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The Persuasive Power of Humor

CSEF · 2023 Behavioral & Social Sciences Fourth Award

Charlu Sailee · 8

Overview

As scholars debate the persuasive effect of humor, multiple theories have emerged on its impact with the audience and its ability to fuel progressive social change. While multiple experiments conducted on humor have found results inconclusive, I strived to approach humor by weaving it into writing under the topic of environmentalism and quantifying its persuasive effects. This study investigated two questions: (1) If humor (versus formal tone) is applied to a written excerpt about environmentalism, there will be a greater persuasive effect on the reader due to its ability to evoke emotions, capture attention, and enhance source credibility (2) The younger the age, the more persuasive effect of humor. To better understand the contingencies of the effect of humor, I conducted the study with three gender-matched age groups (Middle-school, High-school, Adult) which were split into two groups and randomized to the a Formal/Nonhumorous versus a Humorous written excerpt. Both set of excerpts were written on controversial topics of Environmentalism (Microplastics, Livestock-Farming, and Nuclear-Power), with pre- and post-reading questions for each environmental topic. Overall, after quantifying persuasion as a percentage change in both formal and humorous groups overall, the results showed a statistically significant difference (p<0.05) in the increase level of persuasion in the Humorous group-33% versusFormal group-3%. This amount of persuasive power of humor was the highest in the younger age group. Ultimately, this study concludes that humor incorporated into writing of environmental issues is significantly more persuasive than non-humor writing across all age groups.

Source coverage

This record comes from a published award list, not a complete project archive. Its abstract comes from CSEF's public project showcase as archived by the Internet Archive before judging (https://web.archive.org/web/20230401224130/https://ca-csef.zfairs.com/showcase/ShowcaseInfo?f=838e60b7-ea75-46e8-865c-fde4864244b3); the version presented may differ.

Awards (1)

Competition history

  • CSEF 2023 Behavioral & Social Sciences · Entry J0414

Resources

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