The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research 3030782794, 9783030782795

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The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research Edited by  Elisabeth Vanderheiden Claude-Hélène Mayer

The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research

Elisabeth Vanderheiden Claude-Hélène Mayer Editors

The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research

Editors Elisabeth Vanderheiden Global Institute for Transcultural Research Römerberg, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

Claude-Hélène Mayer Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management University of Johannesburg Johannesburg, South Africa Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät Europa Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Germany

ISBN 978-3-030-78279-5    ISBN 978-3-030-78280-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78280-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Roman Nazarenko / Alamy Stock Vector This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Editorial:  The Handbook of Humour Research— Psychological, Cultural and Social Perspectives  1 Elisabeth Vanderheiden and Claude-Hélène Mayer Part I Humour in Cultural Contexts  13 2 Predicting  Self-Esteem Using Humor Styles: A Cross-Cultural Study 15 Julie Aitken Schermer, Eva Boyanova Papazova, Maria Magdalena Kwiatkowska, Radosław Rogoza, Joonha Park, Christopher Marcin Kowalski, Marija Branković, Marta Doroszuk, Truong Thi Khanh Ha, Dzintra Iliško, Sadia Malik, Samuel Lins, Ginés Navarro-­Carrillo, Oscar Oviedo-Trespalacios, Jorge Torres-Marín, Anna Włodarczyk, Sibele Dias de Aquino, Tatiana Volkodav, and Georg Krammer 3 The  Use of Humour to Deal with Uncomfortable Moments in Interaction: A Cross-Cultural Approach 41 Kerry Mullan and Christine Béal 4 Humour  as a Strategy to Talk About and Challenge Dominant Discourses of Social Integration: A Case Study of Adolescent German Turkish Descendants in Germany 67 Yesim Kakalic and Stephanie Schnurr

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5 The  Position of Humour in Social Crises: When and What Does Turkish Society Laugh at? 89 Ayşe Aslı Sezgin and Tuğba Yolcu 6 Humour  as Cultural Capital in Transitions113 Mariana Lazzaro-Salazar 7 Nigerian  Cultural Concept of Humour and its Use as a Coping Strategy131 Felix-Kingsley Obialo 8 Interrogating  the Phenomenon of Suffering and Smiling by Nigerians: A Mixed Methods Study149 Onwu Inya and Blessing Inya Part II Humour in History and Politics 171 9 Humor  as a Defense Mechanism: Dismantling Holocaust Symbols and Icons in Israeli Culture173 Liat Steir-Livny 10 Geopolitics  of Humour and Development in Nepal and Afghanistan189 Rupak Shrestha and Jennifer Fluri 11 Humour  and Politics: A Discursive Approach to Humour205 Maria Aldina Marques 12 White  Laughter, Black Pain? On the Comic and Parodic Enactment of Racial-Colonial Stereotypes227 Matthias Pauwels Part III Humour in the Workplace 243 13 Risky  Business: Humour, Hierarchy, and Harmony in New Zealand and South Korean Workplaces245 Barbara Plester and Heesun Kim

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14 Resilience  as Moderator Between Workplace Humour and Well-Being, a Positive Psychology Perspective263 Rudolf M. Oosthuizen 15 Humour  as a Coping Strategy for Employees in Remote Workspaces During Covid-19289 Claude-Hélène Mayer and Lolo Jacques Mayer Part IV Humour over the Lifespan 309 16 Humour  as a Resource for Children311 Doris Bergen 17 Humour  in Romantic Relationships325 Maria Nicoleta Turliuc, Octav Sorin Candel, and Lorena Antonovici 18 Cross-Cultural  Perspectives on Humor Appreciation and Function Across the Lifespan341 Jennifer Tehan Stanley and Jennifer R. Turner 19 ‘West  of Hollywood’: Humor as Reparation in the Life and Work of Walter Becker363 James L. Kelley Part V Humour in Pedagogical Contexts 381 20 Humour  in Adult Education383 Elisabeth Vanderheiden 21 Humour  in Mathematics Teaching: A Study in Portugal and Spain419 Luís Menezes, Pablo Flores, Floriano Viseu, Susana Amante, and Ana Maria Costa

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Part VI Humour in the Context of Medicine, Therapy and Counselling 439 22 The  Positive Effect of Humour and Amateur Dubbing on Hospitalised Adolescents441 Margherita Dore, Laura Vagnoli, Francesca Addarii, Elena Amore, and Rosanna Martin 23 The  Covid-19 Pandemic as an Opportunity for Positive Psychology to Promote a Wider-Ranging Definition of Humour and Laughter459 Freda Gonot-Schoupinsky and Gülcan Garip 24 On  the Relationships Between Humour, Stress and Flow Experience—Introducing the Humour-Flow Model479 Marek Bartzik and Corinna Peifer 25 Working  with Humour in Psychotherapy497 Aakriti Malik I ndex511

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About the Editors Elisabeth Vanderheiden  is a pedagogue, theologian and intercultural mediator. She is the CEO of the Global Institute for Transcultural Research and the President of the Catholic Adult Education of Germany. Her latest publications focused on shame as resource as well as mistakes, errors and failure and their hidden potentials in the context of culture and positive psychology 1.0 and 2.0. In a current project, she investigates life crises and their individual coping strategies from different cultural viewpoints. Other current research interests include Ikigai—especially in the context of adult education and counselling—and Design Thinking. Claude-Hélène Mayer  (Dr. habil., PhD, PhD) is Professor in Industrial and Organisational Psychology at the Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management at the University of Johannesburg, an adjunct professor at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, and a senior research associate at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. She holds a PhD in Psychology (University of Pretoria, South Africa), a PhD in Management (Rhodes University, South Africa), a Doctorate (Georg-­ August University, Germany) in Political Sciences (socio-cultural anthropology and intercultural didactics) and a Habilitation (European University Viadrina, Germany) in Psychology with focus on work, organizational and cultural psychology. She has published several monographs, text collections, accredited journal articles and special issues on transcultural mental health

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and well-being, sense of coherence, shame, transcultural conflict management and mediation, women in leadership in culturally diverse work contexts, constellation work, coaching and psychobiography.

Contributors Francesca Addarii  graduated in School and Community Psychology from the University of Bologna in 2016 and is attending the psycho-analytic school at the Istituto Freudiano (Rome). Her research interests include psychology in healthcare settings, paediatric oncology and humour. She coordinates a psycho-­educational project titled La scacchiera di Onnon, which aims at promoting children’s well-being and soft skills by playing chess at school. She is the author of the monograph Alla scoperta del Paese degli Scacchi (Erickson, 2020) and the book series Il coraggioso viaggio della Cura and Teenroom (Bristol Meyer Squibb), which support children and adolescents with cancer. Susana  Amante is professor at the Polytechnic of Viseu—School of Management and Technology (Portugal). She holds a PhD in English Philology. Her research areas of interest are literatures and cultures (especially of English-speaking countries), gender studies, children’s literature, didactics of languages, languages and entrepreneurship, and translation studies.Susana Amante has evaluated and certified textbooks of Portuguese and English languages for middle school students and has proven work experience as a translator. She is (co)author of several national and international papers and has presented various talks at national and international events. She is the pedagogical coordinator of the “Co-Creation-based learning” Project. Elena Amore  is a freelance psychologist who works with children, adolescents and adults. She carries out research and training activities in the field of developmental and hospital psychology, chronicity and humour. She has published on the use of non-pharmacological techniques to reduce pain and distress and on the use of therapeutic games in the paediatric hospital setting. Lorena Antonovici  is a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași. Throughout her academic career, she studied the influence of humour in the domain of romantic relationships. Her results were published in the Journal of Experiential Psychotherapy, Romanian Journal of Artistic Creativity and the Romanian Journal of Social Psychology.

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Marek  Bartzik  is a research assistant in the “Care for Joy” project at the University of Lübeck and also a change manager in the public sector. His research focus is on the field of applied positive psychology and particularly on humour and flow experience in the working context. After completing his Master’s degree in Business Psychology, Marek Bartzik gained practical experience in human resources development and change management in the public sector. Christine Béal  is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3 and a member of Praxiling, a CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) Research Lab specializing in linguistics and communication. Her field of expertise is French linguistics, interactional linguistics and cross-cultural pragmatics. Her work is based on naturally occurring data (spontaneous talk between work colleagues, meetings, job interviews and friends) in French and English. She has focussed on terms of address, speech acts, politeness, rituals and routines, turn-taking and conversational humour. Doris  Bergen  is Distinguished Professor Emerita, Miami University. Her research has included the study of play development, effects of technology-­ augmented toys on childhood play, children’s humour development and evaluation of early childhood programmes. She, also, is a Miami University Distinguish Scholar, having published 14 books and over 70 refereed articles and book chapters. Marija Branković,  Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Media and Communications, Singidunum University, Belgrade. Octav  Sorin  Candel  is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași. His main research interests are in couple and family psychology and psychometry. He published multiple articles in journals such as Personality and Individual Differences, European Journal of Dental Education, Romanian Journal of Applied Psychology and Journal of Psychological and Educational Research. Ana  Maria  Costa  is a professor at the Polytechnic of Viseu—School of Education (Portugal). She holds a PhD in American Studies—American history, culture and literature. In addition to the research Ana Maria Costa has been carrying out in the context of American culture and literature, mainly with regard to the work of the novelist Sinclair Lewis, she has recently been undertaking research in the field of Portuguese and World Literature and other Arts, specifically with regard to the role of space as a structuring category of the narrative.Ana Maria Costa is (co)author of several national and

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international papers within the aforementioned study fields. A member of the editorial board of several international scientific journals, she is associate editor of one of them. Sibele Dias de Aquino  is a Ph.D. candidate in Social Psychology at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio, Brazil) and researcher in Laboratory of Research in Social Psychology (L2PS) at the same university. She has a master’s degree in Social Psychology, MBA in Business Communication, and also MBA in Services Marketing. She has a bachelor’s degree in Social Communication, with a degree in Advertising. Research interests include social psychology, specifically persuasive communication, social influence, consumer behavior, and subjective well-being. Margherita  Dore  is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Italy. She is the author of Humour in Audiovisual Translation. Theories and Applications (2019). She edited one essay collection on translation practice, Achieving Consilience. Translation Theories and Practice (2016); a special issue of Status Quaestionis on audiovisual retranslation (2018); one special issue of the European Journal of Humour Research on multilingual humour and translation (2019) and (with Klaus Geyer) a special issue of InTRAlinea on dialect, translation and multimedia. She (co)authored several papers on humour in translated audiovisual texts and in a range of other contexts, including stand-up comedy. Marta Doroszuk  is a Ph.D. student in the Faculty of Philosophy, Institute of Psychology at Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland. She is a member of the CogNeS Doctoral School, an international PhD program in Social and Cognitive Neuroscience, and member of Centre for Social Cognitive Studies CSCS. Her main research interests are intergroup relations, facial expression of emotions, and cross-cultural communication. Pablo  Flores is a professor at the University of Granada—Faculty of Education (Spain). He holds a PhD in mathematics education. His research interest is mathematics education, and his priority lines of research are professional knowledge and development of mathematics teachers, as well as didactic resources for mathematics teaching, including humour. He has participated in various research projects in mathematics education, tutored doctoral theses on the subject and taught as a secondary school mathematics teacher. Since 1990, in the Faculty of Education, he has collaborated in the undergraduate training of mathematics teachers. Pablo Flores is (co)author of several national and international journal papers and materials to support the training of mathematics.

