Graduation Date
Summer 2022
Document Type
Thesis
Program
Master of Arts degree with a major in Psychology, option Academic Research
Committee Chair Name
Dr. Amber Gaffney
Committee Chair Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Second Committee Member Name
Dr. Amanda Hahn
Second Committee Member Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Third Committee Member Name
Dr. Christopher Walmsley
Third Committee Member Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Subject Categories
Psychology
Abstract
This research examines funny functions of shared group membership – how content that clearly demarcates ingroup membership may be at the root of humor. Participants in this study listened to a recording of a stand-up comedian who was defined as being either a fellow college/university student (ingroup) or a non-college student (outgroup). Additionally, the audio either contained audience laughter or no audience laughter. Upon finishing the recordings, participants were asked to answer survey questions about their experience with the comedian, rate their overall sense of shared group identity with the comedian, their level of positive affect, distinctiveness from an outgroup, and the strength of their identification as a college student. I predicted that an ingroup comedian would create a greater shared identity for participants (with college), increase group identification with “college”, and increase positive affect in comparison to an out-group comedian. Moreover, this work sought to conceptualize comedians as identity-based leaders, thus I predicted that participants exposed to an ingroup comedian would view the comedian as a more effective “identity leader” (see Steffens et al., 2014) than those exposed to an outgroup comedian. To test this, 253 participants were recruited through Amazon Cloud Research. The primary hypotheses were somewhat supported, such that participants displayed higher levels of distinctiveness from an outgroup when listening to an ingroup comedian as well as rated a “funny” comedian as making their identity as a college student matter to them (see Results section). The results of this study suggest that humor plays a role in how we perceive an ingroup member to play the part of a leader when we find them funny.
Citation Style
APA
Recommended Citation
Burt, Matthew, "Comedians are leaders: Comedians' use of humor makes us feel like we matter" (2022). Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects. 587.
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/etd/587