Laughing in the face of provocation: How some cultures promote punchlines instead of punches

What is it about?

Imagine that you are at restaurant enjoying a nice meal with a group of your friends. In the middle of dinner, you overhear someone at another table ridicule your outfit. How would you react in this situation? Would you do nothing? Would you insult the person back? Would you make a joke about the person’s behaviour to your friends? According to our recent article published in the International Journal of Humor Research, your response may depend on the type of culture you find yourself in. Being provoked is a negative interpersonal experience that has the potential to escalate into violence. Provocations are especially likely to escalate in honor cultures where aggressive responses are seen as justified in order to defend one’s reputation. Honour cultures can be found in Latin America, Southern and Eastern Europe, and the south in the United States. While research has largely focused on honor cultures and aggression, we were interested in examining other common ways that people can respond to being provoked and how these alternative strategies may be shaped by different cultural scripts. For instance, people in face cultures (i.e., East Asia), where an emphasis is placed on humility, hierarchy, and harmony, might be more likely to withdraw from direct conflict and rely on authority figures to remedy the situation instead of responding with aggression. People from dignity cultures (i.e., the northern US, Canada, and North-Western Europe), where the worth of the individual is viewed as inalienable, might also be less likely to respond with aggression and may be more likely to withdraw or opt to make light of the situation using humor. To investigate these ideas, our international group of researchers recruited individuals from an honor culture (Poland), a face culture (China), and a dignity culture (Canada). We then had individuals read a series of provocative scenarios similar to the restaurant one described earlier and asked the participants to indicate how they would respond. In line with our predictions, we found that the intended use of humor in response to provocation was the highest among people in the dignity culture, while those in the honor culture were the most likely to say that they would respond aggressively. Moreover, individuals from the face culture and dignity culture were more willing to withdraw from the confrontation and rely on superiors than those from the honor culture. Along with reporting how they would react, we also asked individuals how they ideally would like to react to each of the provocation scenarios. Interestingly, cultural variation of preferred behaviours was visibly smaller and people in all three cultures indicated that humor would be their favourite reply to provocation (although reacting aggressively also had a relatively high preference). This research highlights the importance of culture in shaping reactions to provocation.

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