Zijderveld, this folly was not just a humorous style
or institution, but a full-fledged worldview, seen in many cultures around the
world, based on turning upside down the rules and conventions of life. In the
early modern era, it functioned as a counterpoint to the process of rationalization, but eventually, traditional folly was fully eclipsed by this process.
Bakhtin (1984, but writing in 1930s Communist Russia) also looked at the
thriving humorous traditions of the early modern period to understand humor
as an alternative conception of the world that exists alongside everyday modes
of interpretation (and behavior). Taking as his point of departure the raucous
humor of early modern France, exemplified in the work of Francois Rabelais
(c. 14901553), Bakhtin analyzed the carnivalesque as a space of freedom,
community, and equality, denoted by laughter, humor, and more generally
by corporeality, physicality, and the grotesque. In Bakthins view, carnival
can function as an alternative sphere of freedom and resistance. Theorist of
the public sphere Habermas (1992) acknowledged Bakhtins carnavalesque
as possible alternative to the bourgeois public sphere, allowing for a different
mode of popular civic participation. Phenomenological approaches diverge
from functionalist and conflict theories: because they see humor as a separate
sphere or perspective, they see more potential for humor as an agent of social
resistance and change (see also Goldstein 2003).
The most complete and sophisticated exposition of the social functions
and consequences of the humorous worldview is Mulkays On Humour
(1988). In what he calls the humorous mode the rules of logic, the expectations of common sense, the laws of science and the demands of propriety
are all potentially in abeyance. Consequently, when recipients are faced with
a joke, they do not apply the information-processing procedures appropriate
to serious discourse (Mulkay 1988: 37) According to Mulkay, this enables
people to communicate about the many incongruous experiences that make
up (social) life, and to convey meanings and messages that are as ambiguous
as most of everyday life. As a result, humor can be used to expose and express the contradictory aspects of life, and to communicate and share this experience with others. However, in contrast with Bakhtin and Davis, Mulkay
concludes that in the end, humor mostly serves to maintain social equilibrium
and consolidate the social order. For instance, in an extended discussion of
sexual joking (drawing on Spradley and Mann 1976), Mulkay relates sexual
humor to the contradictory expectations and norms governing gender and
sexual relations. In his view, the content and the strongly gendered usage
11-kuipers.indd 381
18/06/2008 13:39:16
382
Giselinde Kuipers
patterns of sexual humor reconcile and neutralize these contradictory expectations and norms.
The phenomenological approach generally contrasts the humorous worldview with the serious worldview. Berger (1997) set out to compare humor
with another competing perspective on life, the religious. He starts out with
an understanding of the comic very much resembling that of Zijderveld and
Mulkay: the comic conjures up a separate world, different from the world of
ordinary reality, operating by different rules. (Berger 1997: x; Italics in original) But in Bergers view, there is a transcendental element to this separate
world: The experience of the comic is, finally, a promise of redemption.
Religious faith is the intuition . . . that the promise will be kept. (ibid.: x)
Bergers humor theory, while starting out from a constructivist premise similar to Zijdervelds and Mulkays, ends up resembling something more like the
psychological relief theory of humor, with a theological twist. While Bergers
perspective on humor resonates with fashionable views on healing humor
(Lewis 2006), its reliance on the liberating, redeeming aspects of humor and
laughter makes for a rather one-sided theory of humor.
Critics have pointed out that phenomenological approaches to humor
(much like conflict theory, but on a more positive note) tend to essentialize
humor: by focusing on humor as worldview, they neglect other meanings
of humor, including negative or dysfunctional effects, and overstate the importance of humor. Also, phenomenological sociology is said to be hard to
operationalize: it provides inspiring insights it is not clear how its notions and
concepts are to be used in actual empirical research. However, unlike many
other studies, phenomenological sociology takes into account the peculiarities of humor: its ambiguity and non-seriousness are central to the theories
described above. The accounts of Zijderveld, Davis and Mulkay are quite successful in tying together various functions and characteristics of humor. For
instance, they explain the relation with laughter, manage to combine microand macroperspectives of humor, and offer reasons why people would use
humor rather than more straightforward communication.
2.6. Historical-comparative approach
The historical-comparative approach attempts to understand the social role of
humor through comparisons in time and place. Comparative-historical studies of humor are conducted in various scholarly fields, and draw on different
theoretical traditions: there is no central theory or school of thought in com-
11-kuipers.indd 382
18/06/2008 13:39:16
383
parative-historical humor studies. Still, most sociological work on humor

done since the 1990s is probably best captured by this rather vague umbrella
term.
Comparisons across time and space generally show great variations as
well as some universalities. Constants in humor across cultures are primarily
the preferred topics for joking: sexuality, gender relations, bodily functions,
stupidity, and strangers (Apte 1985). In other words: people joke about taboo
topics and deviance. This underlines the relationship between humor and the
drawing of boundaries between the normal and the abnormal (Powell
1988). Other constants are the existence of specific delineated humorous
roles and domains; humorous forms and techniques such as reversal, imitation, slapstick, wordplay; and the existence of rituals and ritual performances
associated with humor which suggests a more or less universal separation
of serious and non-serious domains, although the nature of this boundary
may differ.
