The ambiguity of humor also allows people to express hostility without taking responsibility. "Just kidding," they'll say, after delivering a punch line that feels more like a sucker punch. Often the very same comments can seem either supportive or undermining, affiliative or hostile, depending on the context and the dynamic. "Where you draw the line between healthy and unhealthy uses is very unclear," says Martin.
The difference is not just in what the speaker means to say, but in how the listener takes it, argues Bippus. Good intentions aren't necessarily enough to take the sting out of a mistimed joke—the listener has to give the joker credit for good intentions.
Suppose you're getting dressed to go out and your boyfriend says, "You're wearing that? I'd better bring my sunglasses!" You might take the comment as a light-hearted warning or as an expression of hostility, says Bippus. If the comment is hostile, it may be a signal that he wants to control your wardrobe—or even worse, control you. In that case, you won't think he's very funny. But, says Bippus, "if you think that the person has a helpful motive for using humor, that he's using it for your sake and not for his"—to save you from public embarrassment, say—"you're liable to give him the benefit of the doubt."
When Bippus videotaped 50 couples discussing a conflict and asked them to identify when they and their partner used humor during the discussion, she found that humor seemed to be helpful: The more the partners noticed it—and the funnier they found it—the more progress they felt they had made with the conflict. This seems to support the Roger Rabbit Effect. However, Bippus cautions, it's hard to tease apart cause and effect. Perhaps wagwits really are happier lovers. But it's also possible that happy relationships put people in a laughing mood. If you get along with your partner, you'll be less likely to take offense when she teases you about losing your keys for the third time this week.
He-Said, She-Said
It may start to sound like the same old he-said, she-said story, but gender differences in humor aren't as predictable as they might seem. In Bippus' study, for example, the men on average perceived more humor in the couples' conversations, but the women produced more humor, contradicting the stereotype that men are the funnier sex.
Nonetheless, a few themes emerge. Many women tend to use humor as a way of enhancing the relationship, says Martin, while men may use it to enhance their own persona. At a family dinner, for example, a woman may retell a story of a comic moment they all shared last Thanksgiving. A man might be more likely to treat the guests as his audience and play for laughs. Along these lines, Mary Crawford, a professor of psychology and women's studies at the University of Connecticut, found that men liked jokes and slapstick better than women, while women tended to find more humor in collaborative storytelling.
"Sometimes the way guys express closeness to other guys is through humor that puts people down. When they try to use the same kind of humor with the women in their lives, it doesn't come across the same way," says Markman.
So, are women from the Oxygen Network and men from Comedy Central? Probably not, says Crawford—the differences are less about testosterone and more about context. After all, men still tend to have higher status in our society, and many studies have shown that people with power use humor differently than do their underlings. "You could say it's a way men talk, but it may be a way that higher-status people talk," says Crawford. When the boss cracks a joke, everybody chuckles; when his assistant wants to make a suggestion or offer criticism, she tempers it with self-deprecating humor.
As anyone who's worked with a jokester boss can attest, humor is very much in the eye of the beholder, and what's intended as a witty remark may fall miserably flat or even seem cruel in the context of a difficult or imbalanced relationship. That's true in romantic relationships too, agree psychologists: Trouble with humor is more likely to be a symptom than a cause of difficulty. It's all about, well, timing. If your significant other can't take a joke, take a good look at your own motives for making it. Were you really trying to be helpful? Perhaps this isn't the right moment—or the right topic—for humor.
Still, says Bippus, humor is an important and very flexible communication strategy, so don't shy away from it. It's also a big part of what makes us human. "Once, when my sister put on gorilla socks, the dog attacked her feet," says Bippus. "A person would have laughed instead. We can see incongruity as something other than threatening."
When it's used well, humor helps us to put ourselves in perspective, to see past our fears and sorrows and to reach out to the people we love with a light touch instead of a heavy hand. Maybe Jessica Rabbit had the right idea after all.
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