Caty Borum Chattoo turns to Petty & Cacioppo’s Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) here (especially as it has been applied by Zhang), which theorizes two routes of information processing: central and peripheral.
[W]hen individuals experience serious information and news—and are able to process the information and are highly motivated to do so—they use a central cognitive route of processing by focusing on the merits of the message itself. But in a humor context, attitude shifts may occur in response to peripheral or heuristic cues—such as emotional reactions, liking the message source and believing the source is credible and believable. Persuasion then moves through a different route than the one employed when encountering a strong message delivered in a serious way. As individuals enjoy the comedy message and the messenger, they are less likely to scrutinize and counter-argue against the information, which improves the conditions for persuasion.
The problems with dual models
Such dual-mode or processing models, in my educated opinion, are bunk – at least in the way they are applied to humor. They are one of the reasons I have to blog in the first place [– I’ll deal with a lot more of them on here soon; they crop up everywhere!]. While it may be true that we can pay close attention or not, why does humor necessarily make us “less likely” to?
Chattoo just argued that audiences actively seek out the information, and that they do so “with active “truth-seeking motivations” – they process the civic information in such a way that sparks ‘reflective thoughts…issue interest, and information seeking.’” Further, she cites Garber, who believes that all the outrage and celebrations of comics these days is ample evidence that we’re not taking their words for granted. So where did that all go? Aren’t these all instances of audiences taking comedy as “serious information and news,” that they are “highly motivated” to seek out and absorb?
And who’s to say that they are unable to do so? Obviously we don’t shut off our brains when the comic starts talking.
Further, there’s a lot of evidence that people are lazy and process many messages peripherally – even “strong messages delivered in a serious way” – particularly when they are from your in-group, clan, tribe [there are lots of terms]. Robert Cialdini posits this when he talks about perceived expertise and liking effects – we process our perception of them rather than the message. So the question is: Why single out any form of discourse as “exclusively peripheral”? It has always struck me as dumb.
Serious messages hurt comedy
Chattoo returns to the idea that overt persuasion can hinder the comedy:
And in fact, by letting the audience in on the idea that the comedy message is designed to be “a message”—overt persuasion—the comedy becomes (perhaps ironically) less effective, triggering the cognitive route to persuasion, including scrutinizing the information or counter-arguing against the messages. For comedy to be a successful vehicle for persuasion in service of a serious social issue, it can’t be seen as trying too hard to explicitly persuade even if it comparts serious information.
There’s the false dichotomy that dual-mode or processing models run up against: either we are scrutinizing the joke, or we are laughing. This brings back the common interpretations of laughter: that it’s an unconscious, embodied response, not a result of thought. Further, such thinking suggests that we can’t react twice, reassess.
This would have it that after it invokes initial scrutiny, a joke can only produce “clapter” – or “humor support,” like when your significant other says, “that’s funny,” which is not the same as laughing. Further, after laughing we apparently can’t go back and think it through; or perhaps we’re just less likely to.
The return of the sleeper
These understandings are obviously bunk. The best evidence for this is that there might be that “sleeper effect of comedy—remembering and being influenced by the content of a funny message longer than a serious one.” Can we guarantee that every time we think of the message, we think of it in the same way? Can it’s influence not change over time?
An easy way to disprove this is the joke that you re-evaluate and laugh again at – the joke that gets funnier the more you think about it. If it can work that way, why can’t we find sense or wisdom in a joke after the laugh? I have.
Further, even if the above were historically true, idea that audiences are changing and becoming more active would call it into question: the fact that we tend to act in certain ways (that people have traditionally acted in certain ways) in no way means that can’t change (nor that it isn’t already changing).
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
References:
Cialdini, R. Influence: Science and Practice.
Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology Vol. 19, (pp. 123-205). New York, NY: Academic Press.
Zhang, Y., (1996). Responses to humorous advertising: The moderating effect of need for cognition. Journal of Advertising, 25(1), 15-32.
