humor advertising research paper

Humor in Advertising: A Comprehensive Analysis

Journal of Consumer Marketing

ISSN : 0736-3761

Article publication date: 3 July 2007

• Advertising
• Marketing communications
• Target audience

Wolburg, J.M. (2007), "Humor in Advertising: A Comprehensive Analysis", Journal of Consumer Marketing , Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 251-251. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363760710756039

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Humor in Advertising offers an insightful, scholarly look at the use of humor as an execution strategy in advertising from its early beginnings to the present day. To begin with, we learn that humor in advertising has had a troubled past. Claude Hopkins, who is regarded by many as the most influential copywriter of the early 1900s, took a dim view of humor as a persuasive tactic and has been widely quoted in a 1923 statement: “People do not buy from clowns” (p. 10). In many ways, we learn that Hopkins was correct, but the authors show us that there is much more to the story. To begin with, new uses of technology have changed the media environment from what existed during Hopkins' era, making humor an appealing strategy for breaking through the clutter. Furthermore, certain product categories can make better use of humor than others. Essentially, Hopkins was right about avoiding humor for advertising certain high‐risk product categories such as sports cars and expensive jewelry but was wrong about products referred to as “little treats of life,” such as beer, snack food, soft drinks, etc. (p. 197). Gulas and Weinberger offer insights into why humorous advertisements for these products have usually performed better than humorous advertisements for other products as well as some exceptions to the rule.

They also point to other considerations in the various chapters, which explain why sweeping generalizations about the effectiveness of humor fall flat. We learn why the medium matters (e.g., television and radio usually lend themselves better to use of humor than the print media) and why humor exists within a context (e.g., humorous advertisements usually work better with non‐humorous media content). Furthermore, we learn why humor is dependent upon timing. What was funny on September 10 was no longer funny on September 11, 2001 – just as advertising during the 1930s depression era required a more serious approach than in earlier or later decades.

One of the puzzling aspects of humor is why it works for some audience members and not for others. The authors tackle this issue head on with a theoretical explanation of various mechanisms for how humor works, along with a discussion of audience factors that influence the likelihood of a humorous advertisement being perceived as funny. Such factors include gender, age, educational level, culture, and ethnicity, plus a host of individual traits such as need for cognition. For example, Gulas and Weinberger acknowledge a widespread belief that humorous advertisements are more appropriate for younger audiences; however, they caution that other variables may come into play. They suggest that older audience members may be less responsive to humorous advertisements because they hold a different frame of reference than the creators of the advertisements, rather than due to any fundamental differences based on age. This point will surely be well‐received by baby boomers who often fail to find the humor in current advertisements, especially those that are created by 20‐somethings.

Gulas and Weinberger also point out that the level of commonality among the agent, the audience members, and the target affect the perception of humor. They give the example that “a Jewish comedian who is telling jokes that disparage Jews to a Jewish audience is more likely to elicit a humorous response than a non‐Jew telling the same jokes to the same audience” (p. 195). Similarly, if an advertiser disparages someone disliked by the audience, the audience is more likely to find the advertisement humorous and to perceive a shared point of view with the advertiser than if the disparaged person is liked by the audience.

We learn that even an advertisement with a successful use of humor carries no guarantees for enhancing the brand or selling the product; however, an advertisement with a failed attempt at humor carries a particularly significant price for advertisers. At a minimum, Gulas and Weinberger suggest it is a lost opportunity to connect with consumers, but in the worst‐case scenario it may offend consumers and drive them away. They illustrate this risk with a 1999 Super Bowl advertisement for Just for Feet, which showed a group of white men tracking a barefoot, black Kenyan runner who was later drugged and forced against his will to wear a pair of running shoes (p. 174). It came as no surprise that the advertisement was met with outrage.

Finally, Gulas and Weinberger confront the very difficult problem of analyzing humor without destroying it. They note that the goal of humor research – not only their research, but also that of dissertations and journal articles – is not to be humorous per se but instead to be illuminating. It is safe to conclude that the authors attained their goal because readers will surely find this book illuminating.

Related articles

All feedback is valuable.

Please share your general feedback

Report an issue or find answers to frequently asked questions

Contact Customer Support

• Advertising

The Impact of Humor in Advertising: A Review

• 21(4):35-59

• Wright State University

• University of Massachusetts Amherst and University of Georgia

Abstract and Figures

Discover the world's research

• 25+ million members
• 160+ million publication pages
• 2.3+ billion citations

• Jorge molina fuster

• Arwa Badeeb

• Roger Bougie
• Sushnata Goswami
• Raquel Oliveira
• Yara Sleiman
• Maria Grasso
• Charles Pattie
• Laura Serra
• Souyoung Yang
• Jeeyoun Kim
• J ADVERTISING RES

• Leland Campbell

• J MARKETING
• Alan J. Bush
• David W. Stewart
• David H. Furse
• J.H. Murphy
• I.C.M. Cunningham

• Adv Consum Res

• Thomas W. Whipple
• Alice E. Courtney
• George M. Zinkhan

• C.A. Bridgwater
• C.P. Duncan
• J.E. Nelson
• N.T. Frontczak
• Recruit researchers
• Join for free
• Login Email Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google Welcome back! Please log in. Email · Hint Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google No account? Sign up

Humor in advertising: A behavioral perspective

• Published: September 1979
• Volume 7 , pages 285–306, ( 1979 )

Cite this article

• Calvin P. Duncan D.B.A. 1  

2710 Accesses

38 Citations

Explore all metrics

Humorous appeals are used extensively in television, radio, and print advertising. This article examines the effectiveness of humor in accomplishing specific communications and sales objectives. A brief review of the literature on humorous advertising research is presented. The author argues that previous unsuccessful applications of light-hearted messages are attributable, in part, to our incomplete knowledge of how consumers process humorously conveyed information. The discussion focuses on the importance of recognizing and managing variables which mediate the impact of humor on audience response and on the need for further development and testing of behavioral theory as keys to the effective utilization of humor in advertising.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Subscribe and save.

