Humor, Comedy, and Consumer Behavior CALEB WARREN ADAM BARSKY A. PETER MCGRAW Consumers regularly experience humor while buying and using products, procur- ing services, and engaging in various consumption experiences, whether watching a movie or dining with colleagues. Despite an expansive literature on how humor influences advertisers’ communication goals, far less is known about how humor appreciation and comedy production influence the likelihood of attaining various consumption goals, from experiencing pleasure and making better decisions to staying healthy and building relationships. Drawing on a wide range of findings from multiple disciplines, we develop a framework for understanding and investi- gating the different ways in which experiencing and creating laughter and amuse- ment help—and sometimes hurt—consumers reach their goals. The framework provides key insights into the nuanced role of humor and comedy in consumer welfare. Keywords: humor, comedy, emotion, goals, consumer welfare umor is widely believed to be beneficial. Business advertisements attract attention, for example, they often H periodicals prescribe humor as key to effective per- fail to achieve other objectives, such as improving brand formance in the workplace (Beard 2014). Gurus and the attitudes or increasing sales (Gulas and Weinberger 2006; popular press preach the wonders of laughter as a medical Scott, Klein, and Bryant 1990; Warren and McGraw cure-all (Cousins 1979; Martin 2001). The website for the 2016a). In the same way that prior inquiries examine fac- African country of Eritrea describes humor as “a tremen- tors that affect whether or not marketers reach their goals, dous resource for surmounting problems, enhancing your we examine whether or not humor helps consumers reach relationships, and supporting both physical and emotional their goals. health” (Berhane 2013). An extensive literature examines Goal attainment is a critical area of study for consumer how humor influences marketers’ ability to communicate researchers (Holbrook 1987; Mick 2006). People use prod- with consumers. Yet this literature reveals that the effects ucts (brands, objects, services, activities, ideas, etc.) as a of humor are not uniformly positive. Although humorous means of pursuing an array of consumption goals (Bagozzi and Warshaw 1990; Holbrook 1987; Van Osselaer and Janiszewski 2012). Consumers join Tinder to find a date, Caleb Warren ([email protected]) is an assistant professor of marketing at the Eller College of Management, University of Arizona, purchase study guides to pass a test, and mega-dose 1130 E. Helen Street, PO Box 210108, Tucson, AZ, 85721-0108. Adam Vitamin C to cure a cold. Consumer researchers, however, Barsky ([email protected]) is an associate professor at the know relatively little about how humor influences consum- University of Melbourne, 198 Berkeley Street, Calton, VIC 3056, Australia. A. Peter McGraw ([email protected]) is an associate ers’ goal attainment. Can creating a humorous (vs. humor- professor of marketing and psychology at the Leeds School of Business, less) dating profile help attract a mate (or at least a date)? University of Colorado Boulder, UCB 419, Boulder, CO 80309. Please ad- Will reading an amusing (vs. serious) textbook improve dress correspondence to Caleb Warren. The authors thank Lawrence Williams, Manjit Yadav, Sidney Levy, Marvin Goldberg, Matthew performance on a test? Will laughter help vitamins cure a Farmer, John Yi, the Humor Research Lab (HuRL), and the review team cold? We examine a topic that has yet to be addressed at JCR for feedback on this article. systematically in the literature: how and when does Vicki Morwitz served as editor and Deborah MacInnis served as associate experiencing laughter and amusement help consumers editor for this article. reach their goals? To investigate the effects of humor on consumers’ goal Advance Access publication Month 0, 0000 attainment, we integrate disparate findings, drawing on VC The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Journal of Consumer Research, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] Vol. 0 March 2018 DOI: 10.1093/jcr/ucy015 1 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucy015/4922695 by University of Colorado user on 31 May 2018 2 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH research in advertising and in the complementary fields of literature into 10 propositions that (a) synthesize existing psychology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, medi- knowledge regarding how and when humor influences the cine, and neuroscience. Our review suggests that humor’s attainment of consumption goals, and (b) provide a founda- effectiveness depends on the type of