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Jennifer  Fluri  received her PhD in Geography and Women’s and Gender Studies from Pennsylvania State University. She is a professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Colorado Boulder and previously held an associate professorship in Geography and Women’s and Gender Studies at Dartmouth College. She is a political geographer, and her research focuses on gender, geopolitics, international aid/development, conflict and peace building in Afghanistan. She has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles and co-authored a book with Rachel Lehr titled The Carpetbaggers of Kabul and Other American-Afghan Entanglements, which was published in 2017 as part of the Geographies of Social Justice series. She is one of four co-­ authors of the 2017 book Feminist Spaces: Gender and Geography in a Global Context and co-author of Engendering Development: Capitalism and Inequality in the Global Economy, with Amy Trauger. Her research project focuses on Afghan women’s political influence and the diverse experiences of Afghan women’s political activism, funded by the National Science Foundation. Gülcan Garip  is Academic Lead in Psychology at the University of Derby and is interested in the self-management of health and illness, including the role of humour and laughter on well-being. Freda  Gonot-Schoupinsky  completed MSc Health Psychology and MBA and created the Laughie laughter prescription. She is interested in the potential of laughter and humour to benefit well-being and personal development. Dzintra Iliško,  Ph.D., is a professor in Institute of Humanities and Societal Sciences at Daugavpils University, Latvia. She is a co-editor of the international journal Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education and the author of more than 70 publications. She is a member of international networks, such as the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values (ISREV) and the European Society of Women in Theological Research (ESWTR). Her research interests are reorienting education towards the aim of sustainable education, sustainability competencies, transdisciplinary research, and inclusive education. Blessing Inya  is a lecturer at the Department of English and Literary Studies, Federal University Oye-Ekiti, and a prospective PhD student. She has her MA from the University of Ibadan. She has published book chapters and journal articles on lexico-semantics, gender discourse and humour. She is interested in discourse analysis and linguistic gender studies. Her paper on humour includes “Conversational Humour in a Nigerian Radio News Programme: A Case Study of Lati inu aka aka Biodun/Kayode”. European Journal of Humour Research 6 (4) 75–94 (Co-authored 2018).

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Onwu  Inya  is a lecturer in the Department of General Studies, Federal University of Technology, Akure. He obtained his BA in English from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in 2007 and an MA in English from the University of Ibadan in 2011. He then obtained PhD in English language from the University of Ibadan in 2018. He is interested in pragmatics, metaphor, legislative discourse and humour. His papers have appeared in Linguistik Online, Theory and Practice in Language Studies and in a number of edited volumes. His papers on humour in the Nigerian contexts include the following: “Pragmatics of Humour in a Nigerian University’s Departmental Chat Rooms”. In Taiwo, R., Odebunmi, A., and Adetunji, A. (eds) Analyzing Language and Humor in Online Communication. United States of America: IGI Global. pp.  190–206; (2016); “Conversational Humour in a Nigerian Radio News Programme: A case study of Lati inu aka aka Biodun/Kayode”. European Journal of Humour Research 6 (4) 75–94 (Co-authored 2018). Yesim Kakalic  is a PhD student at the University of Warwick. Her research focuses on the identity construction of German-Turkish adolescents with a particular interest in social integration. Yesim also has an MSc in Intercultural Communication from the University of Warwick and a Bachelor’s degree in International Business from Dokuz Eylül University. James L. Kelley  After receiving his education at three American universities, scholar James L. Kelley settled in to a life of researching and writing about, among other things, the fascinating lives of creative people. His first two books are A Realism of Glory: Lectures on Christology in the Works of Protopresbyter John Romanides (2009) and Anatomyzing Divinity: Studies in Science, Esotericism and Political Theology (2011). His third book, Orthodoxy, History, and Esotericism: New Studies (2016), is a history of esoteric influences on Western religious culture. Truong  Thi  Khanh Ha, Ph.D., is an associate professor in Faculty of Psychology, VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Her doctorate is from Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia, in 2006. One of her research interests currently focuses on improving the subjective well-being of Vietnamese children and adolescents. Heesun Kim  has completed her PhD in Management at the University of Auckland (New Zealand). She is positioned as an assistant professor in Management, Yonsei University Mirae Campus. Heesun’s research involves Korean workplaces and culture, humour and workplace relationships and has recently published in high-quality journals, such as Journal of Management Inquiry, Frontiers in Psychology and Asian Studies Review.

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Christopher  Marcin  Kowalski  is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. His main research interests are dark personality traits and rumination. Georg  Krammer, Ph.D., is University College Professor of Educational Measurement and Applied Psychometrics at the University College for Teacher Education Styria in Graz, Austria. Maria Magdalena Kwiatkowska,  Ph.D., student and research assistant in the Faculty of Christian Philosophy at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, Poland. Mariana Lazzaro-Salazar  (PhD in Linguistics) is a researcher at the Centro de Investigación de Estudios Avanzados, Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Postgrado, Universidad Católica del Maule (Chile), where she is also the vice-­ president of the Ethics Committee and a lecturer in the PhD Programmes of Education and of Psychology. She is also a research associate of the Language in the Workplace Project, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Mariana is a discourse analyst whose research has focused on healthcare communication. Some of her recent work includes Clinicians’ Narratives in the Era of Evidence-Based Practice and book chapters such as “Ethnographic methods” in De Gruyter Handbook of Methods in Pragmatics. Samuel Lins,  Ph.D., is Professor of Social Psychology and researcher of the Laboratory of Social Psychology in the Center for Psychology at the University of Porto (CPUP). He graduated in psychology and management, and his research interests include consumer psychology and behavior. His recent research projects are focused on how the group processes (social comparison, social identity, and social influence) trigger impulse buying. Aakriti Malik  is a clinical psychologist working at the Acute Inpatient Unit at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand. She specializes in working with adolescents, adults and families dealing with concerns on the anxiety, mood, addictions, trauma, grief, psychosomatic and the personality spectrum. In her work with clients in psychotherapy, Aakriti focuses on creating a safe, enriching and a non-pathological space for them to find their true potential. Additionally, she has worked as a lecturer teaching undergraduate students in academic institutions of India and Malaysia. A graduate of NIMHANS, Bangalore, India, Aakriti’s publications include articles and book chapters in Indian and international j­ournals on bullying, psychological management in oncology and exploring various themes in the client–therapist dyad in psychotherapy.

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Sadia  Malik, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Sargodha, Pakistan. Maria Aldina Marques  has a PhD in Language Sciences, specialization in Portuguese Linguistics (2000), with a dissertation on Aspects of the Functioning of Parliamentary Political Discourse—the enunciative organization in the Government Interpellation Debate. She is associate professor (with “agregação”) of the Department of Portuguese and Lusophone Studies at the Institute of Arts and Human Sciences of the University of Minho. She has several publications on Portuguese and foreign books and journals. Her main research interests, within a theoretical framework of linguistic discourse analysis, are political discourse, media discourse and scientific discourse. Rosanna Martin  is a psychologist and psychotherapist specializing in psychotherapy for children and adolescents. Since 2006, she has been a member of the Psychology Service Unit at Meyer Children’s Hospital. She cooperates with other departments such as Infectious Diseases, International Adoptions, Gastroenterology and Oncology. She is also interested in the treatment of somatic symptom disorders and eating disorders among 0–3-year-old children. Since 2020, she has been the coordinator of the Pediatric Hospital Psychology Services at Meyer Children’s Hospital. Lolo  Jacques  Mayer is an emerging young scholar, writer, actor and researcher. His interests are exploring the human mind, machine learning, 4IR, programming and smart technologies. Besides that he enjoys statistics, mechanics and the sciences. Additionally, he holds talks on social, cultural and racial issues and presents autoethnographical accounts in his talks against racism and discrimination. From 2018 to 2020, he was a member of Mensa in Germany. Luís Menezes  is a professor at the Polytechnic of Viseu—School of Education (Portugal). His main research interests are mathematics teaching practices and teacher education. Particularly, his interests pertain to the role of communication in the mathematics classroom and the processes of construction and knowledge transfer. He was part of the team that developed the national mathematics curriculum for basic education (2007). Having previously coordinated the “In-service Teacher Education Programme in Mathematics (PFCM—Viseu)”, a national project involving primary and middle school teachers, he has been coordinating, since 2015, the HUMAT research project “Humour in mathematics teaching”. Luís Menezes is (co)author of several articles published in national and international journals and curriculum materials to support mathematics teachers’ training.

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Kerry Mullan  is Associate Professor and Convenor of Languages at RMIT University. She teaches French language and culture, and sociolinguistics. Her main research interests are cross-cultural communication and differing interactional styles, particularly those of French and Australian English speakers. She also researches in the areas of intercultural pragmatics, discourse analysis, language teaching and conversational humour. Ginés Navarro-Carrillo,  Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Jaén, Spain. Felix-Kingsley  Obialo  is a Catholic priest, creativity practitioner and an adjunct of the University of Ibadan School of Business and Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. His research interests include creativity, innovation, change leadership, humour and entrepreneurship. Rudolf  M.  Oosthuizen received a BA degree (Cum Laude) from the University of Pretoria in 1992 and obtained a BA (Honours) in Psychology at the same university in 1993. In 1999, an MA degree in Industrial and Personnel Psychology was conferred on him by the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education. In 1999, he registered as Industrial Psychologist with the Health Professions Council of South Africa. In 2005, he completed a DLitt et Phil in Industrial and Organisational Psychology at the University of South Africa (Unisa). Currently, Rudolf is an associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Organisational Psychology at the University of South Africa and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Psychology and Counselling at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia.Rudolf is the manager of the MCom IOP programme, and he is responsible for the lecturing of honours subjects and the supervision of master’s and doctoral students. He has presented conference papers at national and international conferences and published articles in accredited scientific journals. His fields of interests are (1) career psychology, career development and management from an individual, group and organizational perspective in the twenty-­first century world of work; (2) positive psychology, with the focus on salutogenesis and well-being, sense of coherence, locus of control, selfefficacy, the hardy personality and learned resourcefulness; (3) employment relations and the improvement of the quality of employment relations in organizations and in society in general; and (4) the 4th Industrial Revolution (smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and algorithms). Oscar  Oviedo-Trespalacios,  Ph.D., is a strategic senior research fellow in the School of Psychology and Counselling at Queensland University of Technology (QUT, Australia) with expertise in applied psychology and human

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factors. Oviedo-Trespalacios has extensive experience in researching behaviour in international research projects in more than 30 countries, and his research is widely reported in international media, including the ABC, the New York Times, The Independent, the Men’s Health Magazine, and The Washington Post. Eva Boyanova Papazova,  Ph.D., is an associate professor at the Institute for Research in Education, Bulgaria. She has majored in Psychology at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, and defended her Ph.D. degree at the Institute of Psychology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. For over 15 years, she worked in the Department of Psychology at IPHS, BAS. Her main research interests are in the areas of developmental and educational psychology. She is an author and co-author of two monographs and more than 50 scientific publications in Bulgarian and English. Joonha Park,  Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Management, NUCB Business School, Japan. She has studied conceptions of what it means to be human across cultures and dehumanization in intergroup relations in her graduate years at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Before joining NUCB Graduate School, she worked as a research fellow at the University of Tokyo, where she investigated within-cultural differences in relational self in East Asia. Research interests include psychological well-being, moral values in crisis, multiculturalism and acculturation, dehumanization, and environmental psychology. Matthias Pauwels  is a cultural and political philosopher employed as a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Philosophy of North-West University. He conducts a book project on the entanglements of aesthetics and politics in the South African postcolony, parts of which have already been published as articles in both South African and international journals. Dr. Pauwels obtained his BA and MA degrees in Philosophy at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam (The Netherlands) and his DPhil degree in Philosophy at the University of Pretoria with a thesis on the relation between aesthetics and politics in the work of contemporary French philosopher Jacques Rancière. He also holds an MSc degree in Architecture from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium). Previously, Dr. Pauwels lived in the Netherlands for many years where he was co-founder and co-director of the independent theoretical research office BAVO. His key publications include the co-edited volumes Cultural Activism Today: The Art of Over-­ Identification (2007) and Urban Politics Now: Re-Imagining Democracy in the Neoliberal City (2007), as well as the coauthored monograph Too Active to Act: Cultural Activism after the End of History (2010).

