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Relationship Status as a Mediator
for Sarcastic Interpretation
Danielle Williams
Joslyn Mesing
Penn State Behrend
What is Sarcasm?
Sarcasm is an indirect form of speech intentionally used to convey a criticism.
Sarcasm is very ambiguous
Interpretation can be indefinite
Example of Scenario
Taylor was at a high school football game. She wanted to go to the concession stand for a drink but didn't want to lose her front row seats. She asked Keith, the man next to her, to save her seat. Keith said it wouldn't be a problem. Whenever Taylor returned her seat was gone. She said to Keith, “Thanks for saving my seat”
Why Do People Use Sarcasm?
Allusional Pretense Theory (Kumon-Nakamura, Glucksberg, & Brown, 1995)
Irony allows the speaker to allude to an underlying intent, opinion, or belief
Tinge Hypothesis (Dews and Winner, 1995)
Irony mutes (tinges) the intended meaning behind an indirect remark.
Ironic criticism less critical
Ironic compliment less complimentary
Processing Non-Literal Language
Searle (1979)
Katz, Blasko & Kazmerski (2004)
Does the Relationship Matter?
Jorgensen (1996)
Familiarity and closeness between speaker and listener influences ratings of appropriateness of sarcastic remarks
Current Study
The Big Five Personality traits
Empathy Quotient
Demographics
Independent Variables
Relationship Status (romantic, friend, stranger)
Remark Status (sarcastic, literal)
Dependent Variables
Ratings (humor, insult, sarcasm)
Reading Times
Research Questions
(1) Will relationship status affect insult, sarcasm, and humor rating’s
(2) Will sarcastic comments take longer to read than literal comments?
(3) Does personality effect how people rate sarcastic messages?
Methods
Participants
N = 101
Males = 46
Females = 55
Age Range = 18-53
Average = 20.94
Recruited through SONA
Followed APA Ethical guidelines
Received IRB approval
Materials
E-Prime 2.0
Scenarios
Randomly assigned
12 Lists
48 Scenarios
Varied across relationship and remark status
Demographics
Gender, age, relationship status questions
Surveys
Empathy Quotient Questionnaire
Mini-Marker
Example of Scenario
Taylor was at a high school football game. She wanted to go to the concession stand for a drink but didn't want to lose her front row seats. She asked Keith, the man next to her, to save her seat. Keith said it wouldn't be a problem. Whenever Taylor returned her seat was gone. She said to Keith, “Thanks for saving my seat”
How Insulting?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Romantic Friend Stranger
7 =
Ve
ry In
sult
ing
1 =
No
t at
all
Insu
ltin
g
Relationship Status
Mean Ratings of Insult
Sarcastic
Literal
F (1,101) = 1179.602, p = 0.00
How Humorous?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Romantic Friend Stranger
7 =
Ext
rem
ely
Hu
mo
rou
s1
= N
ot
at a
ll H
um
oro
us
Relationship Status
Mean Ratings of Humor
Sarcastic
Literal
F (1,101) =358.677, p = 0.00
How Long Did It Take?
500
700
900
1100
1300
1500
1700
1900
2100
2300
2500
Romantic Friend Stranger
Re
spo
nse
Tim
e in
ms.
Relationship Status
Means of Reading Times for Ratings
Sarcastic
Literal
F (1,101) = 4.336, p = .040
Individual Differences & Personality
N = 101 Agreeableness Conscientiousness OpennessEmotional Stability
Empathy .54** .36** .45** .22*
Relationship Length
----- ----- -.46** -----
Relationship Status
----- ----- ----- .23*
Note. **Indicates that the correlation is significant at the 0.01 level.* Indicates significance at the 0.05 level.
Humor Rating Correlations
N = 101 Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness EmotionalStability
Friend Relationship
-.25* ----- -.22* -----
Stranger Relationship
-.20*
Note. **Indicates that the correlation is significant at the 0.01 level.* Indicates significance at the 0.05 level.
What Does This All Mean?
Individual differences affect perceptions of sarcasm
Different personality styles perceive sarcasm differently
Personality is correlated with empathy
Future research should further investigate these individual differences and their influence on familiarity
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Dr. Dawn Blasko for all her time, effort, and valuable input throughout our project. We would also like to thank Dr. Robert W. Light, Associate Dean for research, for his contributions to undergraduate research through the grant program at Penn State Erie, the Behrend College.
Questions?
References
Austin, J. L., (1962). How to do things with words. London: Oxford University Press.
Baron-Cohen, S., & Wheelwright, S. (2004). The Empathy Quotient: An Investigation of Adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34(2).
Bartholomew, K., & Shaver, P. R. (1998). Methods of Assessing Adult Attachment: Do they Converge? Attachment theory and close relationships, 22-45.
Clark, H. H. & Gerrig, J. R., (1984). On the pretense of irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology, General, 113(1), 121-123
Dews, S., & Winner, E. (1995). Muting the meaning: A social function of irony. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 10(1), 3-19.
Goldberg, L. R., (1992). Development of markers for the big-five factor structure. Psychological Assessment, 4(1), 26-42.
Gibbs, R. W., (2000). Irony in talk among friends. Metaphor and Symbol, 15(1&2), 5-27.
Grice H.P., (1957). Meaning Philosophical Review 66, pp. 377-388.
Grice, H. P., (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics, Volume 3: Speech acts (pp.41-58). New York: Academic Press.
Ivanko, s. L., Pexman, P. M., & Olineck, K. M. (2004). How Sarcastic are You? : Individual Differences and Verbal Irony. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 23.
Jorgensen, J., (1996). The functions of sarcastic irony in speech. Journal of Pragmatics, 26, 613-634.
References Cont.
Katz, A. N., Blasko, D. G., & Kazmerski, V. A. (2004). Saying what you don’t mean. Current directions in psychological science, 13(5), 186-189
Kreuz, R. J., & Glucksberg, S., (1989). How to be sarcastic: The echoic reminder theory of verbal irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118(4), 374-386.
Kuman-Nakamura, S., Glucksberg, S., & Brown, M., (1995). How about another piece of pie: The allusional pretense theory of discourse irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 124(1), 3-21.
Link, E. K., & Kruez, J. R., (2004). Do men and women differ in their use of nonliteral language when they talk about emotions? In H. Colston, & A. Katz (Eds.) Figurative language comprehension: Social and cultural influences (pp. 153-180). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Pexman, P. M., (2004). Social factors in the interpretation of verbal irony: The roles of speaker and listener characteristics. In H. Colston, & A. Katz (Eds.) Figurative language comprehension: Social and cultural influences (pp. 209-232). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Schneider, W., Eschmann, A., & Zuccolotto, A. (2002). E- Prime user’s guide. Pittsburgh, PA: Psychology Software Tools, Inc.
Searle, J. R., (1969). Speech acts. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.
Thompson, E. R. (2008). Development and Validation of an International English Big-Five Mini-Markers. Personality and Individual Differences, 45(6), 542-548.