• Get 10 units per month
• Download Article/Chapter or Ebook
• 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
• Cancel anytime

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Humour—The Strongest Emotional Appeal in Advertising

Half a Century of Super Bowl Commercials: A Content Analysis of Humorous Advertising Styles

Humor Determinants and Relevance in High Engagement Social TV ADS

Aaker, David A. and John G. Myers. 1975. Advertising Management. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc.

Google Scholar  

Appel, Valentine. 1971. “On Advertising Wear Out” Journal of Advertising Research 11 (February), 11–13.

Baron, R., P. Baron and N. Miller. 1973. “The Relation Between Distraction and Persuasion,” Psychological Bulletin 80, 310–323.

Article   Google Scholar  

Batman, Thomas. 1965. “The Stan Freeberg Syndrome,” Sponsor (March 1) 37–43.

Bechwith, N. E. 1972. “Multivariate Analysis of Sales Responses of Competing Brands to Advertising,” Journal of Marketing Research 2 (May) 168–176.

Bellaire, Arthur. 1977. “Bellaire Survey III Finds Music and Demo Up; Humor, Animation Decline,” Advertising Age (January 3) 17–18.

Berlo, D. C. and H. Kumata. 1956. “The Investigator: The Impact of a Satirical Radio Drama,” Journalism Quarterly, 33, 287–298.

Bither, Stewart W. 1969. “Comments on Venkatesan and Haaland's Test of the Festinger-Maccoby Divided Attention Hypothesis,” Journal of Marketing Research 6 (May) 237–238.

Byor, T. V. 1974. “Don't Spurn Humor-It Can Get You TV Memorability and Sales Punch, Too,” Advertising Age (June 10) 39.

Colley, Russell H. 1961. Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results. New York: Association for National Advertisers.

Cone, Fairfax M. 1969. “Advertising Is No Joke; Don't Make It Into One,” Advertising Age (December 15) 47.

Daniels, Draper. 1959. “Humor in Advertising,” in E. R. French (ed.), The Copywriter's Guide. New York: Harper and Brothers, 137–147.

DeBruicker, F. Stewart and Thomas S. Robertson. 1978. “An Appraisal of Low-Involvement Consumer Information, Processing, Attitude Research Conference. Chicago: American Marketing Association.

DeVoe, Merrill. 1956. Effective Advertising Copy. New York: The MacMillan Company, 215–217.

Dunn, S. Watson. 1956. Advertising Copy and Communication. New York: Mc Graw-Hill Book Company, 303.

Dutta, S. and R. N. Kanungo. 1975. Affect and Memory: A Reformation. New York: Pergamon Press.

Festinger, Leon and Nathan Maccoby. 1964. “On Resistance to Persuasive Communications,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 68 (November) 359–366.

Gardner, David. 1970. “The Distraction Hypothesis in Marketing,” Journal of Advertising Research 10 (December) 25–30.

Gruner, Charles R. 1965. “An Experimental Study of Satire as Persuasion,” Speech Monographs, 32 (June) 149–154.

— 1966. “A Further Experimental Study as Persuasion,” Speech Monographs 33 (June) 184–185.

— 1967. “Editorial Satire as Persuasion: An Experiment,” Journalism Quarterly 44 (Winter) 727–730.

— 1967. “Effect of Humor on Speaker Ethos and Audience Information Gain,” Journal of Communication 17 (September), 228–233.

— 1970. “The Effect of Humor on Dull and Interesting Informative Speeches,” Central State Speech Journal 21 (Fall) 160–166.

Helson, H. 1947. Adaptation-Level as a Frame of Reference for Prediction of Psychophysical Data. American Journal of Psychology 60, 1–29.

— 1959. “Adaptation-Level Theory,” in Psychology: A Study of a Science, I. Sensory Perception and Physiological Formulations. New York: McGraw-Hill, 565–621.

Hovland, C. I., I. L. Janis and H. H. Kelley. 1953. Communication and Persuasion. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University.

Kelly, J. Patrick and Paul J. Solomon. 1975. Journal of Advertising 4 (Summer) 31–35.

Kennedy, A. J. 1972. “An Experimental Study of the Effect of Humorous Message Content Upon Ethos and Persuasiveness,” Doctoral Dissertation, University of Michigan.

Kilepla, D. E. 1961. «An Experimental Study of the Effects of Humor on Persuasion,”, unpublished Master's Thesis, Wayne State University.

Krugman, Herbert E. 1965. “The Impact of Television Advertising: Learning Without Involvement,” Public Opinion Quarterly (Fall) 349–356.