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Corinna Peifer  is Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at the University of Lübeck, Germany. Her research is located at the interface between Work and Organizational Psychology and Psychophysiology, and she is particularly interested in flow experience, how it relates to stress and well-­ being, and in protective factors such as humour. Corinna Peifer is founding member of the European Flow-Researchers’ Network (EFRN), Country Representative Germany for the European Network for Positive Psychology (ENPP) and Vice-President of the German Association of Positive Psychology Research (DGPPF). Barbara Plester  is a senior lecturer in the Department of Management and International Business at the University of Auckland. Although this is a serious job, she laughs a lot because her research explores workplace humour, fun, play, organizational culture, food rituals, psychological well-being at work and critical perspectives of organizational life. Barbara belongs to the Organization Studies group and teaches Organizational Behavior, Organizational Theory and Human Resource Management (HRM) infused with humour stories, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She serves on the University of Auckland Education Committee—concerned with teaching and learning in her university. Prior to her academic career, Barbara worked in Publishing and Information Technology companies and has practical experience in Sales, Marketing and HRM, where she was once accused of laughing too much at work! Radosław  Rogoza,  Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, Poland. He is the author of over 50 published papers, principal investigator of two research grants, and recipient of international awards granted by the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences and the Association for Research in Personality. His research interests include personality and individual differences, especially narcissistic traits within the dark side of personality. Julie  Aitken  Schermer, Ph.D. (formerly Harris), is a professor in the Departments of Management and Organizational Studies and Psychology at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. She is a section editor of the journal Personality and Individual Differences, and is the past-president of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences. Stephanie Schnurr  is an associate professor at the University of Warwick. Her main research interest is professional communication with a particular focus on leadership discourse. Stephanie has published widely on the multiple functions of humour, identity construction, the role of culture, and gender in

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a range of professional and medical contexts. She is also the author of The Language of Leadership Narratives (with Jonathan Clifton and Dorien van de Mieroop, 2020), Language and Culture at Work (with Olga Zayts, 2017), Exploring Professional Communication (2013) and Leadership Discourse at Work (2009). Ayşe  Aslı  Sezgin is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Sciences at Çukurova University, Faculty of Communication. Ayşe Aslı Sezgin completed her PhD at Gazi University, Ankara/Turkey. Her research interest lies in the area of new media, communication technologies, social media, political communication, media literacy, news literacy, media and humour. Rupak Shrestha  is a PhD Candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder. He researches primarily questions of sovereignty, territory, ethnicity in relation to borders, (im)mobilites and placemaking. He is interested in understanding how certain populations are rendered powerless through state mechanisms, and in the ways in which the rendered powerless navigate, counteract and resist the dispossession of their bodies, land and memory in their everyday lives. The central node of his research lies in understanding how sovereignty is realized every day. For his dissertation, he is researching the processes through which Tibetans-in-exile exercise and negotiate political life in Nepal through engagements with politics of indigeneity, against the intensification of China’s politics of development and practices of extra-territorial sovereignty. He is also engaged with visual methodologies to emphasize other ways of seeing, knowing and being in the world. Jennifer Tehan Stanley  is Associate Professor of Psychology at University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, USA. She is an experimental psychologist who studies ageing and emotions and has published and presented on age differences in humor styles. Liat Steir-Livny  is a senior lecturer in the Department of Cultural Studies, Creation and Production at Sapir College, and a tutor and course coordinator in the Cultural Studies MA program and the Department of Literature, Language, and the Arts at the Open University of Israel. Her research focuses on the changing commemoration of the Holocaust in Israel from the 1940s until the present. It combines Holocaust studies, Humor Studies, Memory Studies, cultural Studies, Trauma studies and Film studies. She has authored numerous articles and five books: Two Faces in the Mirror: The Representation of Holocaust Survivors in Israeli Cinema (Eshkolot-­Magness, 2009, Hebrew); Let the Memorial Hill Remember: The New Commemoration of the Holocaust in

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Israeli Popular Culture (Resling, 2014, Hebrew); Is it O.K to Laugh about It? Holocaust Humour, Satire and Parody in Israeli Culture (2017); One Trauma, Two Perspectives, Three Years (The Herzl Institute for the Study of Zionism, University of Haifa, 2018, Hebrew); Remaking Holocaust Memory: Documentary Cinema by Third-Generation survivors in Israel (2019). Jorge Torres-Marín,  Ph.D., is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Research Methods in Behavioral Sciences at the University of Granada, Spain. Maria  Nicoleta  Turliuc  is a professor at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași. She is the director of the Well-being, Stress and Resilience Laboratory, and director of the Centre for Personal Development and Professional Formation. She obtained the “Andrew Mellon” postdoctoral grant offered by Maison des sciences de l’homme (MSH, Paris, France) and Council of American Overseas Research Centers (Washington D.C.). She has authored 5 books, coordinated 6 volumes and published more than 50 book chapters in the country and abroad. Also, she is the author of more than 50 articles that have appeared in important international journals (e.g., Journal of Happiness Studies, Journal of Family Psychology, International Journal of Stress Management, Journal of Loss and Trauma, Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, etc.). Jennifer  R.  Turner  is a doctoral student in the Adult Development and Aging programme in the Psychology Department at University of Akron (Akron, Ohio, USA). She is interested in the emotional and social lives of adults across the lifespan. Laura  Vagnoli is a psychologist in Education and Development at the Paediatric Psychology Services of Meyer Children’s Hospital in Florence (Italy). She’s a co-founder of the international research group Healthcare Clowning Research International Network (H-CRIN+). She is a member of International Society for Humour Studies (ISHS) and co-Editor-in-­Chief of the Italian Journal of Humour Research (Rivista Italiana di Studi sull’Umorismo, RISU). She has published extensively on the use of non-pharmacological techniques to reduce pain and anxiety in hospitalized children. Floriano  Viseu is a professor at the University of Minho—Institute of Education, Braga (Portugal). Inasmuch as his professional activities are concerned, he is a teacher and trainer in undergraduate training courses for mathematics teachers. He conducts research on mathematics teacher education, didactic knowledge of mathematics and the use of technological materials in

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the teaching and learning of mathematics topics. He has tutored doctoral theses in these research areas. He is (co)author of national mathematics curricula, as well as of textbooks on mathematics. He is (co)author of several papers that have appeared in national and international journals, and he has presented talks at national and international conferences. Tatiana  Volkodav,  Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Pedagogy and Psychology at Kuban State University in Krasnodar, Russia. She has a background in cross-cultural communication and psychological counselling, two professions that she still pursues alongside academic research. Her new research project concerns the individual- and country-level predictors of love, mate attraction, and physical attractiveness in sex/gender and cross-cultural contexts. Anna  Włodarczyk, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the School of Psychology at the Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile.  She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of the Basque Country, and completed postdoctoral fellowships from Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH), focusing on psychosocial effects of participation in collective gatherings and collective action from the cross-cultural perspective. Research interests cover: coping and emotional regulation, posttraumatic growth, political psychology, social identity, intergroup relations, gender and positive psychology. Tuğba  Yolcu is an associate professor at Tarsus University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Political Science and Public Administration. Her research interest lies in the area of Turkish political life, constitution and political institutions, politics and state philosophy, and political culture.

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 8.1 Fig. 20.1 Fig. 20.2 Fig. 20.3 Fig. 20.4 Fig. 20.5 Fig. 21.1 Fig. 23.1

Fig. 23.2

Fig. 24.1

Humor styles and self-esteem means for each country sample. (Note that self-­esteem scores were multiplied by a value of 10) Humour in cultural transitions Recession by Asukwo (n.d.). Credit: BUSINESSDAY Position in adult education  Employment status of participants in adult education Duration of activity in adult education Relevance of humour in adult education Functions of humour in adult education Depiction of the main humour functions and their relationship with Jakobson’s model of communication (Günther, 2003, 18) Everyday humour as expressed by laughter; a theoretical framework with examples. Note 1. From the definition for humour as a character strength: Liking to laugh and tease; bringing smiles to other people; seeing the light side; making (not necessarily telling) jokes (Peterson & Seligman, 2004, p. 30). 2. Confirmed humour strength correlates (Niemiec, 2019). Source: FGS (from thesis notes, 2020). Humour–laughter–affect (HuLA) model. Note. The original version (Gonot-­Schoupinsky et al., 2020a) includes notes giving more details. Arrows show given or potential bi-directional cause and effect relationships The Humour-Flow Model

25 122 166 390 390 391 392 405 422

463

470 485

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List of Tweets

Tweet 5.1 Tweet 5.2 Tweet 5.3 Tweet 5.4 Tweet 5.5 Tweet 5.6 Tweet 5.7 Tweet 5.8 Tweet 5.9 Tweet 5.10 Tweet 5.11

Resignation of CHP’s Leader The match-fixing scandal in Fenerbahçe Football Club Syrian Migration Wave Gezi Park Protests Increase of inflation March 31st power outage July 15th coup attempt Referendum for a constitutional amendment Economic crises Shopping bag sale Covid-19 pandemic

102 103 103 104 104 105 105 105 106 106 106

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List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3 Table 2.4 Table 2.5 Table 2.6 Table 3.1 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 8.1 Table 8.2 Table 8.3 Table 8.4 Table 21.1 Table 21.2

Demographic statistics for the samples across 15 countries 21 Scale descriptives for the four humor style scales and selfesteem for each country 22 Descriptive statistics for the humor styles and self-esteem measures for the entire sample 23 Correlations between the humor styles, self-esteem, and covariates of gender and age 24 Correlations between the humor styles and self-esteem for each country26 Predicting self-esteem across 15 countries 32 The speaker/target/recipient interplay 49 The social crises by themes in Turkey (2010–2020) 100 Connor-Davidson resilience scale (Connor & Davidson, 2003, p. 78)101 Demographic Characteristics of Participants 153 Bivariate Analysis of Gender (Male and Female) Across Different Items of ‘Suffering and Smiling’ 157 Bivariate Analysis of Educational Attainment (WAEC, First Degree/HND, Master’s and PhD) Across Different Items of‘ Suffering and Smiling’ 158 Bivariate Analysis of Religion (Christianity, Islam and African Traditional Religion) Across Different Items of ‘Suffering and Smiling’161 Categories and subcategories of analysis (authors’ own source) 427 Frequency (%) of teachers on their assessment regarding their sense of humour, according to nationality (n = 1088)427

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Table 21.3

List of Tables

Means of teachers’ agreement on items about a person’s sense of humour, according to nationality (n = 1088)428 Table 21.4 Means of teachers’ agreement on items about what humour is, according to nationality (n = 1088)428 Table 21.5 Frequency (%) of teachers on the compatibility of mathematics teaching with the use of humour, according to nationality (n = 1088)429 Table 21.6 Means of teachers’ agreement on items about the compatibility of mathematics teaching with the use of humour, according to nationality (n = 1088)429 Table 21.7 Frequency (%) of the use of humour in lessons to teach mathematics, according to nationality (n = 1088)430 Table 21.8 Means of teachers’ agreement on items about the aim of using humour to teach mathematics, according to nationality 430 Table 21.9 Analysis of accounts of the use of humour 431 Table 21.10 Categories of analysis of the use of humour in the mathematics classroom435 Table 22.1 Adolescents’ attendance of the amateur dubbing workshop 447 Table 22.2 Adolescents’ reason(s) for attending the amateur dubbing workshop for the first time 448 Table 22.3 Adolescents’ feeling(s) during the amateur dubbing workshop 448 Table 22.4 Adolescents’ character choice and preferences 449 Table 22.5 Adolescents’ evaluation of the amateur dubbing workshop 451 Table 22.6 Adolescents’ limitations and problems experienced during the amateur dubbing workshop 451

1 Editorial: The Handbook of Humour Research—Psychological, Cultural and Social Perspectives Elisabeth Vanderheiden and Claude-Hélène Mayer

After all, humour is an essentially human phenomenon and, as such, enables people to distance themselves from everything and everyone, and thus also from themselves, in order to take full control of themselves. Viktor Frankl (“Schließlich ist der Humour ein wesentlich menschliches Phänomen und ermöglicht als solches dem Menschen, sich von allem und jedem und so denn auch von sich selbst zu distanzieren, um sich vollends in die Hand zu bekommen” (Frankl, 2015, 125; translation by Elisabeth Vanderheiden))

1.1 Introduction Humour has been the subject of intensive research from various scientific perspectives for many years (see Ruch, 1998/2007; Martin, 2007; McGhee, 2010; Proyer et  al., 2012). It has been shown that humour can have a E. Vanderheiden (*) Global Institute for Transcultural Research, Römerberg, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany e-mail: [email protected] C.-H. Mayer Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät, Europa Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Vanderheiden, C.-H. Mayer (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78280-1_1

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far-­reaching influence in various fields of life and fields of action. Humour can make a decisive contribution to improving social interactions and solving problems (see Führ, 2008). In work contexts, it can reduce feelings of stress and have a positive effect on the perception of leadership and management tasks (see Putz & Breuer, 2017). In the medical context, the effect of humour has been researched primarily in connection with pain therapies, severe diseases and palliative medicine. Previous studies have shown the positive effects, for example, in anxiety and pain reduction, and its positive influence on rehabilitation (see Dionigi et al., 2013; Yun et al., 2015). Additionally, humour strengthens mental resistance and is “an extremely effective technique for processing emotions” (Ruch & Hofmann, 2015) from negative to rather positive experiences. In educational contexts, humour can have a decisive effect in positively shaping the learning atmosphere, increasing learning success or strengthening social relationships (Löschmann, 2015; Siebert, 2000, 2012, 2019, 2021; Siebert & Rohs, 2017). However, how humour is perceived and understood, what its roots are, how it is used, what its boundaries and taboos are and how people react to it, all depend upon various factors and contexts such as sex, age, family status, politics, religion, values and other social, cultural and psychological aspects (Alharthi, 2014; Davis, 2013; Mireault & Reddy, 2016; Yue et al., 2016). This handbook is intended to be a primary reference book on humour from social, cultural and psychological perspectives, particularly emphasising transdisciplinary and multicultural views. The aim of this book is to synthesise empirical, research-based and theoretical approaches to humour in cultural contexts and across cultures to provide a comprehensible strength-based perspective on humour. Humour is explored as a coping mechanism in critical and challenging situations across the lifespan, and from cultural as well as globalised theoretical, empirical and conceptual viewpoints.

