ERIC Number: ED292008
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1986-Aug
Pages: 10
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Humor, Aggression, and Aging.
Barrick, Ann Louise; And Others
Although humor is an important phenomenon in human interactions, it has rarely been studied in the elderly. An understanding of responses to humor in aggressive cartoons as a function of advancing age would provide information regarding both the development of humor and the negative (aggressive) emotional experiences of the elderly. This study was conducted to examine differences between young and old adults in their responses to increasing levels of aggression in cartoon humor. Thirty-eight cartoons were selected which represented a wide range of aggression, humor, and subject matter. Pain was selected as a measurement of aggression. Older adults (N=61) and college undergraduates (N=93) rated the cartoons for funniness and for degree of pain. The results of the study support the hypothesis that advancing age is accompanied by a change in response to aggressive elements in humor. An inverted-U was found to be the best descriptor of the relationship between pain values and humor for older subjects, while humor was not predictable from pain values for the young subjects. While small increases in negative emotion (pain values) in cartoons resulted in increases in positive emotion (funniness values) in older subjects, the older subjects also found very aggressive elements more aversive than did the young subjects. (NB)
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A