Lubalin, Peter. 1977. “Humor in Radio,” ANNY (November 4) 22.

Longman, Kenneth A. 1979. Personal Communication to C. Duncan, March 15.

Lull, P. E., 1940. “The Effectiveness of Humor in Persuasive Speech,” Speech Monographs 7 (December) 26–40.

Lynch, Mervin D. and Richard C. Hartman. 1968. “Dimensions of Humor in Advertising,” Journal of Advertising Research 8 (December) 39–45.

Markiewicz, Dorothy. 1972. “The Effects of Humor on Persuasion,” unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Ohio State University.

Markiewicz, Dorothy. 1973. “Persuasion as a Function of Humorous Vs. Serious Messages or Contexts,” unpublished manuscript, Northern Illinois University.

— 1974. “Effects of Humor on Persuasion,” Sociometry 37 (3) 407–422.

Marshall, John. 1979. “Getting Ahead on Beer,” Daily Journal American (February 5) 2.

McMahon, Harry W. 1969. “Contac and Alka Seltzer Prove Humor Can Sell Big,” Advertising Age (September 8) 90.

Monica, Corbett. 1971. “Six Rules to Help You Make Funny TV Commercials,” Advertising Age 42 (October 4) 46.

“N. E. Mutual Life Scoffs at Death in New Campaign,” 1968, Advertising Age (May 20).

O'Connor, John. 1972. “Humor or Information? WRG Feels Its Recent Ad Efforts Combine Both,” Advertising Age (June 26) 10.

Orkin, Richard and B. Berdis. 1977. “The Funny Thing About Some Commercials,” Broadcasting (June 20) 16.

Phillips, Kalman. 1968. “When a Funny Commercial Is Good, It's Great!,” Broadcasting 74 (May 13) 26.

Pokorny, G. F. and C. R. Gruner. 1969. “An Experimental Study of the Effect of Satire Used as Support in a Persuasive Sppech,” Western Sppech 33 (Summer) 204–211.

Politz, Alfred. 1960. “The Dilemma of Creative Advertising,” Journal of Marketing (October) 1–6.

Schwartz, David A. 1971. “Ads Aren't That Memorable Anyway,” Marketing Communications (August) 25.

Seldes, Gilbert. 1959. “I Laughed Until I Thought I'd Buy,” Tide (January) 24–26.

Starch, D. 1958. “Do Ad Readers Buy the Product?,” Harvard Business Review 36 (May–June) 49–58.

Steadman, Major. 1969. “How Sexy Illustrations Affect Brand Recall,” Journal of Advertising Research 9 (March) 15–19.

Sternthal, Brain and C. Samuel Craig. 1973. “Humor in Advertising,” Journal of Marketing 37 (October) 12–18.

Stewart, Daniel K. 1968. “Some Theoretical Considerations of Current Advertising Research,” Journal of Advertising Research 8 (December) 49–51.

Taylor, P. M. 1964. “The Effectiveness of Humor in Informative Speeches,” Central States Speech Journal 15 (November) 295–296.

Television Age. 1967. (June 5) 28.

Tyebjee Tyzoon T. 1978. “Cognitive Response and the Reception Environment of Advertising,” in S. C. Jain (ed.), Research Frontiers in Marketing: Dialogues and Directions, American Marketing Association Proceedings.

Venkatesan, M. and Gordon A. Haaland. 1968. “Divided Attention and Television Commercials: An Experimental Study,” Journal of Marketing Research 5 (May) 203–205.

Weingarten, Jaala. 1967. “Is ‘Far Out’ Advertising Entertaining the Public More But Selling It Less?,” Dun's Review 90 (July) 27–28.

Winski, Joseph M. 1978. “Tragedy of ‘Drink Schlitz or I'll Kill You’ Ads,” Chicago Tribune (August 9).

Winters, L. 1971. Personal Communication to D. Markiewicz. Referenced in: Sternthal and Craig. “Humor in Advertising,” Journal of Marketing 37 (October 1973) 12.

Wright, Peter L. 1973. “The Cognitive Process, Mediating Acceptance of Advertising,” Journal of Marketing Research 10, 53–62.

Zeman, J. V. 1967. “An Experimental Study of the Persuasive Effects of Satire in a Speech Presented to a High School Audience,” unpublished master's thesis, University of Nebraska.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Washington State University, Washington, USA

Calvin P. Duncan D.B.A.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Additional information

The author wishes to thank Dr. Phillip D. White for his helpful comments and critical review of an earlier draft of this paper.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Duncan, C.P. Humor in advertising: A behavioral perspective. JAMS 7 , 285–306 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02729680

Download citation

Issue Date : September 1979

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02729680

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Behavioral Perspective
• Advertising Research
• Focal Stimulus
• Humorous Appeal
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

•  We're Hiring!
•  Help Center

Humor in Advertising

• Most Cited Papers
• Most Downloaded Papers
• Newest Papers
• Humor Follow Following
• Chemical and Biological Engineering Follow Following
• Advertisement Follow Following
• Korean popular culture Follow Following
• Advertising (Humor) Follow Following
• Attitude Towards the Brand Follow Following
• Suspense in Advertising Follow Following
• Attitude Towards the Advertisement Follow Following
• Arousal safety Follow Following
• Masters of Business Administration Follow Following

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• Academia.edu Journals
•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field.

For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click here .