1.2 Contemporary Humour Research In this book, the reader will find conceptual theoretical and empirical chapters on humour in contemporary, Covid-19 and future-orientated research. It brings new original research on humour from transdisciplinary and transcultural perspectives. Additionally, it focuses on humour as a resource from socio-cultural and psychological viewpoints and includes authors from a variety of cultures, social contexts and countries. Further, it presents new research findings and provides new directions for future humour research. Different chapters also refer to recent research on humour in the context of the volatile,

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uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) times and the global Covid-19 pandemic. Completely new impulses for humour research arise from the Covid-19 pandemic because humour has proven to be a central resource for many people in the context of this pandemic, especially in the digital space. People use humour in a variety of ways to manage their anxiety about the pandemic and its impact, as evidenced by recent research (e.g. Ceuterick, 2020; Chaturvedi, 2020; Dynel, 2013; Fadhil Ali & Hidayat Ahmed, 2020; Ridanpää, 2020; Torres et  al., 2020; Nasreen, 2021; Glaveanu & de Saint Laurent, 2021; Walker & McCabe, 2021). For example, terror management theory (Mayer & Vanderheiden, 2021, in press) suggests that, particularly in the face of reminders of death or fear of death, humour can function as a natural and often effective means of regulating stressful or traumatic experiences (Long & Greenwood, 2013), showing itself to be culturally variable (Ma-Kellams & Blascovich, 2012; Wolfe & Tubi, 2018). Humour also proves to be an efficient antidote to hopelessness in times of pandemic (Saricali et al., 2020). It is likely to promote the transmission of positive emotions, support distancing from negative events and promote social cohesion (Amici, 2020). Given the huge and far-reaching impact of the pandemic, humour is capable of proving not only to be an effective coping strategy in the crisis but also effective in reducing stress and maintaining emotional well-being (Hussein & Aljamili, 2020). However, the expressions of humour that emerge during the pandemic manifest not only as individual coping strategies but also as part of critical discourse (Adipitoyo et al., 2020) and as political expressions of resistance to manifest structural injustices and inequalities (Outley et al., 2020).

1.3 Insights Into the Volume’s Content and Its Contribution This volume adds to the literature on humour from different disciplinary perspectives with special views from psychological, cultural, social and pedagogical perspectives, and takes various theoretical and methodological standpoints into account while drawing from a variety of focus points. The parts and chapters of this book aim at providing new perspectives on humour from different cultural, professional and disciplinary research perspectives and across socio-cultural contexts.

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In the following, we briefly introduce the content of the parts and chapters of the book to provide an overview of the varied subjects covered. The book is divided into six parts, containing 25 chapters in all. The parts are the following: • • • • • •

Part 1 Humour in Cultural Contexts Part 2 Humour in History and Politics Part 3 Humour in the Workplace Part 4 Humour over the Lifespan Part 5 Humour in Pedagogical Contexts Part 6 Humour in the Context of Medicine, Therapy and Counselling.

All of the parts of the book contain various chapters which will be briefly described in the following paragraphs of this introduction. Part 1 comprises seven chapters dedicated to the focus on Humour in Culture Contexts. In chapter “Predicting Self-Esteem Using Humor Styles: A Cross-Cultural Study”, Julie Aitken Schermer, Eva Boyanova Papazova, Maria Magdalena Kwiatkowska, Radosław Rogoza, Joonha Park, Christopher Marcin Kowalski, Marija Branković, Marta Doroszuk, Truong Thi Khanh Ha, Dzintra Iliško, Sadia Malik, Samuel, Ginés Navarro-Carrillo, Oscar Oviedo-Trespalacios, Jorge Torres-­Marín, Anna Włodarczyk, Sibele Aquino, Tatiana Volkodav and Georg Krammer explore the question of whether certain humour styles predict self-­esteem in a cross-cultural study over 15 countries. The authors discuss the results both within countries and across the samples. These include a discussion of how humour styles correlate with mental health indicators and an explanation of the way in which understanding the relationship between humour style profiles and well-being across countries can add to the global understanding of individual differences. In chapter “The Use of Humour to Deal with Uncomfortable Moments in Interaction: A Cross-Cultural Approach”, Kerry Mullan and Christine Béal address conversational humour with a particular focus on awkward or uncomfortable moments in interaction. It sheds light on such moments in terms of important relational and interactional functions, such as reinforcing solidarity, challenging power dynamics and/or coping, by drawing on French and Australian English speakers. In doing so, the authors examine what is perceived as uncomfortable in each language culture and, second, how humour is used by both French and Australians to deal with these uncomfortable moments. From a positive psychology perspective, Yesim Kakalic and Stephanie Schnurr discuss humour as a coping mechanism for challenging situations.

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They place young people of German–Turkish origin at the centre of their study and examine how they use humour as a strategy to cope with and challenge dominant discourses on social integration in Germany. With the help of humour, it can therefore be possible to talk about the otherwise unspeakable but also to jointly make sense of one’s own experiences in a difficult context and to challenge, resist and possibly overcome difficulties in social integration. A positive psychological point of view and the reference to the Turkish cultural area returns in the following chapter when Ayşe Aslı Sezgin and Tuğba Yolcu examine in more detail the extent to which humour can be a source of resilience, especially in social crises. To this end, the authors explore the question of what significance humour has taken on in the events that have caused the social crises in Turkey. The authors focus, in particular, on crisis-­ related political social events in Turkey after 2010 that were shared on Twitter. Their research results clarify when and what Turkish society laughed about during these events. Mariana Lazzaro-Salazar discusses in her chapter humour as a discursive resource that helps people cope with difficult situations. The author draws on a study she conducted with nineteen migrant doctors in public health facilities in central and northern regions of Chile. In doing so, she reflects on the role of humour not only in the migration experience and in the work context but also in culturally different settings. Two chapters take a closer look at humour in the Nigerian context. First, Felix-Kingsley Obialo examines the extent to which humour is used as a coping strategy in Nigeria. The author brings an African perspective of positive psychology to humour research. He explicitly examines three different cultural perspectives (Igbo, Ogoni and Yoruba culture), with regard to the specific use of humour in the respective socio-cultural milieus as a creative escape and coping strategy. In the process, humour is revealed not only as a coping strategy in all spheres of Nigerian life but also as a political weapon offering relief from bad governance and a timely means of survival in the face of unemployment. The chapter “Interrogating the Phenomenon of Suffering and Smiling by Nigerians: A Mixed Methods Study” by Onwu and Blessing Inya examines humour as a demonstration of resilience and agency by Nigerians in the face of personal and especially socio-political problems caused by failures of the political elite. At the same time, the results show how people manage to restore their own agency in the face of these failures and take control of their own destiny. The chapter concludes that the phenomenon of suffering and smiling as a sign of resilience and agency could explain the cheerful, optimistic attitude of Nigerians despite multiple problems.

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Part 2 is dedicated, in four chapters, to a focus on Humour in History and Politics. In her chapter “Humour as a Defense Mechanism: Dismantling Holocaust Symbols and Icons in Israeli Culture”, Liat Steir-Livny explores the extent to which the traditional view, according to which Holocaust humour, satire and parody were considered blasphemous in Israeli culture, is complemented by a new alternative-subversive perspective, which assumes that texts that combine the Holocaust with humour, satire and parody are essential facets of this new memory. The author’s concern is to analyse the way in which Holocaust humour is a much-needed defence mechanism, and it is a way in which many Israeli Jews dismantle the factors underlying fear. The use of humour in the face of political insecurity, conflict and displacement in Nepal and Afghanistan is discussed from a geopolitical perspective by Rupak Shrestha and Jennifer Fluri in their chapter “Geopolitics of Humour and Development in Nepal and Afghanistan”. Humour is described by the authors as a tool to create shared spaces of connection and community and as a method to counter oppression, structural and physical violence and identity-­ based marginalisation. In her chapter, the author Maria Aldina Marques devotes herself to a close analysis of the point of view in the analysis of nonsense humour in the Portuguese context using Charaudeau’s approach of a communicative theory of humour. Her analyses focus on the journalistic humour columns of Ricardo Araújo Pereira, published in Visão, a Portuguese weekly magazine, which can be considered the paradigm of a modern form of humour in Portugal. In chapter “White Laughter, Black Pain? On the Comic and Parodic Enactment of Racial–Colonial Stereotypes”, Matthias Pauwels explores the potential of comic and parodic representations of racial and colonial stereotypes in order to subsequently critique and defuse such stereotypes. To this end, he uses brief references to comic and parodic enactments of racial stereotypes from various cultural genres—from theatre and film to stand-up comedy and political satire—and in various socio-political contexts. For analysis, he proposes four explanatory models based on various concepts and mechanisms from psychoanalytic, aesthetic and cultural theory, namely overidentification, psychic discordance, purification and defamiliarisation. Part 3 focuses on Humour in the Workplace with the following three chapters. First, the authors Barbara Plester and Heesun Kim in chapter “Risky Business: Humour, Hierarchy, and Harmony in New Zealand and South Korean Workplaces” explore the influence of hierarchy on humour interactions, looking at two different cultural contexts, New Zealand and South

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Korea. The authors examine who can and cannot be funny at work and how harmony is maintained depending on the organisational context. In chapter “Resilience as a Moderator Between Workplace Humour and Well-being at Work, a Positive Psychology Perspective”, Rudolf M Oosthuizen starts from the perspective of PP1.0 with the assumption that humour can be considered a central component of resilience. He discusses in his chapter to what extent resilience has a moderating role in relation to adaptive humour styles (self-reinforcing and affiliative humour) and to what extent this has a particular impact on well-being at work. Last but not least, Claude-Hélène Mayer and Lolo Jacques Mayer explore “Humour as a Coping Strategy of Employees in Remote Workspaces and Social Media Communication During the Covid-19”. They focus their chapter on the humour used in the remote work context of colleagues working in a counselling organisation in South Africa during the first four weeks of a hard lockdown in March and April 2020. They analyse the humour used in professional WhatsApp communication by those colleagues. They elaborate that humour functions as a coping strategy in multiple ways: in coping with complex work-life challenges, in the form of an individual change from professional to wild, as humour about the new lifestyle, in the form of humour and marital relations during social isolation and as humour in relation to Covid-19 healing. Part 4 contains four chapters exploring Humour Over the Lifespan. Doris Bergen opens the humour research journey through the life course with an analysis of humour as a resource for young children. She identifies important milestones and cornerstones in early childhood humour development. She makes clear that humour is both a highly relevant factor in children’s positive development and an important resource for children when they encounter frightening, painful or unusual circumstances. In this respect, humour is to be understood as a resource for children that helps them to open up their everyday world, but at the same time enables them to deal with traumatic experiences in their lives. Maria Nicoleta Turliuc, Octav Sorin Candel and Lorena Antonovici pick up the thread and draw attention to humour as a valuable resource for the formation, maintenance and success of a romantic relationship. In their chapter “Humour in Romantic Relationships”, the authors provide an overview of the classic and recent findings on humour as an important component in the formation and functionality of human romantic relationships. In their chapter “The Benefit of a Lifespan Developmental Approach for Understanding Humour Appreciation and Function Across” Jennifer T. Stanley and Jennifer R. Turner examine individual and group differences in

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the appreciation and understanding of humour and how these differences relate to the function of humour. In addition, the authors explore the function of humour and show how these changes manifest across the lifespan and differ across cultures. James L. Kelley speaks in his text about the innovative musician, producer and songwriter Walter Becker (1950–2017) who wielded humour to distance himself from a traumatic childhood and to bind himself to a peer group that shared his skewed, wry worldview. Kelley uses a psychobiographic perspective, employing Eysenck’s psychology of humour, as well as various social theorists’ assessments of romantic irony. PP2.0 is called upon to frame the chapter’s discussion section, in which it is concluded that Becker was able to mitigate the self–other corrosion that emanated from his hipster–satirist persona by integrating into his art the more earnest, sincere sentiments that sprang from life. Part 5 examines the role of Humour in Pedagogy in two chapters. In her chapter, Elisabeth Vanderheiden focuses on humour in the context of adult education. She presents current research results on the topic of humour in adult education in Germany. The results are based on an online survey in which trainers, teachers and planners in adult education were interviewed. She pays particular attention to the questions of why people working in adult education consider humour important, what function they think humour can fulfil in adult education, what is it that changes with the use of humour in this context and what they attribute this to. In chapter “Humour in Mathematics Education: A Study in Portugal and Spain”, Luís Menezes, Pablo Flores, Floriano Viseu, Susana Amante and Ana Maria Costa examine humour in the school context of two countries. Portuguese and Spanish mathematics teachers teaching in different grades were interviewed. It was found that most teachers indicate that they appreciate humour and recognise its pedagogical relevance. The study also shows differences between Portuguese and Spanish teachers. Part 6 discussing Humour in the Context of Medicine, Therapy and Counselling comprises four chapters. “The Positive Effect of Humour and Amateur Dubbing on Hospitalised Adolescents” is the focus of the chapter by Margherita Dore, Laura Vagnoli, Francesca Addarii, Elena Amore and Rosanna Martin. They use humour and amateur dubbing as a non-pharmacological technique to help children and adolescents who have had to be hospitalised during their development. In their chapter, Freda Gonot-Schoupinsky and Gülcan Garip call for approaching humour from a third wave of PP (PP3.0) perspective in order to do justice to the complexity of humour in a new way. They also encourage a

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more significant role for laughter, which is currently seen as a by-product of humour within positive psychology. They also explore the multiple benefits of humour and laughter in different cultural contexts, including during lockdown. Marek Bartzik and Corinna Peifer focus on the relationship between humour, stress and flow experience in the workplace. Since the specific interaction of humour and flow and their buffering effect on stress can be illustrated in a transactional model of stress and flow, the authors present a “humour-flow model”. This model illustrates that the use of humour and the active support of the flow experience can lead to positive outcomes on an individual and organisational level. The chapter by Aakriti Malik sheds light on the question of what functions humour can have in psychotherapeutic settings, and how it manifests and affects the different processes of psychotherapy. At the same time, however, she directs her attention to the functional as well as dysfunctional effects of humour and its manifestation in various psychopathologies. The chapters of this book aim at contributing to new discourses in humour research from transdisciplinary, cultural and transcultural perspectives. In times of crisis, extreme challenges and socio-economic and political shifts and pressure, it is believed that humour is very important for mental health and well-being and for managing, evaluating and transforming situations in a positive and constructive way. Humour supports human beings in building and maintaining positive relationships and in interacting in distance and close connectedness on individual, organisational and societal levels. We wish all readers new individual, socio-cultural and positive insights into the topic of humour research in contemporary and Covid-19 perspectives. Acknowledgements  We thank all of the authors of this book for their insightful and contemporary contributions. Many thanks also go to Palgrave for their professional support and guidance.

References Adipitoyo, S., Damanhuri, A., & Wijoyanto, D. (2020). Humor Critical Discourse Covid-19 Countermeasures. Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Arts and Humanities (IJCAH 2020). https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201201.172 Alharthi, A. (2014). Humour and Culture. International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies, 1(3), 1–13.

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Amici, P. (2020). Humor in the Age of COVID-19 Lockdown: An Explorative Qualitative Study. Psychiatr Danub 2020, 32(Suppl 1), 15–20. Ceuterick, M. (2020). An Affirmative Look at a Domesticity in Crisis: Women, Humour and Domestic Labour During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Feminist Media Studies, 20(6), 896–901. https://doi.org/10.1080/1468077 7.2020.1789396 Chaturvedi, S. K. (2020). Covid-19, Coronavirus and Mental Health Rehabilitation at Times of Crisis. Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Mental Health, 7, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40737-­020-­00162-­z Davis, J. (2013). Humour and Its Cultural Context. Humour in Chinese Life and Culture, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.5790/hongkong/9789888139231.003.0001 Dionigi, A., Sangiorgi, D., & Flangini, R. (2013). Clown Intervention to Reduce Preoperative Anxiety in Children and Parents: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Health Psychology, 19(3), 369–380. https://doi. org/10.1177/1359105312471567 Dynel, M. (2013). Developments in Linguistic Humour Theory. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Fadhil Ali, S., & Hidayat Ahmed, A. (2020). Black Humour in COVID-19 as a Comic and Irreverent Analysis. Journal of the University of Garmian, 7(3), 2020. https://doi.org/10.24271/garmian.2070323 Frankl, V. (2015). Der Mensch vor der Frage nach dem Sinn (27th ed.). Piper Verlag. Führ, M. (2008). Some Aspects of Form and Function of Humour in Adolescence. Humour  – International Journal of Humour Research, 14(1), 25–36. Retrieved February 17, 2019, from https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.14.1.25 Glaveanu, V., & de Saint Laurent, C.  M. (2021). Social Media Responses to the Pandemic: What Makes a Coronavirus Meme Creative. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.569987 Hussein, A., & Aljamili, L. (2020). COVID-19 Humor in Jordanian Social Media: A Socio-semiotic Approach. Heliyon, 6(12), e05696. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. heliyon.2020.e05696 Long, C., & Greenwood, D. (2013). Joking in the Face of Death: A Terror Management Approach to Humor Production. Humor, 26(4). https://doi. org/10.1515/humor-­2013-­0012 Löschmann, M. (2015). Humour im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Peter Lang. https:// doi.org/10.3726/978-­3-­653-­05839-­0 Ma-Kellams, C., & Blascovich, J. (2012). Enjoying Life in the Face of Death: East– West Differences in Responses to Mortality Salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(5), 773–786. Martin, R. (2007). Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach. Elsevier Academic Press. Mayer, C.-H., & Vanderheiden, E. (2021, in press). Women Experiencing and Transforming Terror and Death Anxiety During Covid-19. Special Issue in The Humanistic Psychologist, Women in Humanistic Psychology.

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McGhee, P. E. (2010). Humor: The Lighter Path to Resilience and Health. AuthorHouse. Mireault, G., & Reddy, V. (2016). Humour in Infants. Springer International Publishing. Nasreen, Z. (2021). ‘Have You Not Got a Sense of Humour?’: Unpacking Masculinity Through Online Sexist Jokes During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Society and Culture in South Asia, 7(1), 148–154. https://doi.org/10.1177/2393861720977632 Outley, C., Bowen, S., & Pinckney, H. (2020). Laughing While Black: Resistance, Coping and the Use of Humor as a Pandemic Pastime Among Blacks. Leisure Sciences, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400.2020.1774449 Proyer, R. T., Ruch, W., & Chen, G. (2012). Gelotophobia: Life Satisfaction and Happiness Across Cultures. Humor, 25(1), 23–40. Putz, D., & Breuer, K. (2017). The Stress-Reducing Effect of Employee‘s and Supervisor‘s Positive Humour at Work. Wirtschaftspsychologie, 19(3), 39–50. Ridanpää, J. (2020). Crisis and Humourous Stories: Laughing at the Times of COVID-19. Literary Geographies, 6(2), 296–301. Ruch, W. (Ed.) (1998/2007). The Sense of Humor: Explorations of a Personality Characteristic. Humor Research Series, Vol. 3. Mouton de Gruyter. Ruch, W., & Hofmann, J. (2015). Fostering humour. In C. Proctor (Ed.), Positive Psychology Interventions in Practice. Springer. Saricali, M., Satici, S. A., Satici, B., et al. (2020). Fear of COVID-19, Mindfulness, Humor, and Hopelessness: A Multiple Mediation Analysis. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-­020-­00419-­5 Siebert, H. (2000). Didaktisches Handeln in der Erwachsenenbildung. Didaktik aus konstruktivistischer Sicht. Luchterhand. Siebert, H. (2021). Innere Bilder, Heiterkeit, Ermöglichung. wb-web | Einfach gute Weiterbildung. Retrieved 7 July 2021, from https://wb-web.de/material/lehrenlernen/innere-bilder-heiterkeit-ermoglichung.html. Siebert, H. (2012). Die heitere Vernunft des Humours. Wochenschau Verlag. Siebert, H. (2019). Didaktisches Handeln in der Erwachsenenbildung: Didaktik aus konstruktivistischer Sicht (8th ed.). ZIEL – Zentrum für interdisziplinäres erfahrungsorientiertes Lernen GmbH. Siebert, H., & Rohs, M. (2017). Lernen und Bildung Erwachsener. Bertelsmann, W. Torres, J. M., Collantes, L. M., Astrero, E. T., Millan, A. R., & Gabriel, C. M. (2020). Pandemic Humor: Inventory of the Humor Scripts Produced During the COVID-19 Outbreak (June 30, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3679473 or https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3679473 Walker, G., & McCabe, T. (2021). Psychological Defence Mechanisms During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Series. The European Journal of Psychiatry, 35(1), 41–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpsy.2020.10.005 Wolfe, S., & Tubi, A. (2018). Terror Management Theory and Mortality Awareness: A Missing Link in Climate Response Studies? Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.566

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Yue, X., Jiang, F., Lu, S., & Hiranandani, N. (2016). To Be Or Not To Be Humourous? Cross Cultural Perspectives on Humour. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. https://doi. org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01495 Yun, O., Kim, S., & Jung, D. (2015). Effects of a Clown–Nurse Educational Intervention on the Reduction of Postoperative Anxiety and Pain Among Preschool Children and Their Accompanying Parents in South Korea. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 30(6), e89–e99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedn.2015.03.003

Part I Humour in Cultural Contexts

2 Predicting Self-Esteem Using Humor Styles: A Cross-Cultural Study Julie Aitken Schermer, Eva Boyanova Papazova, Maria Magdalena Kwiatkowska, Radosław Rogoza, Joonha Park, Christopher Marcin Kowalski, Marija Branković, Marta Doroszuk, Truong Thi Khanh Ha, Dzintra Iliško, Sadia Malik, Samuel Lins, Ginés NavarroCarrillo, Oscar Oviedo-Trespalacios, Jorge Torres-Marín, Anna Włodarczyk, Sibele Dias de Aquino, Tatiana Volkodav, and Georg Krammer

2.1 Introduction 2.1.1 Humor Styles Humor research has examined models such as humor production, humor appreciation, and humor assessments. Martin et al. (2003) developed a model and a scale of humor, which conceptualizes humor as an individual difference

J. A. Schermer (*) Department of Management and Organizational Studies, Faculty of Social Science, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] E. B. Papazova Department of Psychology at IPHS-BAS, Sofia, Bulgaria M. M. Kwiatkowska Faculty of Christian Philosophy at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Warsaw, Poland © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Vanderheiden, C.-H. Mayer (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78280-1_2

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style, akin to personality. In their model, Martin et al. (2003) proposed four humor styles that, in their opinion, capture how many people use humor every day. The four humor styles are distinguished by two dimensions: focus (or target of the humor) on the self versus other individuals, and an affect

R. Rogoza Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Warsaw, Poland J. Park NUCB Business School, Nagoya, Japan C. M. Kowalski Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada M. Branković Faculty of Media and Communications, Singidunum University, Belgrade, Serbia M. Doroszuk Faculty of Philosophy, Institute of Psychology at Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland T. T. Khanh Ha VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam D. Iliško Daugavpils University, Institute of Humanities and Societal Sciences, Daugavpils, Latvia S. Malik Department of Psychology, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Pakistan S. Lins University of Porto, Porto, Portugal G. Navarro-Carrillo Department of Psychology, University of Jaén, Jaén, Spain O. Oviedo-Trespalacios Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety-Queensland (CARRS-Q), Kelvin Grove, QLD, Australia J. Torres-Marín Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain A. Włodarczyk School of Psychology, Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile

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dimension of positive (perceived as adaptive) versus negative (possibly maladaptive) nature of the humor. The affiliative humor style focuses on others and is positive and adaptive. The affiliative humor style involves using humor to enhance social relationships with others through good-natured jokes and making people laugh. The self-enhancing humor style is similar to the affiliative humor style in that it is benevolent and positive in nature, but, as opposed to being outward in orientation, this style of humor is focused on the self. The self-enhancing humor style describes someone with a humorous outlook on life in general. This positive humor style enables people to cope better with difficult situations and adversity by being able to cheer themselves. The aggressive humor style is outward and socially oriented, like the affiliative humor style, but is negative in that the aggressive humor style involves using humor at the expense of others through insensitive humor, ridicule, teasing, belittling, or sarcasm. Because of the negative nature of the aggressive humor style, use of this style of humor can result in negative outcomes in relationships with others. The final of the four humor styles is the self-­defeating humor style, which is also negative and where the focus or target of the humor is the self. People who engage in the self-defeating humor style may attempt to improve relationships with others at the expense of the self by allowing themselves to be the target of ridicule and jokes. Martin et  al.’s (2003) model of humor styles suggests that each form of humor will influence the mental health of individuals and will affect how people relate to others. To measure the four humor styles, Martin and colleagues developed the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin et  al., 2003). The results presented in this chapter focus on the differences in humor style scores across 15 countries and how humor styles may be related to self-­ esteem in each of the country samples. As the HSQ was developed in Canada, the pattern of results may differ across countries, and these results may add to our understanding of humor styles and the relationships between the humor styles and self-esteem. S. D. de Aquino Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil T. Volkodav Department of Pedagogy and Psychology, Kuban State University in Krasnodar, Krasnodar, Russia G. Krammer University College for Teacher Education Styria, Graz, Austria

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2.1.2 Humor Styles and Well-being A large number of studies show that the two adaptive humor styles (affiliative and self-enhancing) are related to various indicators of mental health, including cognitive and affective psychological well-being, coping, defense mechanisms, self-esteem, and a lack of depressive or anxious symptomatology (e.g. Bilge & Saltuk, 2007; Chen & Martin, 2007; Erickson & Feldstein, 2007; Jovanovic, 2011; Martin et al., 2003; Sirigatti et al., 2014). In contrast, negative humor styles (aggressive and self-defeating) are typically associated with poorer mental health, such as loneliness (MacDonald et al., 2020; Schermer et al., 2017). For instance, Martin and associates (Martin et al., 2003) found that the affiliative, self-enhancing, and self-defeating humor styles independently contributed in the prediction of a wide range of mental health outcomes, specifically, self-esteem, depression, anxiety, as well as general indicators of well-being. In addition, the self-enhancing humor style uniquely predicted life optimism, suggesting that a humorous outlook plays an important role in optimism. On the other hand, the self-defeating and aggressive humor styles predicted measures of hostility and aggression. The self-defeating humor style also predicted a range of psychiatric and somatic symptoms, suggesting that an excessive use of self-depreciating humor can reflect negatively on one’s mental and somatic health. Humor styles have also been found to correlate with depressive symptoms and to uniquely contribute to predicting depressive symptoms and general adjustment over and above coping and defense mechanisms (Erickson & Feldstein, 2007). Recently, Kfrerer et al. (2019) reported that depressed affect had a negative correlation with both the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles but had positive correlations with the aggressive and self-defeating humor styles. These significant phenotypic correlations were examined at the genetic and environmental levels. The negative correlation between depressed affect and affiliative humor style scores appeared to be due to unique environmental factors. Similarly, the positive correlation between the aggressive humor style and depressed affect was best explained by unique environmental factors. In contrast, the negative correlation between the self-enhancing humor style and depressed affect and the positive correlation between the self-­ defeating humor style and depressed affect were best explained by common genetic and unique environmental factors. This pattern suggests that there may be a common and heritable component explaining how these two humor styles relate to depression. The findings described above are in line with the theoretical predictions that self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles have beneficial effects on

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well-­being and mental health. In contrast, the self-defeating humor style entails an overall detrimental effect on both mental and somatic well-being, whereas the aggressive style is detrimental primarily to one’s social relations. These results have been largely replicated and extended with various measures of mental health outcomes, both in the Western context, such as the USA (e.g. Erickson & Feldstein, 2007) and Italy (Sirigatti et  al., 2014), and in Eastern cultures, including China (Chen & Martin, 2007), Turkey (Bilge & Saltuk, 2007), and Serbia (Jovanovic, 2011).

2.1.3 The Relationship Between Humor Styles and Self-Esteem When humor styles and self-esteem have been examined, most studies have found that self-esteem is positively related with the self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles (Ford et al., 2016; Martin et al., 2003; Saroglou & Scariot, 2002; Yue et al., 2014). Expectedly, the ability to take a humorous outlook when facing both happy and difficult moments, as well as using humor to facilitate and improve one’s social relations, is beneficial for one’s self-­ evaluation. Although these relationships have been validated in Hong Kong (Yue et  al., 2014) and Turkey (Ozyesil, 2012), independent verification in other geographical contexts would add to the understanding of the relationships between humor styles and self-esteem. Past studies have yielded less consistent results regarding the relationship between self-esteem and the two negative or maladaptive humor styles. Most studies have not found a significant relationship between self-esteem and the aggressive humor style. However, a few studies have found small negative correlations (Ozyesil, 2012; Vaughan et al., 2014), whereas one study demonstrated a positive correlation between self-esteem and the use of the aggressive humor style (McCosker & Moran, 2012). This positive relation became nonsignificant when interpersonal competence was statistically controlled, and the authors explained that aggressive humor users might feel confident about initiating interactions involving humor; however, these interactions may increase rather than decrease interpersonal conflict. Many of the past studies have revealed a negative relationship between the self-defeating humor style and self-esteem (Ford et al., 2016; Martin et al., 2003; Ozyesil, 2012; Saroglou & Scariot, 2002), supporting the idea that seeking to please others through making oneself the target of ridicule can reinforce one’s shortcomings and have detrimental effects on self-evaluation. However, one study conducted in Hong Kong (Yue et al., 2014) did not find

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a significant correlation between self-esteem and the self-defeating humor style, which might suggest there may be cultural variance with regard to this humor style. This issue clearly needs more research with geographically diverse samples, as is addressed in the present chapter.

2.1.4 Present Study In summary, existing research supports the idea that humor styles differ in their consequences for psychological well-being, in general, and self-esteem, in particular. A clear limitation of the previous research is that it was mostly limited to similar cultural and social contexts without significant geographical variability. The aim of the present study is to address this limitation by studying the relationship between self-esteem and humor styles using a diverse sample of countries. While we can generally expect to find a positive relationship between the self-enhancing humor style as well as the affiliative humor style with self-esteem across different country samples, the role of the self-­ defeating humor style could be different in more collectivist settings. For instance, self-defeating humor could be more socially acceptable and related to a more positive image in collectivist settings, as suggested by some previous studies (Kazarian & Martin, 2004; Taher et al., 2008). We would therefore expect that the pattern of relations between the self-defeating humor style and self-esteem may be more variable across different contexts. As less is known about the aggressive humor style and self-esteem, this relationship was explored in the present study.

2.2 Method 2.2.1 Participants and Procedure The sample consisted of 4701 participants [3201 female (64.26%) with 16 missing] in 15 countries. The sample sizes and demographics for each country are given in Table  2.1 and represent a subgroup of a 28-country study (Schermer et  al., 2019) for those countries with acceptable measurement properties for the humor scales. The participant samples ranged from 187 in South Korea to 469  in Portugal. Relative to the samples, the sample from Portugal had the most female participants and the sample from Estonia had the most male participants. On average, participants were 23.75  years old (SD = 6.65; range: 17–82). The youngest sample was from Russia, with an

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Table 2.1  Demographic statistics for the samples across 15 countries Country Brazil Bulgaria Canada Chile Colombia Estonia Germany Poland Portugal Russia Serbia South Korea Spain Ukraine United States

Language of the HSQ

Data collection procedure

Portuguese Bulgarian English Spanish Spanish Estonian German Polish Portuguese Russian Serbian Korean

Online Paper-pencil Online Online Online Paper-pencil Online Online Online Online Online Paper-pencil

Spanish Ukrainian English

Online Online Online

N Men

Age M years (SD)

Age range

209 128 109 164 142 153 258 167 375 189 302 96

95 131 119 69 114 215 75 78 94 125 102 88

28.76 (11.38) 19.94 (1.49) 24.30 (5.20) 20.97 (3.10) 21.06 (3.22) 24.28 (6.96) 26.83 (6.56) 23.75 (4.43) 22.82 (7.46) 19.64 (1.64) 21.73 (4.86) 21.77 (2.13)

18–71 17–33 18–55 17–49 18–48 18–49 17–57 18–40 17–78 18–29 18–52 18–27

226 270 233

100 23.71 (5.84) 71 26.93 (9.82) 188 26.75 (3.26)

N Women

18–55 17–82 19–55

average age of 19.64 years, while the oldest was from Brazil with an average age of 28.76 years. The sample with the largest age range was from Ukraine and the smallest age range was from South Korea. Also asked in the demographic questions was the participant’s religious affiliation. The majority of the sample (59.1%) stated that they were Christian, followed by Atheists (37.8%), Buddhist (1.4%), Islamic (0.9%), Judaist (0.5%), and Hindu (0.3%). Participants completed questionnaires either online or by completing paper-and-pencil scales (see Table  2.1) after indicating informed consent. Data collection was approved through institutional ethics review boards.

2.2.2 Materials The Humour Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin et al., 2003) assesses the four humor styles described above (affiliative, aggressive, self-enhancing, and self-defeating). The HSQ comprises 32 Likert-type items (eight items for each of the four humor styles) with responses ranging from 1 (definitely disagree) to 7 (definitely agree). The HSQ has shown good internal consistency in previous research (alphas for subscales ranging from 0.77 to 0.81; Martin et al., 2003). The internal consistency values of the HSQ for the present study samples are listed in Table  2.2. For the affiliative, aggressive, self-enhancing, and self-­ defeating humor styles, coefficient α across the countries was between 0.73

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Table 2.2  Scale descriptives for the four humor style scales and self-esteem for each country Country Brazil

Affiliative M (SD,α)

44.47 (8.58, 0.84) Bulgaria 44.48 (7.52, 0.73) Canada 45.82 (6.74, 0.80) Chile 42.76 (8.31, 0.82) Colombia 41.06 (8.30, 0.78) Estonia 44.26 (7.13, 0.80) Germany 43.43 (8.23, 0.85) Poland 42.86 (8.52, 0.85) Portugal 43.57 (7.68, 0.81) Russia 41.88 (8.40, 0.80) Serbia 46.06 (6.59, 0.75) South Korea 40.95 (6.79, 0.82) Spain 43.80 (7.14, 0.78) Ukraine 42.66 (8.20, 0.81) United States 41.35 (8.99, 0.86)

Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Self-esteem M (SD,α) M (SD,α) M (SD,α) M (SD) 24.17 (7.36, 0.63) 27.43 (7.97, 0.62) 28.78 (8.02, 0.73) 25.71 (7.94, 0.71) 24.01 (7.51, 0.67) 29.08 (7.56, 0.71) 26.71 (7.22, 0.66) 27.44 (7.79, 0.72) 24.32 (6.73, 0.61) 29.73 (7.57, 0.63) 24.57 (7.42, 0.64) 25.31 (6.57, 0.70) 22.26 (7.10, 0.66) 24.96 (6.93, 0.63) 27.84 (7.68, 0.71)

34.11 (9.90, 0.82) 35.32 (8.68, 0.71) 33.92 (9.52, 0.84) 35.78 (8.90, 0.81) 35.77 (9.22, 0.81) 35.48 (8.13, 0.78) 34.05 (9.16, 0.83) 34.10 (8.44, 0.80) 33.33 (9.65, 0.83) 34.05 (8.49, 0.74) 36.85 (8.86, 0.76) 32.09 (6.54, 0.70) 34.45 (8.64, 0.79) 35.03 (8.68, 0.79) 35.64 (9.20, 0.85)

26.75 (9.69, 0.80) 30.02 (7.89, 0.64) 28.12 (8.62, 0.78) 27.70 (8.46, 0.75) 23.94 (8.21, 0.77) 28.04 (7.76, 0.75) 25.54 (9.56, 0.85) 29.42 (8.72, 0.79) 23.66 (9.46, 0.83) 28.25 (8.03, 0.70) 27.60 (9.17, 0.79) 28.29 (0.32, 0.77) 26.66 (8.03, 0.74) 23.84 (8.12, 0.76) 27.37 (9.05, 0.82)

3.84 (1.79) 4.06 (1.75) 4.55 (1.46) 4.16 (1.62) 4.98 (1.47) 4.40 (1.37) 4.23 (1.52) 3.72 (1.70) 3.79 (1.54) 3.49 (1.80) 4.97 (1.56) 4.33 (1.63) 4.06 (1.58) 4.28 (1.63) 4.24 (1.79)