But even within these constants, there are great variations: in humorous
forms, genres and techniques as well as in humorous content. Each culture,
nation, community and era is supposed to have specific humorous styles and
forms. This local sense of humor is widely believed to a sort of index for
the deepest nature of a group, place, or age. Sociology has generally relegated
studies of the humorous Zeitgeist of a place or age to folklore, history, or
the humanities; when sociologists have made qualifications about a cultures
sense of humor, this is usually in the context of a wider theory of societal
dynamics. The book on folly by Zijderveld (1982), discussed above, is an
example of this approach: he connected the rise and demise of a particular
humorous style with the much wider development of rationalization and disenchantment of the world. Similarly, in the edited volume by Paton, Powell
and Wagg (1996) many articles bring up the theme of postmodern humor:
reflexive and intertextual styles of humor that mirror a wider societal turn towards to reflexive or post-modernity (cf. Gray 2006). In such studies, humor
is not the index of an essential group culture, but a particular manifestation
of a wider social phenomenon. Implicit in this approach is a comparison: between humor and other phenomena manifesting the same trend.
The most explicit comparative research program in humor studies is the
work of Davies on jokes (1990; 1998a; 1998b; 2003). In his 1990 book, Davies compared patterns of ethnic joking around the world. Although ethnic
humor is probably universal, who is targeted, and how, varies significantly,
as Davies shows by looking both at the groups who are targeted, and the humorous scripts about these groups. Davies convincingly establishes that
11-kuipers.indd 383
18/06/2008 13:39:16
384
Giselinde Kuipers
the same jokes are told in many parts of the world. The most common humorous script worldwide is stupidity, but there are also transnational corpora
of jokes about such themes as dirtiness, stinginess, cowardliness, or eating
habits. Davies comparative approach makes visible a cross-cultural pattern:
stupidity jokes are generally told about slightly backward versions of ones
own group, such as recent migrant groups (the Poles and the Irish in the US)
or peripheral, often rural, communities in or close to ones own country (the
Belgians for the French and the Dutch, Ostfriesen in Germany). Jokes about
canny and stingy groups, on the other hand, are told about groups that are
successful, notably in trade or the money business, and that have more central and dominant position: the Scots, the Jews, the Genovese in Italy, and the
Dutch in Belgium.
Davies points out that these jokes not only reflect ethnic relationships, but
also central moral categories, such as rationality, courage, or cleanliness. The
stupid-canny dichotomy not only mirrors status relations, but also of the importance of rationality in the modern era: the stupid people exhibit a lack of
rationality, whereas the canny are overly rationalized. Thus, Davies summarizes the globally popular genres of the stupidity and canniness jokes as jokes
from the iron cage (1998a: 63), referring to Max Webers classical description of modern rationality as an iron cage. This analysis of ethnic humor
has been extended to jokes about other categories, such as blonde jokes or
political jokes (Davies 1998a; 2003), always showing how transnational joke
genres, with mostly transnational moral themes, get applied to local conditions. Central to this comparative analysis is the question which genres and
scripts do not diffuse or have a more limited regional spread (such as dirtiness jokes, which are popular in North-West Europe but not in Anglo-Saxon
countries), since such divergent patterns enable the isolation of variables determining the viability of a joke genre or script in a specific country (Davies
1998b).
As Davies work illustrates, a cross-comparison of humor often ends up
telling us as much, or maybe more, about the groups being compared as it
tells us about humor. Whom people joke about tells us something about the
relationship between the jokers and their butt although comparative sociologists usually tend to interpret these relations more broadly than conflict scholars, and often in terms of status or inequality rather than conflict
or hostility (Kuipers 2000; Oring 1992; 2003). And what people joke about
reflects what they find important and what is a source of concern to them.
Sometimes these concerns are similar across cultures: Davies global comparisons uncover worldwide preoccupations with modernization and ration-
11-kuipers.indd 384
18/06/2008 13:39:16
385
ality. In their analysis of the blonde joke, another transnational genre, both
Davies (1998) and Oring (2003) have argued that the rise of these jokes in
many Western countries are related to changing gender relations. Some local
color is often added to such global jokes: in the UK, blonde jokes are told
about Essex girls, adding a working-class connotation these jokes dont have
elsewhere.
The preoccupations reflected in humor may be more specific, and sometimes quite local. For instance, lawyer jokes are a typical American phenomenon, which is an index of the strong position of lawyers and the centrality
of the legal system to American politics and society (Galanter 2004). Folklorist Oring (2003: 97115) argues there is a particular brand of humor specific to frontier societies: Australian, American and Israeli humor all show
a fondness of tall tales and practical joking, and mock sophistication. According to Oring, such colonizing humor expresses the frontier experience
of starting anew, away from civilization, and helps to forge a new identity
based in this experience. A more detailed case study of this type of humor
by Shiffman and Katz (2005) analyzed the Israeli jokes told in the 1930s by
Eastern European old-timers at the expense of the formality, rigidity, and
general maladaptedness of well-bred German Jews (Yekkes), arguing that
these jokes reflect a very particular episode in Jewish migration history: the
ethnic superiority in these jokes turns the tables on earlier migration episodes in Germany and the US, in which Jewish immigrants from Eastern
Europe were denigrated by German Jewish immigrants.
Not only who, and what people joke about; but also how they joke about
this differs between cultures, as Kuipers (2006a) has demonstrated in her
study of humor styles in the Netherlands and the US. Starting out from the
appreciation of one particular humorous genre, the joke, she showed how
humor styles in both countries demarcate salient social boundaries. In the
Netherlands, joke telling is most popular among working or lower middle
class men, corresponding to a humor style that favors sociability, exuberance, and performance skills. The college-educated upper middle classes
generally dislike jokes, since for this group, a good sense of humor shows
intellectual originality, deadpan restraint, and sharpness qualities they do
not see in joke-telling. In the United States, humor styles are not as strongly
connected to class background, but gender differences tend to be stronger,
and Americans evaluate humor less in terms of intellect or sociability, more
in moral terms. This study shows that different social groups have different
criteria for good and bad humor, which means that they joke not only about
different subjects, but also in different ways. These standards are related
11-kuipers.indd 385
18/06/2008 13:39:16
386
Giselinde Kuipers
more to style than to content, and they are linked with broader communication styles, taste cultures, and notions of personhood.