Loading metrics

Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Humor in parenting: Does it have a role?

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Roles Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Theatre Department, Columbia College, Chicago, IL, United States of America

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Public Health Sciences, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Departments of Humanities & Pediatrics, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States of America

• Lucy Emery, 
• Anne Libera, 
• Erik Lehman, 
• Benjamin H. Levi

• Published: July 17, 2024
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306311
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

Despite the widespread use of humor in social interactions and the considerable literature on humor in multiple fields of study, the use of humor in parenting has received very little formal study. The purpose of this pilot study was to gather preliminary data on the use of humor in the raising of children.

Materials and methods

We developed and administered a 10-item survey to measure people’s experiences being raised with humor and their views regarding humor as a parenting tool. Responses were aggregated into Disagree, Indeterminate, and Agree, and analyzed using standard statistical methods.

Respondents (n = 312) predominantly identified as male (63.6%) and white (76.6%) and were (by selection) between the ages of 18–45 years old. The majority of participants reported that they: were raised by people who used humor in their parenting (55.2%); believe humor can be an effective parenting tool (71.8%) and in that capacity has more potential benefit than harm (63.3%); either use (or plan to use) humor in parenting their own children (61.8%); and would value a course on how to utilize humor in parenting (69.7%). Significant correlations were found between the use of humor and both i) the quality of respondents’ relationships with their parents and ii) assessments of how good a job their parents had done.

Conclusions

In this pilot study, respondents of childbearing/rearing age reported positive views about humor as a parenting tool.

Citation: Emery L, Libera A, Lehman E, Levi BH (2024) Humor in parenting: Does it have a role? PLoS ONE 19(7): e0306311. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306311

Editor: Ramona Bongelli, University of Macerata: Universita degli Studi di Macerata, ITALY

Received: January 25, 2024; Accepted: June 15, 2024; Published: July 17, 2024

Copyright: © 2024 Emery et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: The data that support the findings of this study are openly available on Figshare at http://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.20404107 , reference number 20404107.

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Parenting can be challenging, especially considering the wide array of responsibilities and other stressors most parents have in their lives. [ Parent will be used here as a general term to describe any adult who has a primary role in helping raise a child–including biological parents, stepparents, foster parents, adoptive parents, grandparents, as well as others household members who take on a significant role in child-rearing.] Yet parents are expected (by themselves and others) to know how to respond appropriately when their child needs attention. What makes this particularly difficult is that not only is there no script for raising children, but that when we’re frustrated with our children our reactions often may be driven by experiences with our own parents–which may have been less-than-ideal [ 1 ]. There is, of course, no shortage of expert advice for how to raise children [ 2 – 5 ]. A central tenet of such guidance is the importance of providing structure and consistency–which helps children better understand their environment and its interconnections, anticipate events and their consequences, and appreciate how these inter-relationships create both expectations and responsibilities [ 6 , 7 ]. That said, it’s also known that both children and parents benefit from developing flexibility and skills for adapting when situations (or our perceptions of them) change [ 8 , 9 ]. Flexibility of mind (i.e., the ability to switch between different mindsets, tasks, or strategies) [ 10 ] promotes resilience by helping us bounce back from a misfortune, recalibrate one’s goals and strategies, or carry on in the face of barriers and setbacks [ 11 – 13 ]. For better or worse, raising children offers a great many opportunities to both develop and model such flexibility of mind, to see ‘resistance’ not as a thing to be beaten down, but as an opportunity for reflection [ 14 ]. Toward this end, humor could be a valuable parenting tool in part because there are links between humor and cognitive flexibility [ 15 – 19 ]. The study described in this paper is a first step in exploring people’s views about humor as a parenting tool–both as children and raising their own children–which could help lay the groundwork for strategies about how to use humor appropriately and productively in times of frustration.

That being said, there is no consensus regarding either what constitutes humor or what grounds it–in part because the term humor is used in various contexts to mean different things [ 20 ]. Over the past half-century, a growing body of research has explored the types and structure of humor; [ 21 – 24 ] styles of humor (self-enhancing, affiliative, aggressive, and self-defeating); [ 25 ] and correlations between particular types of humor and a variety of outcomes–including subjective wellbeing, emotional regulation, healthy relationships, leadership, teaching, and others [ 26 – 33 ]. Though humor often manifests verbally (jokes, stories, puns, riddles, satire, sarcasm, parody, everyday conversation, etc.) and the written word (e.g., prose, verse, comics), humor can also take a more physical form–paradigmatically, slapstick, but also visual and performing arts [ 34 – 37 ].

Philosophical attempts to characterize humor (sometimes in terms of its progeny, laughter) include works by Plato, Hobbes, Kant, Bergson, and others [ 19 , 38 ]. At present three of the most commonly referenced theories of humor have emerged from both philosophy and psychology and were intended to encompass all situations of humor and laughter (including inadvertent laughter such as that caused by tickling). Superiority Theory holds that humor and laughter are the result of feelings of superiority over someone else (or the way that we used to be); Incongruity Theory suggests that humor occurs when there is a mismatch between expectations and experience; and Tension and Release Theory, which evolved from Freud’s Theory of the Unconscious, suggests that humor results when a buildup of energy created through repression of negative thoughts or discomfort is released through laughter [ 38 ]. A more recent theory proposed by behavioral scientist Peter McGraw combines elements of incongruity theory and superiority theory in the Benign Violation Theory, which posits that a joke or a moment can be perceived as humorous if it is perceived simultaneously as (i) a violation of norms and (ii) benign [ 39 ].

