Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference

Individual Differences in Perceptions of Intersectional Racial Humor Memes

Humor is a major part of our interactions with other people. Despite humor’s simple purpose to amuse, there are several cognitive processes at work when trying to understand it. When looking at disparaging humor, prejudiced norm theory suggests disparaging humor creates an atmosphere where prejudice is deemed more acceptable, which then leads to more tolerance for discrimination. Our research examined people’s perceptions of intersectional (i.e., relating to racial and gender) stereotype-based humor using starter pack memes. Starter packs are a collection of stereotypic images meant to identify and define a group.We manipulated the identity targeted by these starter packs using a 2 (gender; man/woman) x 2 (race; White/Black) within-groups design. In Study 1, we asked participants to rate relatively non-threatening starter packs. They rated the starter packs on how funny and offensive the starter pack was and the degree to which it represented the group portrayed. We hypothesized that humor targeting people lower on the social hierarchy would be seen as more offensive, particularly when the person presenting the humor was in a more privileged group. In Study 2 individuals responded to the same dependent measures regarding more disparaging starter packs. Additionally, we manipulated the identity of the person presenting the starter park using the same 2x2 design. In Study 1, participants generally perceived humor targeting historically oppressed groups as more offensive than humor targeting historically dominant groups. Participants who identified with the targeted groups generally perceived the humor as funnier. Participants perceived the humor as more offensive and less funny if a historically dominant group presented a starter pack about a historically oppressed group (e.g., a White person presenting the Black woman starter pack). These results show that it may be more socially acceptable to target humor within one’s social group or at privileged groups such as White men, but it is socially unacceptable to target a group with less social privilege (i.e. White people targeting Black people, men targeting women). Using humor to “punch up” at more privileged groups was viewed as more acceptable than “punching down” at less privileged groups.