A final comparative question, brought up by historians such as Dekker
(2001) and Wickberg (1998) deals with the social standing and meaning of
humor in different societies. Dekker intriguigingly suggests there are conjunctural fluctuations in humor, with some eras and cultures being more
friendly to humor than others. He described the Dutch Golden Age, in the
seventeenth century, as a very humor-friendly period, and the eighteenth and
nineteenth century as more hostile to humor, noting the rise of Calvinism,
a religious affiliation notoriously suspicious of non-seriousness and play, as
one of the factors in his shift. As Wickberg (1998) shows in his book The
Senses of Humor, having a sense of humor became increasingly central to
the American understanding of the self in the course of the twentieth century.
The high social standing of humor has caused a veritable industry of humor
promotion and development, especially in the US, discussed critically and
hilariously by Lewis (2006). Billig (2005) has written a scathing criticism of
the positive view of humor in current society as well as humor studies. These
recent studies, while not explicitly comparative in their approach, give rise to
intriguing comparative questions about social and cultural conditions conducive or prohibitive to humor.
3. Issues
In the next section, I will discuss some issues which have recently been the
topic of special interest in humor sociology: the interpretation of humor at the
expense of others and more generally the dark side of humor; the relation
between humor and laughter; and the study of humorous forms and genres,
including mediatized forms of humor.
3.1. The dark side of humor: Humor, aggression, and transgression
After many centuries in which humor and laughter had a bad reputation,
modern humor studies have tended to stress the beneficial character of humor,
both for society and for the psyche. However, within humor studies there has
been a consistent concern with the transgressive, aggressive, and conflictive
functions humor can have. This matter ties in to the more general question of
the dark side of humor.
11-kuipers.indd 386
18/06/2008 13:39:16
387
Much humor is based on the transgression of societal boundaries, and

such transgression can cause offense as well as amusement. And while not
all humor has a butt, many jokes have some sort of target: groups, persons,
objects, ideas, or the world at large. The various theoretical traditions have
suggested different interpretations of transgressive or deprecating humor:
conflict theories stress its relation with conflict and hostility; functionalist
analyses interpret it as safety valve or social corrective; phenomenological
and symbolic interactionist stress its ambiguous and manifold meanings, and
its role in negotiating meanings and worldviews; and comparative-historical
studies tend to stress its connection with larger social and cultural concerns.
The present-day descendents of superiority theory take the dark side of
humor most seriously. Gruner (1978) and more recently Billig (2005) have
taken the position that humor and laughter are correlates of social superiority: every joke is basically a putdown or an act of social exclusion. Gruner
has expounded the view that humor is a game with winners and losers,
and Billig (2005) argues, in his social critique of humor that humor and
laughter are social control mechanisms, based in ridicule and embarrassment.
Other authors have argued that humor, while not intrinsically connected with
hostility, aggression, or transgression, often overlaps with negative emotions:
people often joke about what they dislike or feel superior to, and dislike or
superiority adds to the liking of humor (see above). Oring (2003: 4157) and
Billig (2001a) have shown that groups that are openly racist tend to underline
and express this both with serious and joking expression of ethnic hostility
and stereotyping. Ford and Ferguson (2004) showed that humor, because of
its non-seriousness and playfulness, can diminish barriers to the expression
of negative emotions, and thus facilitate hostility. Recently, Lewis (2006),
looking at American humor from talk radio to horror movie jokes, has argued
convincingly that humor (while not necessarily a force of darkness) reflects
the darker tendencies in American society: it highlights social rifts, exposes
shared cultural fears, and is an outlet for hostility, for instance in the rather
vicious humor of some talk radio hosts.
The meaning of transgressive humor is not only debated in Academia, but
a source of concern in everyday life as well. Transgressive humor is generally controlled by the unwritten rules of informal regimes (Kuipers 2006b;
Palmer 2005), and also less frequently by formal censorship (Davies
1988). Both in Academia and in society at large, the most heated debates have
been around ethnic and sexist humor, the most contested forms of humor in
modern Western societies. This issue has been the subject of various debates
in the HUMOR journal (Davies 1991; Lewis 1997; 2008; Oring 1991) and of
11-kuipers.indd 387
18/06/2008 13:39:16
388
Giselinde Kuipers
a 2005 book by Lockyer and Pickering (2005a), all revolving around the same
question: When, why, and under what conditions is humor targeting persons
or groups just a joke, and when does it have a more serious meaning or consequences? With the exception of some die-hard superiority theorists, humor
scholars generally concede they cannot solve the issue of ethnic and sexist
humor by simply pinning down the one true meaning of jokes. Rather, they
stress how the meaning of a joke is created within a specific context: whether
it is a private conversation or a public situation; what the position and background of the joke-teller is; what the relationship is between the joker and
his audience (and the butt); whether it is mediated or conversational humor
(Lewis 1997; Lockyer and Pickering 2005a; Palmer 1994).
Theorists of ethnic humor Davies (1990; 1991) and Oring (2003) have
stressed the inherent ambiguity of humor. Davies, especially, tends to downplay the seriousness of humor, stating that humor is merely playing with
aggression, although he notes that in some cases ethnic joke scripts overlap
with actual ethnic hostility, which considerably changes these jokes serious
implications. Oring (2003: 65) argued: Joke cycles are not really about particular groups who are ostenstibly their targets. These groups serve merely as
signifiers that hold together a discourse on certain ideas and values that are of
current concern. Polish jokes, Italian jokes, and JAP jokes are less comments
about real Poles, Italians, or Jewish women than they are about a particular
set of values attributed to these groups. These attributions, while not entirely
arbitrary, are, for the most part not seriously entertained.