On their face, such theories might lead us to view humor as an odd strategy for parenting, and that certain types of humor (especially those involving superiority theory, which includes sarcasm and mockery) are likely to be ineffective if not unhealthy for child-rearing [ 40 ]. For example, incongruity-based humor relies on the very opposite of consistency–leveraging surprise, breaking expectations, going the other way [ 41 – 43 ]. So, too, because humor’s success is determined in part by how others react, the use of humor by parents could be seen as a ‘relinquishing of authority’ to their child. Moreover, when done poorly or thoughtlessly, humor can send the wrong message to a child or become a weapon for inflicting harm. That said, humor also has several quite promising features. Notably, humor can induce frameshifts (i.e., changes in perspective) that alter how we interpret an event or response, and thereby open new possibilities for children and parents alike. This includes serving as a distraction that helps children reframe their experience; helping parents create psychological distance (e.g., a moment for perspective-taking) between the immediate experience and their reaction to it; and helping create shared experience that can forge deeper connections amongst family members.

In popular culture, one of the strongest associations between humor and parenting is the “dad joke”–often corny, pun-based, and groan-inducing [ 44 ]. But humor’s expansive repertoire may have strategic applications for positive parenting techniques akin to how humor has been applied successfully to address various real-world challenges. Tailored improvisation games that use humor and play-based exercises have shown promise for improving the mental health of both individuals with early-stage dementia [ 45 ]. and their family caregivers [ 46 ]. In the workplace, humor-based play (often cast in terms of improv ) has been shown to improve attitudes and coping strategies, leading to greater resilience, cohesiveness, and effective leadership [ 31 , 47 – 50 ]. So, too, adaptive forms of humor (i.e., affiliative and self-enhancing) are associated with secure attachment [ 51 – 56 ], though with children their developmental stage clearly impacts their ability to appreciate different forms of humor [ 57 – 60 ].

When used appropriately, humor can change the dynamic of situations that are headed for conflict [ 61 – 63 ]. By introducing surprise, incongruity, humor can disrupt established patterns of behavior, which in turn can promote improvisation to yield a different outcome. Imagine, for example, a toddler throwing a full-blown tantrum that continues to escalate despite efforts to calm them. Here, humor as a parenting strategy might have the child’s parent declare “OK, it’s my turn now,” and then dramatically throw their own tantrum. Because this catches the upset toddler by surprise, many children will stop crying and watch the parent’s tantrum-performance. As the parent’s ‘tantrum’ winds down, another adult can take their own turn throwing a tantrum. When it becomes the child’s turn again, they will typically resume tantruming as if they had never stopped. After a couple of rounds of this, the parent can clap their hands and say “OK, let’s play a different game.” Playful disruption of this sort not only helps resolve tension, but also models creativity and flexibility of mind, which can serve the interests of both children and parents. Moreover, for parents, the irony of turning a tantrum into a game may provide psychological distance [ 16 ] that helps parents relieve their own stress and respond more effectively.

There is also considerable evidence that positive parent-child relationships and greater parental responsiveness to a child’s temperament are correlated with greater child well-being [ 64 – 66 ]. There is an expansive literature on the use of play in parenting [ 67 – 72 ].–a related but distinct kind of engagement [ 73 ]. So, too, several authors have written about how to promote humor development in children [ 74 – 76 ] and a few small qualitative studies have shown how families of children with disabilities sometimes use humor as an effective coping strategy [ 77 , 78 ]. But there is little, if any, empirical research on humor as a parenting strategy. In fact, in its more than 30-year existence, the premier journal for humor research (Humor) has not published any articles (conceptual, methods, or outcomes) related to the use of humor in parenting.

There is evidence that people can be taught to use humor more effectively [ 79 , 80 ]. But it is an open question whether humor (specifically, its uplifting aspects) can be leveraged to help parents respond constructively to challenging situations that might otherwise lead them to respond harshly to their children. As a preliminary step toward answering this question, this pilot study sought to explore whether 18–45-year-olds (putatively, the age range when parents are most likely to be raising young children) consider humor a valuable and viable tool for parenting. To do so, we asked respondents to reflect on their parents’ use of humor and how they (i.e., respondents) saw humor as something that could serve a useful role in parenting children.

After a review of the literature, we developed a 10-item survey to measure individuals’ experiences being raised with humor, as well as their assessment of humor as a potential tool for use in parenting (see Fig 1 ). The survey was designed using an iterative process that included focus group discussion, construction of question items, field-testing for clarity and face validity, wording revisions, and cognitive interviews to ensure that interpretation of question items corresponded to their intended objectives. Following IRB approval, a REDCap survey was made available from 12/1/21–12/31/21 for up to 400 U.S. participants between the ages of 18–45 using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk), an online tool that matches eligible participants with public-facing surveys. Consent to participate was implied by individuals proceeding to complete the survey after reading the summary explanation of research. Responses to the 8 quantitative items were measured on a 7-point Likert-type scale and subsequently aggregated into Disagree ( Strongly disagree and Disagree ), Indeterminate ( Somewhat disagree , Neither agree nor disagree , and Somewhat agree ), and Agree ( Agree and Strongly agree ). The survey also included 2 open-ended question-items (not included here), and 5 demographic items. All variables were summarized prior to analysis to assess their distributions and determine the best course of analysis. Chi-square tests were used to determine which demographic items were significantly associated with each of the 8 quantitative outcome variables, and to investigate potential associations between 2 of the outcome variables (parent relationship, good job parenting), and the other 6 outcome variables. A significance level of 0.05 was used as the cut-off for statistical significance, and all analyses were performed using SAS version 9.4 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC).

