Offensive jokes: How do they impact long-term relationships?

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Issue Date
2010-01-01Author
Hall, Jeffrey A.
Sereno, Ken
Publisher
De Gruyter
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This article explores the impact of the use of negative humor on relational satisfaction and the importance of humor in long-term relationships from a coorientation perspective. Dyadic data from 123 couples were gathered using a survey measuring positive and negative humor use. These data were analyzed using structural equations modeling and the Actor-Partner Independence Model (Kenny et al., Dyadic data analysis, The Guilford Press, 2006: 144). Negative humor weakly predicted relational outcomes, but was valuable when partners saw themselves as possessing a shared sense of humor. Men acknowledge that their own public negative humor use negatively impacts the importance of humor in their relationship. Perceived similarity in negative humor use positively predicts relational satisfaction for both partners, and positively predicts the importance of humor for men, regardless of how much positive humor the couple uses. Accurately knowing a partner's negative humor use, or having greater understanding, negatively predicted relational outcomes.
Description
This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/humr.2010.23.issue-3/humr.2010.016/humr.2010.016.xml.
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Citation
Hall, Jeffrey A.; Sereno, Ken. (2010). "Offensive jokes: How do they impact long-term relationships?." Humor, 23(3):351-373. http://www.dx.doi.org/10.1515/humr.2010.016
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