Sexist Comedy Reduces Women’s Intelligence Test Performance: Does it Hurt if it is Funny?

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Paper Session: Information Systems Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Gender stereotypical humor can be frequently found in the media, which portrays one sex, usually the female, as inferior and lower in performance. Current discussions on using stereotypes in comedy are in need of empirical research that speaks to its influence on the recipients, most importantly, on members of stigmatized groups. Previous research on stereotype threat suggests that the communication of negative stereotypes leads to an elevated stress response and increased monitoring, resulting in decreased performance and domain disidentification. Sense of humor, however, is supposed to buffer the detrimental influence of stereotype threat. We will present an experimental study examining the effect of gender stereotypic (vs. neutral) comedy material on women’s performance in an intelligence test. A special focus lies on moderator analyses, including coping sense of humor and situational humor, to identify individual differences in who might be more or less affected by gender stereotypical humor in the media.

Authors

• Silvana Weber, University of Koblenz-Landau

• Markus Appel, University of Koblenz-Landau