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306311.g001

Of 320 respondents, 312 provided answers to the quantitative items. Most identified as male (63.6%) and White (76.6%), of whom 11.3% were 18–25 years of age, 49.4% were 26–35 years-old, and 39.4% were 36–45 years-old (see Table 1 for full demographics). The majority Agreed that they had a positive relationship with the people who raised them (80.1%); that the people who raised them did a good job (64.7%); that they would raise (or already are raising) children in the same way they were raised (54.8%); and that the people who raised them used humor in their parenting (55.2%). So, too, the majority of participants Agreed that humor could be an effective parenting tool (71.8%) (see Fig 2 ); that humor as a parenting tool has more potential benefit than harm (63.3%); that they would value a course on how to utilize humor in parenting (69.7%) (see Fig 3 ); and that they either plan to (or already do) use humor in parenting their own children (61.8%) (see Fig 4 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306311.g002

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306311.g003

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306311.g004

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306311.t001

Interestingly, there were no statistically significant correlations related to participants’ age. The same was true for gender, with the exception that more females reported they use (or plan to use) the same parenting style as their own parents (62.3%) compared to males (50.5%, p = 0.036).

By contrast, we found multiple significant differences related to participants’ reports regarding the relationships they have with their own parents (see Table 2 ), and how good a job their own parents had done raising them (see Table 3 ). Specifically, the ~80% of participants who reported having a good relationship with their parents were significantly more likely to report that their parents had used humor in raising them (63.0%, p < .001) compared to those who provided an indeterminate response (23.5%) or denied having a good relationship with their parents (20.0%). So, too, participants who reported a good relationship with their parents were more likely to believe that humor can be an effective parenting tool (77.1%, p < .001) compared to those who provided an indeterminate response (49.0%) or denied having a good relationship (54.6%). Those reporting good relationships with their parents were also more likely to say they plan to (or already do) use humor in parenting their own children (65.2%, p < .001) compared to participants who provided an indeterminate response (50.0%) or denied having a good relationship (36.4%).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306311.t002

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306311.t003

The same general pattern was seen with the 64.6% of participants who reported that their own parents did a good job raising them–with such individuals reporting higher rates of their parents having used humor (68.4%, p < .001) compared to participants who provided an indeterminate response (33.0%) or denied having a good relationship with their parents (28.6%). Individuals reporting that their parents did a good job raising them were also more likely to say that humor can be an effective parenting tool (82.5%, p < .001) compared to those who gave indeterminate responses (52.5%) or denied having a good relationship with their parents (57.1%); were more likely to use (or plan to use) humor in their own parenting (73.9% vs. 39.4% vs. 42.9%, respectively, p < .001); and were more likely to agree that humor as a parenting tool has more potential benefit than harm (72.8% vs. 44.4% vs. 42.9%, respectively, p < .001).

Less surprisingly, but still statistically significant was the finding that participants reporting a good relationship with their own parents were more likely to use (or plan to use) the same parenting style (63.4%, p < .001) compared to those who gave indeterminate responses (22.0%) or denied having a good relationship with their parents (9.1%). A similar association was seen between participants who reported that their parents did a good job raising them, and participants who use (or plan to use) the same parenting style (67.4%, p < .001), compared to participants who gave indeterminate responses (34.3%) or denied having a good relationship with their parents (14.3%).

Worth noting is that fewer than 1% of all respondents reported they did not believe that a brief course on how to use humor as a parenting tool would be a valuable resource, whereas 69.7% endorsed such a course, and 29.6% provided an indeterminate response. When comparing respondents currently raising children <18 years old to those who were not, no significant differences (p = .464) were found as to whether they would value such a course on humor. However, individuals currently raising children (vs. those who were not) were more likely to report that humor could be an effective parenting tool (77.0% vs. 65.9%, p = .044), and that humor has more potential benefit than harm (71.1% vs. 53.6%, p = .002). Such differences did not emerge with regard to respondents’ race and ethnicity, with the exception of how many people reported that their parents used humor in raising them (61.3% White, 48.3% Black, 30.8% Latino, and 40.0% other, p < .001), and how many planned to use the same parenting style as their own parents (59.7% White, 59.3% Black, 30.8% Latino, and 37.5% other, p = .048).

If the findings of this pilot study are generalizable, they provide preliminary evidence that a significant number of Americans of childbearing/rearing age have had positive experiences being raised with humor and would be interested in learning more about how to use humor as a tool for parenting their own children. Though the use of “play” with young children has an extensive literature, to our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the use of humor in raising children. This is particularly surprising given humor’s widespread use and prominence in American culture and well-recognized ability to both bridge differences and help people see things from a new perspective.