The contributors in Lockyer and Pickerings volume take a more critical
view. Howitt and Owusu-Bempa (2005: 62), in the most explicitly critical
contribution, conclude that no only [do] racist jokes provide ready opportunities to give expression to ideas of racial superiority. . . they continually
reinforce the use of race categories, leading them to denounce even jokes
mocking racism on the grounds that they reinforce racial thinking. However,
most other contributions attempt to carefully balance what the editors call
the self-defeating, regulatory, left-wing arguments associated with political
correctness, and the opportunistic, unreflexive, right-wing denunciations of
its practice (Lockyer and Pickering 2005b: 24).
In the insightful introduction to their book, Lockyer and Pickering, discussing what they call the ethics of humor, portray joking as a process
of negotiation about the line between funny and offensive. Billig (2005)
coined the concept of unlaughter the pointed non-acceptance of an attempt at humor to make a similar point about humors processual nature and
uncertain outcome. This perspective on humor as the negotiation of boundar-
11-kuipers.indd 388
18/06/2008 13:39:16
389
ies allows the authors to bring out the power dimension of humor. However, it
also illustrates how joking, when the negotiations are completed successfully,
is about the creation of community. As Lockyer and Pickering put it: joking
is about the construction of a we, which implies inclusion as well as exclusion.
3.2. Humor and laughter
In humor studies, there has been a tendency to exclude laughter from the analysis, because there is no necessary one-on-one relationship between humor
and laughter. There are other possible responses to successful attempts at
humor (smiling, another joke, a verbal acknowledgment, groaning in response to a lame pun); and laughter can be related to several other moods
and emotions, ranging from friendliness and play to nervousness and ridicule
(Provine 2000; Ruch 1998).
As we saw earlier, symbolic interactionists and phenomenologists brought
laughter to the center of sociological humor studies, describing laughter as
a marker of the shift to the humorous mode and of the acceptance of a joke, an
important signal of social acceptance, the expression of a humorous worldview (Bakhtin), and as the language of humor (Zijderveld 1983). Recently, several authors have argued for inclusion of laughter in the sociology of
humor. Billig (2005) made laughter central to his theory of humor and embarrassment, seeing laughter basically as derision. On a more positive note,
Kuipers (2006a: 7) defined humor as the successful exchange of jokes and
laughter, arguing that while laughter may not be a necessary corollary of
humor, it is the ideal and most sought-after response to any attempt at humor,
and hence essential to the understanding of the social meanings of humor.
Outside of humor studies, sociologists have increasingly been paying attention to the role of emotions in social life. This has led several of them
to take up the theme of laughter, generally without much awareness of the
insights from humor scholarship; while on the other hand, insights from the
sociology of emotion have not yet has much impact in humor research. One
of the challenges for sociological humor scholarship is to integrate developments in the sociology of emotions into humor studies (and, reversely, to
sell humor studies to the sociology of emotions).
Scheff, in his sociological theory of emotions, sees shame and pride as the
basic emotions of social life. In his work on catharsis, he described laughter as form of relief from social pressure (Scheff 1980). In later work on the
11-kuipers.indd 389
18/06/2008 13:39:16
390
Giselinde Kuipers
emotional foundations of social life (1990) he described laughter more specifically as the absence of shame, or anti-shame. Billig (2001a; 2005), in
his work on ridicule and embarrassment, is influenced by Scheffs work on
shame in social life. However, he sees laughter not as the freedom of embarassment in the self, but rather as causing embarrassment and hence conformity to norms in others.
Another sociologist of emotion, Katz (1996), did a highly innovative study
of laughter in a Parisian funhouse. He examines the metamorphosis from
a sober disposition to laughter, followed by a second transformation from
doing laughter to what Katz calls being done by giving oneself over to
laughter. This metamorphosis is brought about by the shared watching, generally with family members, of the incongruous images in the funny mirrors,
tying family groups together in a strongly embodied bond of laughter and
playfulness. Katz study pays great attention to the bodily aspect of laughter
and the way this contributes to the forging of social bonds, making his study
an interesting corrective to the rather instrumentalist and very verbal image of
social life emerging from conversational analysis, which locates the creation
of relationships primarily in talk. Also, Katz pays careful attention to the nature of the humor provoking all this laughter: he analyzes in detail the way
the distorted (incongruous) image in the mirror is collectively constructed as
funny by the family group.
Finally, Collins theory on interaction ritual chains (2004), a widely
praised integration of Durkheimian theory and Goffmanian micro-sociology,
is probably the first sociological theory to give a central place to laughter.
According to Collins, social life is built on emotional energy, emerging
in small-scale interactions, but congealing in larger networks and cultural
symbols with a strong emotional content. Emotional energy emerges in interaction, through the physical co-presence with other people in so-called interaction rituals (to Collins, all interactions are rituals). All interactions, but especially successful, high-energy interactions, lead to the mostly unconscious
rhythmical coordination or actions, movements and speech that Collins calls
attunement. Laughter is a clear example of the rhythmically attunement of
a successful high-energy interaction, and hence, the generation of laughter,
typically through humor, becomes one of the central signs of closeness and
social understanding. However, while laughter is central to Collins theory, he
hardly addresses humor. Extrapolating his reasoning, we can assume that in
Collins view, humor is a culturally specific form of bringing about successful
high-energy interactions and attunement and as such: a central dimension
of social life.
11-kuipers.indd 390
18/06/2008 13:39:16
391
3.3. The social shaping of humor: Genres and mediated forms of humor
Most sociological humor scholarship has been concerned with a limited
number of humorous forms: conversational humor, and most notably jokes,
the fruit flies of humor scholarship. The joke has been the favorite genre
of humor scholars because jokes are easily available, very clearly intended
to be humorous, and it is clear where the humor is located: in the punchline.
However, as Martin and Kuiper (1999) have shown, canned jokes make up
a very small percentage of the humor people enjoy on a day-to-day basis.
Moreover, genre is likely to affect the meaning and the appreciation of a humorous utterance. Kuipers (2006a) has shown that the joke, as a genre,
does not have the same connotation to different social groups: it is considered a male genre (cf. Crawford 1995), and in the Netherlands (and probably other Western-European countries) it also class-coded. Also, as Davies
(2003) has illustrated, the joke is not a universal genre, and some cultures do
not have jokes.
The study of humorous forms and their consequences has been relatively
marginal in humor sociology as usual, the folklorists are way ahead. But
sociologists are becoming increasingly aware of this, especially because of
the growing importance of the media in the creation and dissemination of
humor. People increasingly enjoy humor not in face-to-face interaction but
through a variety of media: print, television, the Internet. This mediatization of humor has the potential to affect the interpretation of humor, and
has resulted in the emergence of new, mediated, humorous forms.
New media have always given birth to new humorous forms: Dekker
(2001) argues that the short humorous anecdote received an important boost
from the possibility of cheap printing. Wickberg (1998) argues that the joke
is an essentially a nineteenth century genre, reflecting processes of industrialization and commodification during this period. Also, older genres can
incorporate elements from new genres: Oring (1987) suggested that disaster jokes are a response to media discourse on disaster, noting that this oral
genre incorporated many references and fragments of media culture. More
recently, television created several new humorous genres (incorporating of
course fragments of older genres), most notably the sitcom. Mills (2005), in
his excellent recent study of this genre, has been the first to look specifically
at the humor of sitcom. The rare studies of the genre so far have investigated
the sitcom mainly in terms of its politics, and especially its politics of stereotyping and representation. Finally, in the past decade, the Internet has led
to the proliferation of a wide variety of humorous genres, many of which are
11-kuipers.indd 391
18/06/2008 13:39:17
392
Giselinde Kuipers
derived from earlier folk genres and office lore with a strong do-it-yourself
flavor (Kuipers 2005; Shifman 2007).
The consequences of genre and form for the interpretation and appreciation of humor is another understudied field in humor scholarship. Reception
studies of mediated humor are few and far between. Despite the centrality of
humor to popular media, media and communication studies have paid little
attention to humorous forms such as comedy, cartoons or humorous advertising. The scarce reception studies of comedy mainly focus on racial issues
(Coleman 2000); there are two full monographs dedicated to the reception
of 1980s hit The Cosby Show (Fuller 1992; Jhally and Lewis 1992). These
studies seem more concerned with issues of race and representation than with
the humorous aspect of comedy shows. In his recent book on The Simpsons,
Gray (2006) presents a small reception study as part of a longer and perceptive study of this highly intertextual and media-savvy cartoon/sitcom hybrid,
interpreting the humorous aspect of this show mostly as parody.
Finally, the increasing prominence of mediated humor also sheds new
light on old questions about the meaning of humor. Lockyer and Pickering
(2005a) note that mediated humor seriously complicates negotiations over
the meaning of a joke, because mediated humor is not firmly located in one
context anymore, making mediated jokes even more polysemic and ambiguous. The 20052006 controversy surrounding the Muhammad cartoons, originally published in a Danish newspaper but leading to worldwide protests,
is a dramatic illustration of how an attempt at humor can lead to different
responses in different contexts (Lewis 2008).
4. Conclusion
Sociology is a discipline with weak boundaries and a contested core: there
is no central framework, theoretical perspective, or methodological approach
that all sociologists adhere to. Many central ideas in sociology have been borrowed from other disciplines, and many ideas from sociology have diffused to
other disciplines. This is especially visible in the small and interdisciplinary
field of humor studies: there has been much boundary traffic between sociology and related disciplines. For this reason, this overview of sociological
humor studies has featured many anthropologists, folklorists, linguists, and
psychologists. To some, this may reek of sociological imperialism.
As I hope to have shown in this contribution, this openness often is the
strength of sociological contributions to humor research. If done well, sociol-
11-kuipers.indd 392
18/06/2008 13:39:17
393
ogy provides the tools to connect small-scale interactions with larger societal
developments; cultural conditions with individual amusement; and the social
functions of humor with its form and content. However, sociologys weak
boundaries and its eclecticism also entail considerable risks: undertheorized
empiricism and overgeneralization from a single case or limited findings;
a proclivity to the scavenging of loose concepts, fragments of theories, and
isolated findings from ot/her disciplines; the tendency to reduce all humor to
a single function or meaning; or more generally lack of theoretical or methodological rigor. However, in the past decades, sociological humor scholarship appears to have matured. Recent studies are generally more sophisticated and rigorous: when theoretical, their claims are notably less brash, and
when empirical, the findings have a clear connection with wider theories.
Having reviewed the various sociological approaches to humor, it is clear
there is no one sociological theory of humor. The scholars and theorists discussed have very different perspectives on humor, generally derived from
a more general social theory. Hence, despite its openness to other disciplines,
the development of humor sociology looks a lot like the development of sociology as a whole; while insofar as it resembles the development of humor
studies, this is mainly in its increasing rigor and sophistication. The connection between humor sociology and general humor theories, such as the various versions of incongruity theory, and (with notable exceptions) superiority
theory, is still quite weak. So far, sociologists have not joined in the attempts
by linguists and psychologists to integrate their findings into a general theory
of humor. In my views, this is not a bad thing. The best sociology of humor,
both theoretical and empirical, has been firmly rooted in sociological theory:
incorporating insights from humor scholarship at large, with a sensitivity to
the ambiguities and specificities of humor, but basing its interpretive framework and methodological approach in the authors social theory of choice.
Notes
1.. Oring (1994), in a highly original variation on psychoanalytic humor theory,
transferred Freudian theory to the present, suggesting that humor in modern day
America is used to vent and express sentiment, an emotion increasingly tabooed
and suppressed in modern Western societies.
2. Too late for extended discussion, but just in time for favourable mention in
a footnote, the International Review of Social History published a special issue
on humor and social protest (t Hart and Bos 2007), containing many insightful
11-kuipers.indd 393
18/06/2008 13:39:17
394
3.
4.
Giselinde Kuipers
contributions and interesting case studies that directly address the issues discussed in this section.
This conceptual unclarity is partly caused by the theoretical background of
many conflict scholars of humor. Sociologists using this approach often adhere
to Marxist or Marxist-inspired traditions where society is conceptualized as
a struggle, which means that all forms of inequality necessarily imply conflict
and superiority and conflict are very much the same thing. Moreover, in humor
studies there has been a strong Freudian influence, which also leads to interpretations of unconscious drives and motives in humor. Both Marxist and Freudian theories, while very insightful at times, tend to facilitate interpretations of
humor in terms of conflict or aggression even when the concerned parties do not
agree with this interpretation and even disagree vehemently (blaming it on false
consciousness or denial, respectively).
I am using symbolic interactionism as an umbrella term for a variety for sometimes antagonistic schools in social research focusing on the construction of
meaning in everyday interaction, from the work of Erving Goffman (who refused to be called symbolic interactionist) and ethnomethodologists (who also
refused to be called symbolic interactionists) to more recent work in sociology
and sociolinguistics by scholars who are not as particular about these labels anymore.
References
Apte, Mahadev L.
1985
Humor and Laughter: An Anthropological Approach. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Attardo, Salvatore, and Victor Raskin
1991
Script Theory revis(it)ed: Joke Similarity and Joke Representation
Model. HUMOR 4 (3): 293347.
Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich
1984
Rabelais and his World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
(Original Russian ed. 1965.)
Benton, Gregor
1988
The origins of the political joke. In Powell and Paton (eds.), 3355.
Berger, Peter
1997
Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience.
Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Bergson, Henri
1999
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Los Angeles:
Green Integer. (Original French ed. Paris: Presse Universitaire de
France, 1900.)
11-kuipers.indd 394
18/06/2008 13:39:17
395
Billig, Michael
2001a
Humour and hatred: The racist jokes of the Ku Klux Clan. Discourse
& Society 12 (3): 267289.
2001b
Humour and embarrassment: Limits of nice guy theories of social
life. Theory, Culture & Society 18 (5): 2343.
2005
Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humor. London: Sage.
Bradney, Pamela
1957
The joking relationship in industry. Human Relations 9 (2): 179187.
Burma, John
1946
Humor as a technique in race conflict. American Sociological Review 11 (6): 710715.
Coleman, Robin
2000
African American Viewers and the Black Situation Comedy: Situating Racial Humor. New York: Garland
Collins, Randall
2004
Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Coser, Rose
1959
Some social functions of laughter: A study of humor in a hospital
setting. Human Relations 12 (2): 171182.
1960
Laughter among colleagues: A study of the social functions of humor
among the staff of a mental hospital. Psychiatry 23 (1): 8195
Crawford, Mary
1995
Talking Difference: On Gender and Language. Sage: London.
2003
Gender and humor in conversational context. Journal of Pragmatics
35 (9): 14131430.
Davies, Christie
1982
Ethnic jokes, moral values, and social boundaries. British Journal of
Sociology 33 (3): 383403.
1990
Ethnic Humor around the World: A Comparative Analysis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
1991
Ethnic humor, hostility and aggression: A reply to Eliott Oring.
Humor 4 (4): 415422
1996
Puritanical and politically correct? A critical historical account of
changes in the censorship of comedy by the BBC. The Social Faces
of Humour 2962.
1998a
Jokes and their Relations to Society. Berlin/New York: Mouton de
Gruyter.
1998b
The Dog that Didnt Bark in the Night: A new sociological approach
to the cross-cultural study of humor. In Ruch (ed.), 293308.
2002
The Mirth of Nations. New Brunswick: Transaction.
2007
Humour and protest: Jokes under communism. International Review
of Social History 52: 291305.
11-kuipers.indd 395
18/06/2008 13:39:17
396
Giselinde Kuipers
Davis, Murray
1993
Whats so Funny? The Comic Conception of Culture and Society.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Dekker, Rudolf
2001
Humour in Dutch Culture of the Golden Age. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Douglas, Mary
1975
Jokes. In: Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology, 90114. London: Routledge.
Draitser, Emil
1998
Taking Penguins to the Movies: Ethnic Humor in Russia. Detroit:
Wayne State University Press.
Dundes, Alan
1987
Cracking Jokes: Studies of Sick Humor Cycles and Stereotypes. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press.
Dundes, Alan, and Thomas Hauschild
1983
Auschwitz jokes. Western Folklore 42 (4), 249260.
Emerson, Joan
1969
Negotiating the serious import of humor. Sociometry 32 (2): 169
181.
Fine, Gary Alan
1983
Sociological aspects of humor. In Goldstein and McGhee (eds.),
Handbook of Humor Research, 159182. New York: Springer.
1984
Humorous interactions and the social construction of meaning: Making sense in a jocular vein. Studies in Symbolic Interaction 5 (5):
83101.
Ford, Thomas, and Ferguson, Mark
2004
Social consequences of disparagement humor: A prejudiced norm
theory. Personality and Social Psychology Review 8 (1): 7994.
