A superiority–inferiority hypothesis on disparagement humor: The role of disposition toward ridicule

Abstract

The present paper adopts and substantiates a superiority-inferiority hypothesis on disparagement humor generation and appreciation. Two between-subjects (identification with a character acting as victimizer or victim) experiments address disparaging humorous advertising effectiveness, providing a novel perspective on very old questions. Perceived superiority and inferiority autonomously mediate the relationship between a disparaging advertisement and perceived humorousness. Individuals with high superiority motivation (i.e., high-katagelasticists) experience increased humorousness and an improved attitude toward the brand when they identify with a character acting as victimizer in the disparaging ad. People with a motivation to avoid inferiority (i.e., high-gelotophobes) experience reduced humorousness and lower positive attitudes toward the brand when they identify with a character who is victimized in the disparaging ad. Gelotophiles are not driven by feelings of superiority or inferiority and experience increased humorousness as well as more positive brand attitudes irrespective of the ad's victimization focus. | INTRODUCTIONA woman enjoys a Reese's Take 5 bar. Being asked by one of her colleagues, she describes the product, but to her amazement he has never heard of it. The woman scornfully asks him "have you been under a rock?" which proves to be true. As all her colleagues seem to be unaware of the well-known snack, the woman sarcastically confronts them with expressions like "were you raised by wolves?," or "you have your head stuck in the sand?" implying that the only way to not know Reese's Take 5 bar, is if these phrases are literally true.At the closing scene, an awkward looking discomfited colleague asks in resentment "none of us has heard Reese's 5, so who looks stupid now?" ending up to literally strengthen her claim.Aired in 2020, Hershey's Super Bowl commercial for Reese's Take 5, is addressing people's low awareness of the brand. Adopting a superior stance, the key character verbally abuses her colleagues for their stupid, unnatural ignorance. The creative element in the ad is disparagement humor "that disparages, belittles, debases, demeans, humiliates, or otherwise victimizes" (Zillmann, 1983, p. 85). Being often described as "idiosyncratic" humor (Weinberger, Swani, Yoon, & Gulas, 2017), it holds the capacity to instigate extreme positive and negative emotions (Weinberger & Gulas, 1992) and a feeling of superiority (Newton, Wong, & Newton, 2016). Over the past two decades, longitudinal analyses of Super Bowl humorous commercials have underlined a significant rise in the use of disparagement (Gulas,

No Laughing Matter: Exploring the Effects of Scientists’ Humor Use on Twitter and the Moderating Role of Superiority

“…To our knowledge, no study has examined the moderating effects of superiority as an individual characteristic on humor effects. Hatzithomas et al (2021) found that superiority mediated the relationship between exposure to a disparaging but funny advertisement and subsequent attitudes toward the brand (Hatzithomas et al, 2021). However, superiority was conceptualized as identification with the victimizer in the advertisement rather than as a characteristic of the recipient themselves.…”

How short film ads improve brand attitudes: The roles of viewing experiences and consumption visions

“…Entertaining consumers is a consistently important objective for branded content on social media (Gavilanes et al, 2018) Prior research also indicates that about half of all branded videos contain humor (Karpinska-Krakowiak, 2020). Prior branded video research has not delved into distinct types of humor, but advertising research suggests that humor in advertising takes a wide variety of forms, including disparagement (Hatzithomas et al, 2021) and aggression (Swani et al, 2013) that evoke humor by allowing consumers to perceive a sense of their own superiority, as well as surprise and incongruity (Alden et al, 2000), which result in humor perceptions once the arousal sparked by these elements gets successfully resolved. However, the funny branded videos and humorous ads addressed in prior research are not necessarily narratives, like short film ads are.…”