Emerging research is demonstrating how humor appreciation is detectable in infants as young as six months of age [ 81 – 86 ]. Over the last 40 years, various authors have discussed the developmental stages of humor as it evolves during childhood [ 15 , 87 – 89 ], with some concluding that humor is the inevitable outcome of the progressive evolution of a biological disposition to play [ 90 ]. More recently, humor has been recommended as a strategy for early childhood educators [ 16 , 91 – 93 ], and there is evidence that humor can be an effective coping strategy for families who have children with disabilities [ 78 , 93 – 95 ].

Of course, one must be careful in extrapolating the advantages of humor, as humor is not without its risks–particularly when significant power imbalances exist. So, too, the current findings do not differentiate the various types of humor or their respective utility, nor do they identify when or how best to leverage humor with children. Nonetheless, the current pilot data suggest that adults of child-raising age are open to the use of humor as one strategy for raising their children and that there is an association between parents’ use of humor and subsequent perceptions of one’s parents. As such, humor may be an over-looked strategy for helping parents develop, model, and promote cognitive and emotional flexibility. Establishing a foundation that can ground effective strategies for using humor as a parenting tool will require answering basic questions such as:

What characteristics make a situation more or less amenable to using humor as a parenting tool? Which forms of parenting humor are more effective at particular stages of child development and for which goals? What humor-related strategies are better for helping parents and children develop the flexibility of mind for solving problems that might otherwise escalate? How can such skills be taught in a way that minimizes their likelihood of misuse or unintentional harm? Would parents prefer to use humor in place of harsh discipline if it was equally (or more) effective?

Limitations

The generalizability of these pilot data is limited by several factors, chief among them selection bias. The current findings arise from a relatively small convenience sample that is predominantly white and male. It is also unknown how the views of MTurk respondents compare to the general population. Separately, there are 3 question-items that use parenthetical phrasing to acknowledge that respondents may not yet have children and that respondents’ parents may no longer be living. It is possible that respondents interpreted these items as double-barreled questions, though interviews during field-testing did not identify any such confusion. Additionally, it is not clear whether the meaning of ‘humor’ or ‘humor in parenting’ was similarly understood by all respondents, nor what factors might affect people’s various interpretations of these terms. As noted in the introduction, there is no single agreed-upon definition or interpretation of what constitutes humor. That said, the present study did seek to explore this matter with several qualitative items, but responses to these questions were too meager to offer useful data. Nonetheless, the findings of this pilot study 1) provide a good starting point for conducting a larger, more robust examination of people’s experiences and views regarding humor and parenting, and 2) suggest that using humor as a parenting tool may be associated with various beneficial outcomes.

This pilot study provides preliminary evidence that Americans of childbearing/rearing age have positive views about humor as a parenting tool, and that such use of humor may be associated with various beneficial outcomes. If these findings are generalizable, they potentially open the door to a much deeper and broader exploration of how ‘parenting humor’ functions and how it can be appropriately leveraged to enhance the experiences of both children and their parents. To that end, future research should examine the ways parents currently use different kinds of humor; children’s lived experiences with such humor; and how these uses of humor map onto existing knowledge and theory about how humor functions.

• View Article
• PubMed/NCBI
• Google Scholar
• 17. Yılmaz Betül. "Examining humor in early childhood period from teacher and child aspects." Master’s thesis, Middle East Technical University, 2019.
• 18. Luria S. R., Baer J., & Kaufman J. C. (2018). Creativity and humor. Academic Press.
• 20. Martin Rod A., and Ford Thomas. The psychology of humor : An integrative approach . Academic press, 2018. 3.
• 22. Norrick N. R. (1993). Conversational joking : Humor in everyday talk . Indiana University Press.
• 24. Berger A. A. (2017). An anatomy of humor . Routledge
• 38. Morreall, John, "Philosophy of Humor", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.)
• 41. Hurley MM, Dennett DC, Adams RB. Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind. MIT Press; 2011.
• 68. Roopnarine JL. Cultural Variations in Beliefs about Play, Parent-Child Play, and Children’s Play: Meaning for Childhood Development. In Pellegrini A. D., ed. The Oxford handbook of the development of play. Oxford University Press; 2011:19–37.
• 72. Tamis-LeMonda C, Bornstein MH, Kuchirko Y, Escobar K. Being and Becoming a Parent. In Bornstein MH ed. Handbook of Parenting. New York, Routledge; 2019, vol.3:189–213.
• 75. Bergen D. (2021). Play as a context for humor development. In Fromberg D. P.&Bergen (Eds), Play from birth to twelve and beyond (pp. 324–337). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003249702-48
• 80. Libera A. Funnier: A Theory of Comedy with Practical Application, Northwestern University Press, Evanston (forthcoming, 2024).
• 87. McGhee PE. Humor and Children’s Development A Guide to Practical Applications, ed. Paul McGhee, 1989. Humor and Children’s Development. Routledge; 1989.

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• CAREER COLUMN
• 24 July 2024

Why you should perform a premortem on your research

• Carsten Lund Pedersen 0

Carsten Lund Pedersen is an associate professor of digital transformation and artificial intelligence at the IT University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Researchers can pre-empt the possibility of their ideas ending up in the morgue by challenging them early. Credit: Rafe Swan/Getty

Like all researchers, I’ve had my fair share of failed projects: papers that remained unfinished or never got through the revision process; collaborations that didn’t come to fruition; and research projects that never became the successes I anticipated. Some of this was necessary failure — such as the trial-and-error learning or hypothesis rejection needed to obtain new knowledge in research — the kind that is often fetishized in both Silicon Valley start-up culture and academia. Failure, the conventional wisdom goes, makes you better.