Freud, Sigmund
1976
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. Harmondsworth: Penguin. (Original German ed. Leipzig: Deuticke, 1905.)
Fuller, Linda
1992
The Cosby Show: Audiences, Impact, and Implications. Westwood,
CT: Greenwood Press.
Galanter, Marc
2004
Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Goffman, Erving
1974
Frame Analysis: An Essay in the Organization of Experience. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
11-kuipers.indd 396
18/06/2008 13:39:17
397
Goldstein, Donna
2003
Laughter out of Place: Race, Class, Violence and Sexuality in a Rio
Shantytown. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gouin, Rachel
2003
Whats so funny? Humor in womens accounts of their involvement
of social action. Qualitative Research 4 (1): 2544.
Gray, Jonathan
2006
Watching with the Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality.
London: Routledge.
Gruner, Charles
1978
Understanding Laughter: The Working of Wit and Humor. Chicago:
Nelson-Hall.
Gundelach, Peter
2000
Joking relationships and national identity in Scandinavia. Acta Sociologica 43 (2): 113122.
Habermas, Jrgen
1992
Further reflections on the public sphere. In Craig Calhoun (ed),
Habermas and the Public Sphere, 421461. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press,
t Hart, Marjolein, and Dennis Bos
2007
Humour and Social Protest. Special issue of International Review of
Social History 52, supplement S15.
Hay, Jennifer
2000
Functions of humor in the conversations of men and women. Journal
of Pragmatics 32 (6): 709742.
2001
The pragmatics of humor support. HUMOR 14 (1): 5582.
Hiller, Harry
1983
Humor and hostility: A neglected aspect of social movement analysis. Qualitative Sociology 6 (3): 255265.
Hobbes, Thomas
1660/1987 Thomas Hobbes. In John Morreall (ed.), Philosophy of Laughter and
Humor, 1920.
Holmes, Janet
2000
Politeness, power and provocation: How humor functions in the
workplace. Discourse Studies 2 (2): 159185.
2006
Sharing a laugh: Pragmatic aspects of humor and gender in the workplace. Journal of Pragmatics 38 (1): 2650.
Howitt, Dennis & Kwame Owusu-Bempah
2005
Race and ethnicity in popular humour. In Lockyer and Pickering
(eds.), 4562.
Jefferson, Gail
1979
A technique for inviting laughter and its subsequent acceptance/declination. In G. Psathas (ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology, 7996. New York: Irvington.
11-kuipers.indd 397
18/06/2008 13:39:17
398
Giselinde Kuipers
Jenkins, Ron
1994
Subversive Laughter: The Liberating Power of Humor. New York:

Free Press.
Jhally, Sut, and Justin Lewis
1992
Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of
the American Dream. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Katz, Jack
1996
Families and funny mirrors: A study of the social construction and
personal embodiment of humor. American Journal of Sociology 101
(5): 11941237.
Koller, Marvin
1988
Humor and Society: Explorations in the Sociology of Humor. Houston: Cap and Gown Press.
Kotthoff, Helga
2000
Gender and joking: On the complexities of womens image politics
in humorous narratives. Journal of Pragmatics 32: 5580.
2006
Gender and humor: The state of the art. Journal of Pragmatics 38 (1):
425.
Kuipers, Giselinde
2000
The Difference between a Surinamese and a Turk: Ethnic Jokes and
the Position of Ethnic Minorities in the Netherlands. HUMOR 12
(2): 141175.
2005
Where was King Kong when we needed him? Public discourse, digital disaster jokes, and the functions of laughter after 9/11. Journal
of American Culture 28 (1): 7084.
2006a
Good Humor, Bad Taste: A Sociology of the Joke. Berlin/New York:
Mouton de Gruyter.
2006b
The social construction of digital danger: Debating, defusing, and
inflating the moral dangers of online humor and pornography in
the Netherlands and the United States. New Media & Society 8 (3):
379400.
Lafave, Lawrence
1972
Humor judgments as a function of reference groups and identification classes. In Jeffrey Goldstein and Paul McGhee (eds), The Psychology of Humor, 195210. New York: Academic Press.
LaFave, Lawrence, Jay Haddad, and William Maesen
1976
Superiority, enhanced self-esteem and perceived incongruity humor
theory. In Anthony Chapman and Hugh Foot (eds.), Humor and
Laughter, 6392. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Lewis, Paul
2006
Cracking Up: American Humor in a Time of Conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
11-kuipers.indd 398
18/06/2008 13:39:17
399
Lewis, Paul (ed.)

1997
Debate: Humor and political correctness. HUMOR 10 (4): 453513.
2008
The Muhammad cartoons and humor research: A collection of essays. HUMOR 21 (1): 146.
Lockyer, Sharon
2006
A two-pronged attack? Private Eyes satirical humour and investigative reporting. Journalism Studies 7 (5): 765781.
Lockyer, Sharon, and Michael Pickering
2005a
The ethics and aesthetics of humour and comedy. In: Lockyer and
Pickering (eds), 124.
2005b
Beyond the Joke: The Limits of Humour. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Martin, Rod
2006
The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach. Burlington:
Elsevier Academic Press.
Martin, Rod & Nicholas Kuiper
1999
Daily occurrence of laughter: Relationship with age, gender and type
a personality. HUMOR 12: 355384.
Martineau, William
1972
A model of the social functions of humor. In: Jeffrey Goldstein and
Paul McGhee (eds.), The Psychology of Humor, 101128. New York:
Academic Press.
Middleton, Russell
1959
Negro and white reactions to racial humor. Sociometry 22 (2): 175
183.
Mills, Brett
2005
Television Sitcom. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Morreall, John
1983
Taking Laughter Seriously. Albany: SUNY Press.
2005
Humour and the conduct of politics. In Lockyer and Pickering (eds.),
6378.
Morreall, John (ed.)
1987
The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor. Albany: SUNY Press.
Morrow, P. D.
1987
Those sick challenger jokes. Journal of Popular Culture 20 (4): 175
184.
Mulkay, Michael
1988
On Humour: Its Nature and Place in Modern Society. Oxford: Polity
Press.
Nevo, Ofra
1985
Similarities between humor responses of men and women in Israeli
Jews and Arabs. In Marylin Safir, M. T. Mednick, D. Israeli, and
J. Bernard (eds.), Womens Worlds, 135141. New York: Prager.
11-kuipers.indd 399
18/06/2008 13:39:17
400
Giselinde Kuipers
Norrick, Neill
1993
Conversational Joking: Humor in Everyday Talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Obdrlik, Antonin
1942
Gallows humor: A sociological phenomenon. American Journal of
Sociology 45 (5): 709716.
Oring, Elliott
1987
Jokes and the discourse on disaster: The Challenger shuttle explosion and its joke cycle. Journal of American Folklore 100 (397):
276286.
1991
Review of Ethnic Humor around the World. HUMOR 4 (1): 109
114.
1992
Jokes and their Relations. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
1994
Humor and the suppression of sentiment. HUMOR 7: 726.
2003
Engaging Humor. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.
Oshima, Kimie
2000
Ethnic jokes and social function in Hawaii. HUMOR 13 (1): 41
57.
Palmer, Jerry
1994
Taking Humour Seriously. London: Routledge.
2005
Parody and decorum: Permission to mock. In Lockyer and Pickering
(eds.), 7997.
Paton, George,
1988
In search of literature on the sociology of humour: A sociobibliographical afterword. In Powell and Paton (eds.), 260271,
Paton, George, and Ivan Filby
1996
Humour at work and the work of humour. In Powell, Paton, and
Wagg (eds.), 105138.
Pizzini, Franca
1991
Communication hierarchies in humor: Gender differences in the obstetrical/gynaecological setting. Discourse & Society 2: 477488.
Powell, Chris
1988
A phenomenological analysis of humour in society. In Powell and
Paton (eds.), 86105.
Powell, Chris & George Paton (eds.)
1988
Humour in Society: Resistance and Control. Basingstoke: MacMillan.
Powell, Chris, George Paton, and Stephen Wagg (eds.)
1996
The Social Faces of Humour: Practices and Issues. Aldershot:
Arena.
11-kuipers.indd 400
18/06/2008 13:39:17
401
Provine, Robert
2000
Laughter: A Scientific Investigation. New York: Viking.
Raskin, Victor
1985
Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Robinson, Dawn, and Lynn Smith-Lovin
2001
Getting a laugh: Gender, status, and humor in task discussions. Social Forces 80 (1): 123158.
Ruch, Willibald (ed.)
1998
The Sense of Humor. Explorations of a Personality Characteristic.
Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Sayre, Joan
2001
The use of aberrant medical humor by psychiatric unit staff. Issues in
Mental Health Nursing 22 (7): 669689.
Scheff, Thomas
1980
Catharsis in Healing, Ritual, and Drama. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
1990
Microsociology: Discourse, Emotion, and Social Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Scott, James
1985
Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. Yale:
Yale University Press.
Shiffman, Limor
2007
Humor in the age of digital reproduction: Continuity and change in
internet-based comic texts. International Journal of Communication
1: 187209.
Shiffman, Limor, Stephen Coleman, and Stephen Ward
2007
Only joking? Online humour in the 2005 UK general election. Information, Communication & Society 10 (4): 465487.
Shiffman, Limor, and Elihu Katz
2007
Just call me Adonai: A case study of ethnic humor and immigrant
assimilation. American Sociological Review 70 (5): 843859.
Spencer, Herbert
1981/1987 Herbert Spencer. In John Morreall (ed.), 99110.
Speier, Hans
1998
Wit and politics: An essay on laughter and power. American Journal
of Sociology 103 (5): 13521401.
Spradley, James, Brenda Mann
1975
The Cocktail Waitress. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Stephenson, Richard
1951
Conflict and control functions of humor. The American Journal of
Sociology 56 (6): 569574.
11-kuipers.indd 401
18/06/2008 13:39:17
402
Giselinde Kuipers
Stokker, Kathleen
1995
Folklore Fights the Nazis: Humor in Occupied Norway 19401945.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Sykes, A. J. M.
1966
Joking relationships in an industrial setting. American Anthropologist 68:188193.
Wagg, Stephen
1996
Everything else is propaganda: The politics of alternative comedy. In
Powell, Paton and Wagg (eds.), 297320.
Walle, Alf
1976
Getting picked up without being put down: Jokes and the bar rush.
Journal of the Folklore Institute 13: 201217
Wickberg, Daniel
1998
The Senses of Humor: Self and Laughter in Modern America. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press.
Zijderveld, Anton
1982
Reality in a Looking-glass: Rationality through an Analysis of Traditional Folly. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
1983
Trend report on the sociology of humour and laughter. Current Sociology 31 (3).
Zillman, Dolf
1983
Disparagement humor. In Paul McGhee and Jeffrey Goldstein
(eds.), Handbook of Humor Research. Vol. 1, 85108. New York:
Springer.
Zillman, Dolf, ans Holly Stocking
1976
Putdown humor. Journal of Communication 26 (3): 154163.
11-kuipers.indd 402
18/06/2008 13:39:17

The Sociology of Humor PDF

Transféré par

Informations du document

Titre original

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

The Sociology of Humor PDF

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

The sociology of humor

In this chapter, I will give an overview of sociological thought about