Note: Humor style scale scores can range from a low of 8 to a high of 56. Self-esteem ranges from 1 to 5

and 0.86, 0.62 and 0.73, 0.70 and 0.85, and 0.64 and 0.85, respectively. For the entire sample, the coefficient alpha was 0.81 for the affiliative humor style scale, 0.68 for the aggressive humor style scale, 0.79 for the self-enhancing humor style scale, and 0.77 for the self-defeating humor style scale. Previously translated and published versions of the HSQ were used in the present study for German (Ruch & Heintz, 2016), Polish (Hornowska & Charytonik, 2011), Russian (Ivanova et al., 2013), and Spanish (Torres-Marín et al., 2018) samples. For other languages, the scales were translated and back-translated

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Table 2.3  Descriptive statistics for the humor styles and self-esteem measures for the entire sample N Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Self-esteem Gender Age

4666 4669 4656 4671 4696 4685 4701

M 43.36 26.09 34.75 26.81 4.20 1.36 23.75

SD 7.99 7.70 8.96 8.85 1.66 0.48 6.65

Min

Max

8 8 8 8 1 0 17

56 55 56 56 7 1 82

Skewness −0.71 0.18 −0.07 0.23 −0.22 0.61 2.58

Kurtosis 0.33 −0.19 −0.34 −0.29 −0.73 −1.63 9.29

Note: Gender (0 = female, 1 = male) For humor styles and self-esteem, higher values mean higher standing on the trait. Possible range of the humor styles is between 8 and 56 and between 1 and 7 for self-esteem

by the researchers in Brazil and Portugal (both for the Portuguese language), Bulgaria, Estonia, Serbia, South Korea, and Ukraine. These translations should be viewed as new and unpublished. The SISE (Single-Item Self-Esteem Scale) consists of the item, “I have high self-esteem.” Participants answer on a five-point rating scale ranging from 1 = not very true of me to 5 = very true of me (Robins et al., 2001). Researchers, such as Burisch (1984), have noted the benefits of using a single-item measure, when appropriate. Specifically, a single self-report item may be adequate when the construct is (a) highly schematized for most individuals, (b) unidimensional in content, and (c) primarily reflects a subjective experience. If the goal is to discover whether individuals consciously experience positive self-­regard, it may be possible, as Allport (1942) suggested, to simply ask them. In short, single-item measures can provide an acceptable balance between practical needs and psychometric concerns. For the entire sample, the single self-­esteem item was found to have a normal distribution (see Table 2.3). The descriptive statistics of self-esteem is given for each country in Table 2.2.

2.2.3 Statistical Analyses The descriptive and correlative results between humor styles and self-esteem for each country sample and for the total were computed. Then, humor styles, age, and gender were entered into regression equations to try to predict self-­ esteem for the complete sample as well as for each country sample.

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2.3 Results 2.3.1 Descriptive Results and Correlations Table 2.3 shows the descriptive statistics and Table 2.4 presents the correlations between the humor styles, self-esteem, and the demographic variables of gender and age for the complete sample. Each of the scales had acceptable properties with kurtosis values less than ±2 and skewness values less than ±1. The four humor style scales were positively inter-correlated with the highest values between the two positive humor styles, affiliative and self-enhancing, and between the two negative humor styles, aggressive and self-defeating. For the complete sample, self-esteem had positive correlations with the affiliative, aggressive, and self-enhancing humor style scales. In contrast, self-esteem had a negative correlation with the self-defeating humor style. With respect to demographic variables, males had higher scores for all four of the humor style scales and scored higher on the self-esteem measure. Older individuals scored higher on the self-esteem scale and the self-enhancing humor style and but lower on the other three humor style scales. Table 2.2 lists the descriptive statistics for the four humor styles and self-­ esteem separated for the countries. As a visual, Fig. 2.1 depicts the mean values presented in Table 2.2 (note that self-esteem scores were multiplied by 10 for the purposes of the figure display). As depicted in Fig. 2.1, the greatest variability across country samples was for the self-esteem scores followed by the affiliative humor style scores (top two lines).

Table 2.4  Correlations between the humor styles, self-esteem, and covariates of gender and age Humor Styles

Covariates

Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Gender Age Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Self-esteem Gender Age

 0.12  0.43  0.15  0.26  0.02 −0.04

0.10 0.30 0.07 0.21 −0.09

0.20 0.35 0.08 0.08

−0.15 0.11 −0.09

0.08

0.10

0.02

Note: Gender (0 = female, 1 = male) All correlations greater than .05 are significant (p ≥ 0.05; two-tailed). For humor styles and self-esteem, higher values mean higher standing on the trait

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Humor Style and Self-Esteem Scores 60

50

40

30

20

10

0

Affiliative

Aggressive

Self-Defeating

Self-Esteem

Self-Enhancing

Fig. 2.1  Humor styles and self-esteem means for each country sample. (Note that self-­ esteem scores were multiplied by a value of 10)

Table 2.5 reports the correlations between the humor styles and self-esteem separated for each country sample. Similar to the values reported for the complete sample in Table 2.4, positive correlations were between self-esteem and the three humor styles of affiliative, aggressive, and self-enhancing. For the majority of the country samples, the correlations between self-esteem and the self-defeating humor style were negative, and for those with a positive correlation (the samples from Bulgaria and Chile), the values were small and nonsignificant. In general, the results suggest a similar pattern of correlations between self-esteem and humor styles.

Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Age Gender Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Age Gender

Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Age Gender

Bulgaria

Chile

Canada

0.07 0.02 0.35* −0.31* 0.19*  0.09*

Brazil

0.28* 0.16 0.43* 0.06 0.05 −0.01

0.26* 0.20* 0.24* 0.07 −0.01 −0.09 0.35* 0.14 0.34* −0.22* −0.18* 0.24*

Self-esteem

Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Age Gender

Country

0.17* 0.32* 0.03 0.27*

0.27* 0.31* −0.21* 0.28*

0.19* 0.41* 0.02 −0.19* 0.05

0.10 0.43* 0.30* −0.06 −0.06

0.16 0.30* −0.08 −0.28*

0.02 0.26* −0.17* 0.30*

Aggressive

0.12 0.38* 0.22* 0.02 0.07

0.12 0.41* 0.33* −0.06 −0.02

Affiliative

Table 2.5  Correlations between the humor styles and self-esteem for each country

0.41* 0.08 0.08

0.24* −0.06 0.17

0.33* 0.06 0.02

0.16* 0.20* −0.03

Self-enhancing

0.01 0.16

0.04 0.02

−0.06 −0.12

−0.12 0.09

Self-defeating

0.08

0.16

0.17*

−0.12

Age

26  J. A. Schermer et al.

Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Age Gender

Poland

Germany

0.30* 0.13 0.37* −0.17* 0.17* 0.03

0.19* −0.02 0.31* −0.03 −0.19* 0.18* 0.36* 0.18* 0.37* −0.10 0.07 −0.14* 0.32* 0.08 0.36* −0.29* -0.05 0.18*

Colombia

Estonia

Self-esteem

Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Age Gender Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Age Gender Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Age Gender

Country

−0.02 0.23* 0.01 0.29*

0.18* 0.31* −0.08 0.21*

0.20* 0.53* 0.15* −0.12 0.04

0.12 0.47* 0.07 0.07 0.13

0.16* 0.31* −0.12 −0.27*

−0.03 0.28* 0.01 0.30*

Aggressive

0.22* 0.42* 0.16* −0.18* −0.07

0.07 0.41* 0.26* −0.01 0.16

Affiliative

0.10 0.15 0.10

0.16* 0.01 0.07

0.22* 0.02 −0.13

0.33* 0.10 0.13

Self-enhancing

0.06 0.24*

−0.17* 0.04

−0.02 −0.15*

0.09 0.23*

Self-defeating

(continued)

0.18*

0.18*

0.08

0.06

Age 2  Predicting Self-Esteem Using Humor Styles: A Cross-Cultural Study 

27

South Korea

Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Age Gender

Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Age Gender Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Age Gender

Russia

Serbia

0.31* 0.14* 0.46* −0.24* 0.22* 0.13*

Portugal

0.29* −0.14 0.34* −0.21*  0.10 0.10 0.04

0.18 0.24* 0.17* −0.01 0.04 0.13 0.20* −0.01 0.21* −0.15*  0.07 0.02

Self-esteem

Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Age Gender

Country

Table 2.5 (continued)

−0.09 0.38* 0.01 0.01 0.01

0.14* 0.41* 0.25* 0.03 0.01

0.30* 0.42* 0.14 −0.02 0.08

0.15* 0.40* 0.04 −0.09 −0.02

Affiliative

−0.08 0.24* −0.01 0.21*

0.08 0.22* −0.08 0.29*

0.19* 0.28* 0.02 0.21*

0.05 0.30* −0.08 0.28*

Aggressive

0.15 0.12 0.16

0.34* 0.15* 0.08

0.28* −0.03 0.10

−0.02 0.09 0.08

Self-enhancing

0.04 0.17

−0.03 0.10

−0.01 −0.01

−0.23* 0.19*

Self-defeating

0.62*

−0.02

0.11

0.13*

Age

28  J. A. Schermer et al.

*

0.13 0.02 0.28* −0.21*  0.05 0.13

Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Age Gender

Affiliative Aggressive Self-enhancing Self-defeating Age Gender

Spain

Ukraine

United States

p  @@@ with the two dates er= £ Int: =okay= St: =she’s got Int: okay h: well then: thanks/ {interview ends}

The French interviewee is less overtly embarrassed than the English speaker about her taste in films at first, only using a smiling voice when she first declares her appreciation for romantic comedies, albeit with an embarrassed expression on her face.6 Perhaps it is the further questioning from the interviewer that pushes her to minimise her potential shame by claiming curiosity as her motivation to keep watching. The difference between these last two examples and examples (1–2) is that these self-disclosures were not voluntary. Ervin-Tripp and Lampert (2009, p. 15) refer to examples such as these as “elicited self-disclosures”. The interviewees, already in an unequal position in this encounter and required to answer potentially difficult questions on the spot, were asked to say whether they liked what was obviously rather a silly and light-hearted kind of film. Both interviewees were aware that in admitting this, they were portraying themselves as undiscerning film lovers, and potentially overly romantic or sentimental. In fact, the English speaker went to great pains to do exactly the opposite, providing an extremely unromantic reason for watching such films, that is, recovering from a hangover. On the other hand, the French speaker  Unlike the other corpora, the interviews were filmed.

6

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tried to justify herself by claiming a sort of “intellectual” interest, that is, curiosity. This is in line with our earlier findings that French speakers show a preference for appearing intellectual and intelligent (Béal & Mullan, 2017). Unlike the previous initiated self-disclosures where the speakers were displaying a common perspective and building rapport with their interlocutors, establishing common ground in these interactions (Svennevig, 1999) was not as important for these participants, as it was doubtful that they would see each other again. Despite this, as we all generally do, the participants clearly wanted to put forward flattering images of themselves. This was particularly so for the French speakers in our data, as we said earlier. This could account for the several unflattering remarks the English speaker offered about herself, while the French speaker “owned her weakness” more. Despite these subtle differences, faced with an embarrassing question such as this one, both speakers defended themselves with self-oriented humour (which was also self-deprecating in the case of the English speaker). What is particularly interesting here is the paradox inherent in threatening one’s own face in an attempt to save it, as highlighted by Priego-Valverde (2003, p.  108). By initiating the self-oriented humour and putting themselves down, the speakers save their own face by ensuring that their interlocutor doesn’t have time to think badly of them first.