But I try to circumvent unnecessary failures — those made through insufficient preparation or execution. Why not try to avoid the avoidable barriers to success?

Over the years, I’ve grown fond of a simple tool that can help to prevent unnecessary failures in my research. This tool, which draws on the work of the cognitive psychologist Gary Klein , is called a project premortem. A premortem takes place before the launch of a project. To carry out the premortem, I imagine that a few years have passed since the project’s launch, and it has failed miserably. What were the underlying causes? As research by Klein and his colleagues shows, this simple method is extremely effective in revealing hidden problems.

The method makes it safe for knowledgeable objectors to voice their reservations about a project. Theoretically, such reasoning is based on prospective hindsight: imagining that an event has already occurred. The true value, however, comes from thinking through how to proactively reduce potential problems and thereby prevent a project from failing.

Carsten Lund Pedersen is an associate professor of digital transformation and artificial intelligence at the IT University of Copenhagen. Credit: Carsten Lund Pedersen

For instance, some years ago I dedicated weeks to learning the nuts and bolts of a statistical software tool, because I felt some pressure from collaborators to use it. I was initially reluctant to master it, fearing that this would take away much valuable research time. I have not done any research with the tool since that time, vindicating my initial hesitance. In hindsight, it’s obvious that a premortem could have been useful and prevented me from wasting my time.

I now feel I’ve learnt my lesson, and often create premortems for my own research efforts. Before submitting an article to a premier journal, I ask myself: if I presume this article will be rejected, what will be the underlying reasons for that outcome? Sometimes this makes me aware that my data are not strong enough or that the theoretical logic is incomplete or inconsistent. I also increasingly do premortems with my collaborators, and when designing new courses for students.

However, awareness of the issues that premortems raise is just the first step — there is also a need to identify remedies for these problems. In my own work, I’ve forced myself to spend extra time trying to make a certain theoretical logic more consistent with existing debates in the field, and intuitively understandable, before reviewers find my work lacking. In some cases, it might be difficult to address the issues, but at least you can think about how best to approach the concerns with a revision, thereby getting a head start.

Adding collaborators to the premortem

A premortem often becomes even more effective when you include collaborators. In my experience, they help to overcome any biases or blind spots you might have and improve the overall quality of the input to the premortem. A group can also generate more ideas on how to proactively address different issues.

Recently, I asked a close collaborator if we should pull the plug on a project in which we’ve invested a lot of resources. In the end, we reasoned that the timing of the project probably wasn’t right (and wouldn’t improve in the near future), so it would be best to make the tough decision to stop the project altogether.

How researchers and their managers can build an actionable career-development plan

However, a group setting can also be a potential minefield. Failure could result from a collaborator acting as a bottleneck or not communicating sufficiently with the rest of the group. Such actions have the potential to disrupt group harmony or cause conflict.

Although showing sensitivity remains crucial, the premortem setting might provide a ‘safe space’ for people to air potential concerns, because it is framed as an imaginative thought-experiment with the premise that all potential causes of failure should be broached. Dealing with interpersonal issues doesn’t get any easier once a collaboration has failed, so it’s often better to have difficult conversations early on.

A quick checklist for your premortem

How else can you use the premortem in your research? In my experience, a premortem works best during the preparation stages of papers, projects and partnerships.

I’ve developed a quick checklist for conducting your premortem. The process has five simple steps, each with a related key question. Print out the checklist and keep it in your office or take it to your next meeting. Once you’ve conducted an individual step, tick it off.

The bottom line is that academic life might be full of failures, but we should still try to avoid the avoidable ones. The premortem method provides a simple approach for doing just that. And in case you were wondering: yes, this article survived my initial premortem.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02344-2

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged .

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Related Articles

• Research management

Science must protect thinking time in a world of instant communication

Editorial 24 JUL 24

A stroke derailed my academic career. Now I’m getting back on track

Career Column 23 JUL 24

I’ve built a career without a big golden grant. Here’s how

Career Column 22 JUL 24

So you got a null result. Will anyone publish it?

News Feature 24 JUL 24

Hungarian researchers struggle amid EU funding ban

Correspondence 23 JUL 24

Postdoctoral Associate- Neuroscience

Houston, Texas (US)

Baylor College of Medicine (BCM)

Chief Editor, Nature Materials

Job Title:  Chief Editor, Nature Materials Location: New York, Shanghai or Beijing Closing date: Sept 2, 2024   Springer Nature, the publisher of N...

New York City, New York (US)

Springer Nature Ltd

Tenure Track Assistant or Associate Professor

Frontotemporal Dementia Research Center seeking highly motivated creative and collaborative scientist in RNA Biology to enhance our understanding.

Worcester, Massachusetts

UMass Chan Medical School

Department Head - Biomedical Engineering

VT BEAM seeks a Department Head to lead its innovative multidisciplinary approach bridging biomedical science with practical applications.

Blacksburg, Virginia

Virginia Tech- Biomedical Engineering

Postdoctoral Research Scientist

Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the Department of Pediatrics

Columbia University Irving Medical Center- Department of Pediatrics

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies