The joke’s on you: the effects of disparaging political humor on young citizens' attitudes and behaviors

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  • March 21, 2019
Creator
  • Moldoff, Jason Adam
    • Affiliation: Hussman School of Journalism and Media
Abstract
  • Two experiments were run to test whether young voters were susceptible to stereotype threat effects under a variety of conditions. Results for Experiment 1 indicate that making the age of young citizens salient before taking a political knowledge test did not affect their sense of political information efficacy or performance. Making the diagnostic nature of the test salient did result in a significant decrease in performance, but this difference was eliminated when the age salience manipulation was also included. Results for Experiment 2 revealed a significant 2-way interaction between the expectation of humor, exposure to disparaging humor, and performance on the political knowledge test. Participants performed significantly worse on the political knowledge test when they were unexpectedly exposed to humorous as compared to non-humorous disparagement. Participants made to expect humor performed significantly worse on the political knowledge test when they did not receive humor than when they did receive humor. Implications for the study of political humor are discussed and opportunities for future research are detailed.
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  • In Copyright
Note
  • "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication."
Advisor
  • Johnston, Anne
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Place of publication
  • Chapel Hill, NC
Access right
  • Open access
Date uploaded
  • March 18, 2013

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