comedy that triggers tion for future research. To this end, we also highlight gaps the laugh (i.e., humor style), the efficacy of the humor at- in the literature and speculate on processes that drive the tempt (i.e., success vs. failure), and whether the consum- effects of humor. er’s goal is focused on hedonic (i.e., increased pleasure and pain reduction), utilitarian (i.e., better health and improved CONCEPTUALIZING HUMOR decision making), or social (i.e., enhanced relationship quality and quantity) outcomes. A challenge of integrating literature on humor is that hu- Although humor typically helps make otherwise nega- mor is an umbrella term that describes multiple, related yet tive consumption experiences (e.g., waiting in line) more conceptually distinct constructs (Gulas and Weinberger enjoyable, we propose that its effects on utilitarian and so- 2006; Martin 2001, 2007; Sternthal and Craig 1973). cial goals are more nuanced than often portrayed. Humor Humor can refer to (1) a stimulus that elicits laughter and can both enhance and detract from consumers’ decision amusement (e.g., a joke); (2) a psychological state associ- quality and persistence toward long-term goals. Likewise, ated with laughter and amusement (e.g., a response to a humor is not a cure-all, though some forms of comedy help joke); (3) the act of creating something funny (e.g., telling consumers struggling with some mental health issues (e.g., a joke); and (4) an individual difference in the tendency to depression, anxiety disorders). Finally, humor’s effects on laugh or to amuse others (i.e., a disposition to tell or laugh social outcomes, such as being liked or loved, depend on at jokes). To address this ambiguity, we use four labels both the situation and the person’s sense of humor. that denote constructs related to humor, which we respec- tively refer to as comedy, humor appreciation, comedy FRAMEWORK production, and sense of humor (table 1). By using distinct construct labels, we can more easily interpret a literature Our article offers a revised perspective by shifting the that inconsistently defines, manipulates, and measures focus from how humor helps marketers reach their goals to humor. how humor helps consumers reach their goals (MacInnis Humor can refer to something that is, or is intended to 2011). We contribute to the literature in three ways. First, be, funny (Martin 2007; Sternthal and Craig 1973). we define and differentiate between constructs related to Following Stern (1996), we refer to the stimuli (gestures, humor that the literature has conceptualized imprecisely sayings, behaviors, sounds, images, videos, etc.) that elicit and inconsistently, including comedy, comedy production, or are intended to elicit laughter, amusement, or the per- humor appreciation, and sense of humor. Second, we inte- ception that something is funny as comedy. Comedy is not grate findings from disparate domains to provide a frame- limited to jokes, but includes a wide range of behaviors: work that summarizes current knowledge about humor and soliloquies, cartoons, facial expressions, and tickle attacks, builds on this knowledge to delineate a set of propositions which can be communicated face-to-face or via print, tradi- that help explain how and when humor appreciation and tional media, or increasingly, social media. comedy production help consumers reach their goals. Others describe humor not as a stimulus, but as a psy- Collectively, the propositions offer a novel integrative chological response or reaction to a stimulus (McGraw and framework for interpreting and building on the humor liter- Warren 2010; Veatch 1998; Wyer and Collins 1992). The ature—though individually some propositions summarize literature suggests that amusement, laughter, and perceived well-documented areas of research. Finally, by identifying funniness are the prototypical emotional, behavioral, and the effects of humor on consumers’ goal attainment, our cognitive responses related to humor (Martin 2007; framework (a) reveals inconsistencies in the literature, (b) McGraw and Warren 2010; Veatch 1998; Warren and suggests opportunities for future research, and (c) helps McGraw 2015). To distinguish the response to comedy consumers and policy makers understand how, and when, from comedy itself, we use humor appreciation to denote a to leverage humor as a means to help goal attainment. psychological state characterized by amusement, the ten- Figure 1 illustrates our framework for understanding the dency to laugh, and the perception that something is funny. relationship between humor and consumption goals. In A greater intensity of any of the three components (i.e., the next three sections, we briefly describe each part of the laughter, amusement,