Humor that denigrates women tends to trivialize gender-based discrimination under the veil of benign amusement. Existing research shows that exposure to gender-biased humor can have harmful effects by affecting how men perceive discrimination against women as well as men's actual willingness to discriminate against women. Although framed as "just a joke," this kind of humor can act as a "releaser" of prejudice against women. Gender-biased humor allows men who hold antagonistic attitudes toward women to express their sexism by replacing the usual non-sexist norms in a situation with a norm of tolerance for gender-based discrimination, thereby essentially justifying a wider range of discriminatory actions against women. Across six studies, researchers Thomas E. Ford of Western Carolina University and Julie A. Woodzicka of Washington and Lee University are collaborating in research designed to build upon existing findings in this area. Their research will further advance basic knowledge regarding how gender-biased humor contributes to imbalanced relations between men and women in new and important ways. Ultimately, this research will address issues of critical social relevance by identifying important negative consequences of gender-biased humor for both women and men and by illuminating the role that such humor can play in social interaction.
This collaborative project meets the criterion of an RUI project. It will advance discovery and understanding while promoting the research and educational communities at two primarily undergraduate universities. It will allow the PIs to mentor undergraduate students and Master's level students in the conduct of research. The project will give special consideration to first-generation students who have historically underparticipated in undergraduate research.
Sexist humor—the denigration of women through humor—trivializes sex discrimination under the veil of benign amusement. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Thomas E. Ford of Western Carolina University and Dr. Julie A. Woodzicka of Washington and Lee University collaborated on research that investigated the social consequences of sexist and other forms of disparagement humor. The research has shown that exposure to sexist humor can have harmful effects on whether men perceive discrimination against women and on men's actual willingness to discriminate against women. Specifically, for men who hold antagonistic attitudes toward women, sexist humor allows them to express their sexism by replacing the usual non-sexist norms in a situation with a norm of tolerance of sex discrimination. Sexist humor essentially justifies a wider range of discriminatory actions against women. In this climate tolerant of derision, sexist behavior can be more easily justified as falling within the bounds of social acceptability. In one of our grant supported papers we presented the findings of an experiment demonstrating that the "prejudice-releasing" effects of sexist humor extend beyond the treatment of an individual woman or specific group of women. Sexist humor also encourages the expression of pernicious beliefs that justify a social system of gender inequality among those who have sexist attitudes. Sexist humor thus not only influences interactions at an interpersonal level; it also contributes to shaping societal gender imbalances. In another paper we presented the findings of three experiments that delineated which social groups are vulnerable to the prejudice-releasing effects of disparagement humor and which groups are not. We found convergent support for the hypothesis that disparagement humor fosters the release of prejudice against only groups that occupy a social position of shifting acceptability in society for whom society’s attitudes are ambivalent namely gay men, Muslims and women. Disparagement humor did not promote the release of prejudice against groups such as racists and terrorists for whom prejudice is socially defined as justified. Thus, a joke that disparages women, Muslims or gays is more than benign amusement; it has the power to promote discrimination. In contrast, a joke that disparages terrorists or racists is "just a joke." A third paper addressed the important question of whether exposure to sexist humor has consequences for how women perceive themselves. We found that sexist humor triggers in women a transitory state of self-objectification—a temporary experience in which individuals view themselves as social objects in response to situational cues that heighten self-awareness. One experiment revealed that women (but not men) experienced more state self-objectification following exposure to sexist versus neutral comedy clips. A second experiment replicated this finding and also demonstrated that women engaged in greater body surveillance upon exposure to sexist versus neutral comedy clips; they focused more on how their bodies look from a third-person perspective. Sexist humor presents a combination of cues that direct women to attend to how their bodies look from the perspective of a critical observer, and it expresses sexist ideology in a way that represents a socially accepted perspective for viewing the self. Our collaborative project has advanced discovery and understanding while promoting the research and educational communities at two primarily undergraduate universities. The project has given special consideration to first-generation students, who have historically under-participated in undergraduate research. It has provided them with a broader, more sophisticated understanding of the research process than either researcher could have provided without the collaboration. Specifically, students participating in our "multi-institution collaboration" developed a fuller appreciation of research as a dynamic, interactive process affected by institutional resources, cultures, and practices. Working in teams on common projects, students learned ways to effectively share information with one another and to truly collaborate within a diverse research community—to share and critique one another’s ideas and to rely on and complement one another’s skills.
