From the start of the cognitive task through the end of the entire phase, subjects will be subjected to physiological assessment of stress and anxiety (namely, heart rate and GSR). Differences in physiological arousal and decrease of arousal (measured in time to reach threshold and magnitude of decrease of arousal) will also be measured and compared between males and females. Finally, zygomatic facial movements will be observed and frequency will be recorded during the duration of the humorous item. All apparent differences between males and females will be analyzed for statistical significance.

Phase II of the study will begin with an entirely new group of subjects. Again, a standardized IQ test will be administered and those subjects with IQs ranging from 95-115 will be utilized for the study. Those subjects chosen to participate will return at a later date, and equal numbers of males and females will participate. Upon their return to the testing site, all subjects will first be subjected to a cognitive task that is designed to induce moderate and relatively equal levels of stress in both males and females. Subjects will be directed to complete the task as quickly and as accurately as possible. (Finding the appropriate task may also be conducted in Phase I.) Immediately following the cognitive task, subjects will be exposed to the medium of humor that was selected for in Phase I. Upon finishing the viewing/reading of the humorous item, subjects will complete scales for general mirth acquired from the item. These scores were the same in Phase I of the study, so differences reported in Phase II may be attributable to the effects of the preceding cognitive task.

Procedure

Phase I of the study will be conducted so that appropriate variables will be chosen for Phase II. In Phase I, a standardized IQ test will be administered to all potential subjects. The rest of Phase I will only utilize those subjects with IQs that range from 95-115. This is to insure that the differences among ratings of humor are not due to the ability/inability to cognitively process the material within the humorous item. The chosen subjects will return at a later date so that stress from the IQ test does not affect further participation. Upon their return, subjects will be exposed to various humorous items presented in a variety of mediums, and that which is consistently ranked equally and most humorous amongst both males and females will be used for Phase II. Who is Joel’s Daddy?

Methods

Subjects
Subjects will be recruited from current undergraduate students at the University of Washington. Recruitment will occur through flyers, postings, student newspaper ads, and as extra credit for students enrolled in introductory Psychology courses. Ideally, 30 males and 30 females will participate in Phase I. In Phase II, 150 males and 150 females who are new to the study will participate.

Measures

A standardized IQ test will be administered to all potential subjects. Subjects participating in Phase I will be additionally subjected to multiple mediums of humor (move clips, videos of stand-up routines, cartoons, written jokes, etc.). These subjects will be given an objective rating scale for the personal mirth acquired from each humorous item. In addition to the IQ test, subjects participating in Phase II will additionally be administered a cognitive task followed by subjection to a humorous item. They will also answer a self-report scale of perceived humor and undergo physiological measurements indicating levels of anxiety and stress. Zygomatic facial expressions (smiling movements) will also be observed by experimenters.

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Bearing in mind all of the aforementioned research, this study has been proposed with the goals of: 1) examining humor as a stress-moderator after stress induced by cognitive strain and 2) examining any gender differences in the magnitude and duration with which stress-moderation, as a function of induced humor, occurs. Inherent sense of humor will not be a variable in the study; however, it will be controlled for with two different phases of the experiment.

Another study by Abel (1998) suggests that perceived sense of humor moderates stress and anxiety correlates only for men. Later, Abel and Maxwell (2002) found that humor elicits positive affect after a stressful task; specifically, subjects experienced a greater reduction in anxiety from viewing a humorous video after a stressful task than a non-humorous video. There were, however, gender differences: humor benefited women the most when they had high levels of stress and men benefited the most when they had low levels of stress. How, then, does inherent sense of humor and subjection to humorous stimuli affect men and women differently?