Aggression arousal, hostile humor, catharsis.

Abstract

This chapter examines the possible cathartic and tension-reducing function of hostile derisive humor centering around themes of revenge and destruction. It describes the effects of aggression arousal on the appreciation of hostile humor under two conditions: humor presented immediately following arousal, and humor presented after interposed administration of a mood checklist. When hostile humor, neutral humor, and a control recording were compared in their effect on aroused subjects, both the hostile and the neutral humor reduced aggressive motivation as measured by a mood checklist. The chapter seeks to devise an experimental analogue of the interpersonal situation in which hostile humor should best mediate a symbolic catharsis: C, having angered A and B, becomes the target of hostile humor authored by A for B’s benefit. In the hostile humor the humorist toyed with fantasies of Negro retaliation against whites and Negro supremacy.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 93 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.