3.4.3 Culture-Specific Examples The following examples of humour used to deal with uncomfortable moments in both French and English highlight some specific cultural tendencies found in our data. The first example also appeared in Béal and Traverso (2010, p.  25) and illustrates the tendency found in the Australian data where recipient-oriented humour was often initiated to actually create an uncomfortable moment purely for entertainment. (5) Social visits: KarenMike2.greet1 ((Door opens)) K:

Kar: IH HA [HA K: [changed Kar: [HA HI HI HI HI

Here, host Kate pretends to guests Karen and Mike that they are no longer welcome for dinner and that the hosts have changed their minds and have

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decided to go out instead of staying at home to entertain their friends. This is clearly absurd (not least because the hosts have answered the door), but creates a slight face-threat for the guests, who need to respond verbally or at least show themselves to be good sports by laughing at themselves and at the joke. Arriving at someone else’s house is always socially tricky (even when invited) as one is encroaching on another’s territory, and therefore requires some navigation. Priego-Valverde (2003, p. 120) claims that opening sequences of visits readily lend themselves to humour since they involve the combination of performing (potentially uncomfortable) social rituals and the joy of seeing one’s friends. Traverso (1996, p. 52) points out that the guest runs the risk of seeing that their joy is not reciprocated by the host, which makes them vulnerable when the door opens. Traverso (1996, p. 74) states that it is therefore up to the host to manage this potential face-threat to their guest(s), finding that for the French visits in her corpus, the opening sequences were dealt with by euphoria. As Béal and Traverso (2010) found, however, while the French speakers dealt with this by showing joy and effusion at seeing each other, the Australians employed humour as their fallback position to deal with what they perceived as an awkward moment.7 In addition to simply using humour, however, in this example the hosts take advantage of their guests’ discomfort at the door and actively target them for entertainment. (This was the case in four of the eleven opening sequences in the Australian visits.) This Australian tendency towards this type of teasing recipient-oriented humour is extremely noticeable. Haugh refers to this teasing or “jocular mockery” as “a recognizable and recurrent practice in everyday interactions amongst (Anglo-)Australian[s]” (2014, p. 76)). Indeed, Milner Davis (2009, p. 38) claims that “[t]he Aussie custom of taking the mickey (effectively, baiting others …. with joking, teasing and insult) enjoys such broad permission that objecting to it is totally ineffective”. The Australians in our data seemed to delight in putting the other person in an awkward position for the sake of creating humour. This “mock impoliteness” or “rubbishing your mates” (Goddard, 2006, pp.  81–83) in Australian interaction in fact displays affection and familiarity and creates solidarity: it shows that the relationship can withstand teasing and recipient-oriented humour. Compared with the tendency to be consensual in Australian interaction (Béal, 2010;

 Anthropologist Kate Fox (2005, p. 205) refers to humour as the “favourite, all-purpose coping mechanism” for the English. She points out that although this tendency is to some extent universal, humour seems to be more marked and used more frequently by the English than other nations to deal with unfamiliar, social or practical difficulties (Fox, 2005, pp. 135–6). It is very probable that this Australian tendency comes from its Anglo heritage. 7

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Mullan, 2010), saying outrageous things in a humorous way is acceptable and will generally be understood as not to be taken seriously.8 The following is an example of a French speaker using self-oriented humour to save face when unable to answer a question. The interviewer has asked Guillaume and Irène to explain the French expression donner une réponse de Normand “to give an evasive answer” (literally “a Norman’s answer”, i.e., someone from Normandy.) (6) Mullan corpus: Réponse de Normand Int: qu’est-ce que ça veut dire donner une réponse de Normand? .. G: donner une réponse de Normand qu’est-ce que ça veut [dire I: £[j’en sais rien£ .. G: ah! I: chuis parisienne donc euh ((rires)) G: £“moi une réponse de Normand je le sais pas parce que je suis parisienne!”£ Int: what does {the expression} donner une réponse de Normand mean? .. G: donner une réponse de Normand what does it [mean I: £[no idea£ .. G: ah! I: I’m Parisian so er ((laughter)) G: £“I don’t know what une réponse de Normand is because I’m Parisian!”£

The short pause between the question being asked and Guillaume’s response shows that he was unable to answer immediately. This is backed up by the fact that he repeats the question, evidently buying time until he can think of a reply. Before he completes his utterance, Irène jumps in to say that she’s got no idea. It is clear that she is setting up the punchline here because of her smiling intonation. Her slight pause is for dramatic effect and Guillaume understands this by uttering an exclamation ah! indicating that he is waiting for the joke. When it arrives, there is general laughter all round and Guillaume shows his appreciation by repeating Irène’s amusing self-defence. (Note that like the French speaker in example (4), Irène’s self-oriented humour is not self-deprecating.)

 See Priego-Valverde (2003, pp. 42–43) for a discussion on affectionate versus aggressive humour.

8

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The humour works because it is quite absurd for Irène to claim that she does not know the meaning of this expression that mentions a French region, just because that is not where she comes from. Linking these two ideas to create humour in this way is a strategy which Charaudeau (2006, p. 33) calls “unusual incoherence”, where the speaker links two universes which are not naturally related to each other. While it could be argued that Irène perhaps did know the answer, but was just seizing an opportunity to be funny, what follows this excerpt shows that she did not know what this expression meant (although she attempted to answer). Guillaume, on the other hand, did know, although it took him some time to find the right answer. This is further evidence of his buying time when the question was first posed. French speakers place great importance on their image and ability to respond quickly and wittily,9 as well as their ability to participate in any discussion (Béal & Mullan, 2013), and using humour to save face when unable to immediately contribute to the conversation has been found consistently across our different datasets (Béal & Mullan, 2013; Mullan, 2020). The speakers frequently make jokes either to buy time to think of an appropriate (preferably intelligent) response, or as their actual response, when they find themselves unable to answer. (A similar tendency for French speakers to use humour in self-defence over language problems when speaking English was identified in Vincent-Durroux et al. (2020), and Mullan and Béal (forthcoming).) This cultural preference is supported by the French expression s’en tirer par une pirouette “to wriggle out of something” or “to dodge the question” (literally, “to get out of something with a pirouette”). While we do have these apparently equivalent expressions in English, what is missing in the translation is the idea of skill and flair in the delivery of the evasive answer.

3.5 Discussion and Conclusion These examples (and those described in our previous research) show that humour is frequently used to deal with embarrassing/awkward moments, and often in a similar way for both French and Australian English speakers, with some small but significant differences. We summarise below our main findings taking into account all four dimensions of our model: the speaker/target/ 9  According to Lundquist (2014, p. 151) this may have developed from court society and its emphasis on the demonstration of intelligence and intellectual superiority.

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recipient interplay; the language dimension (linguistic and/or discursive devices used to create the humour); the different pragmatic functions; and the interactional dimension.

3.5.1 Dimension 1: The Speaker/Target/ Recipient Interplay If we look at our examples from the point of view of the speaker/target/recipient dimension, it appears that speakers often produce a self-created face-threat when they feel that they have to own up to some form of weakness or incompetence. Furthermore, it often takes the form of a humorous comment which is a kind of face-saving device. The addressee(s) then tend to respond in one of two ways: they either produce a humorous comment (sometimes self-­ oriented) to rescue the self-created victim or they can choose to “up the stakes” and further tease the first speaker. Speakers tend to initiate recipient-oriented humour when they fear that they may be encroaching on their interlocutor’s personal territory. For example, they can mitigate an indiscreet question or a criticism by packaging it in a humorous way. Third-party-oriented humour is generally used to create rapport amongst participants at the expense of others. As a consequence, it rarely happens in uncomfortable moments: we have only three cases in the Australian corpus and one case of humorous blame-­ displacement in the French one.

3.5.2 Dimension 2: The Language Dimension In terms of the language dimension, the humour used in the uncomfortable moments in our data relied primarily on discursive strategies like caricature, distortion of reality or of one’s self-image (particularly in the self-disclosures) and/or making absurd connections. From a linguistic aspect, this manifested as exaggeration most of the time.

3.5.3 Dimension 3: The Different Pragmatic Functions The humour evident in the uncomfortable moments served primarily a face management function, either where social rituals were perceived to be awkward (e.g., the opening sequences of visits), or where face-threats—real or

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perceived—had occurred (e.g., being unable to answer a difficult or awkward question which would reveal a weakness). Interpersonally, the humour also played a role in maintaining connections between speakers, especially in the case of the self-disclosure anecdote among friends.

3.5.4 Dimension 4: The Interactional Dimension No strong trends were identified in the interactional dimension of the examples in our data, except to note that the self-disclosure anecdotes tend to be co-constructed. Also, it is usually the person feeling uncomfortable who initiates the humour, except in the case of Australians who often put the addressee in an uncomfortable position as a strategy for creating humour. In conclusion, our data showed that uncomfortable moments are common in everyday conversation. The majority of those we recorded were not linked to any major problem or disagreement between the speakers, but to minor issues about self-image, and concerns about appropriate behaviour and territory. In that context, for both French and Australian speakers, humour was a favourite coping mechanism used to lighten the mood and to aid with performing awkward social rituals. That which varies the most, however, is perhaps what is perceived as being uncomfortable or face-threatening. While both groups of speakers used self-oriented humour (often to paint a funny image of themselves), Australian speakers did so more often than the French speakers, and with a tendency to self-deprecation, a characteristic also noted in other contexts. In parallel, the Australians regularly used a specific strategy which consisted in actively targeting the addressee’s perceived discomfort, thus turning the awkward moment into entertainment. Making it worse in order to make it better, so to speak. French speakers, while they were quite willing to put themselves at the centre of a ludicrous story, somehow stopped short of really exposing themselves. They also used more witty retorts and quips, a characteristic already noticed in French conversational humour in general, but which worked as face-saving devices to extricate themselves out of uncomfortable moments. Finally, these observed differences tied in with underlying culture-specific tendencies observed in our previous work and that of others, such as the importance for Australians of not taking oneself too seriously (Goddard, 2006, 2009), not “big-noting” oneself (Peeters, 2004), and not imposing oneself on others, and, somewhat to the contrary, the importance of appearing

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sharp and witty for the French (Lundquist, 2014). These characteristics can shine some light on why an uncomfortable moment does not always mean the same thing in both cultures: for example, why Australians felt more uncomfortable on arriving at somebody’s house, or why the French were more embarrassed when they were caught out not knowing the answer to a question, especially when they did not know their interlocutor. Although the notions of humour and uncomfortable moments are universal, their manifestations, management and the contexts that give rise to them are language-culture-specific.

3.6 Areas for Future Research Since the major difference identified seems to be what is considered an uncomfortable moment by the French and the Australians, it would be interesting to identify other everyday situations in which they differ, beyond those found in our existing corpora (primarily responses to compliments, embarrassment at not being able to answer a question, issues over punctuality and territory). This would imply access to new and larger corpora of authentic conversations, which has become increasingly easier in recent years via shared platforms. While we focussed on humour in this chapter, another relevant angle from the point of view of cross-cultural comparison would be to analyse situations which are considered embarrassing in both cultures, but which are dealt with through humour in one culture and through some other discursive devices (to be identified) in the other (e.g., in the case of the beginning of visits to friends’ houses). Anecdotes in which the teller is also one of the protagonists could be another interesting area to investigate in more depth. Because anecdotes are intended to be entertaining, they usually contain some form of humorous comment. At the same time, they can be considered as socially “risky” as they involve several face issues. The mechanisms of humour, the target chosen and the involvement of other participants could be analysed over a number of anecdotes to compare the management of face-threats and face-saving devices by the French and the Australians. Finally, it is to be hoped that this study encourages similar cross-cultural research into humour and uncomfortable moments across other languages and cultures.

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3.7 Transcription Conventions / final intonation (continuing) ? appeal intonation contour ! exclamation = latching speech [ ] overlapping speech LOUD increased volume lo:ng lengthened sound or syllable £ £ smiling voice ??? unclear or inaudible speech (.) short pause under 0.2 seconds .. short untimed pause (0.2 to 0.9 seconds) @@ laughter ((laughter)) cannot be attributed to a single speaker { } researcher comments (to provide more context or background information) . . . transcript omitted (vertical dots)

References Béal, C. (2010). Les Interactions Quotidiennes en Français et en Anglais, de l’Approche Comparative à l’Analyse des Situations Interculturelles. Peter Lang. Béal, C., & Mullan, K. (2013). Issues in conversational humour from a cross-cultural perspective: Comparing French and Australian corpora. In B. Peeters, K. Mullan, & C. Béal (Eds.), Cross-culturally speaking, speaking cross-culturally (pp. 107–139). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Béal, C., & Mullan, K. (2017). The pragmatics of conversational humour in social visits: French and Australian English. Language & Communication, 55, 24–40. Béal, C., & Traverso, V. (2010). Hello, we’re outrageously punctual: Front door rituals between friends in France and Australia. Journal of French Language Studies, 20(1), 17–29. Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge University Press. Charaudeau, P. (2006). Des catégories pour l’humour? Questions de Communication, 10, 19–41. Dynel, M. (2007). Joking aside: Sociopragmatic functions of conversational humour in interpersonal communication. In P. Cap & J. Nijakowska (Eds.), Current trends in pragmatics (pp. 245–267). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

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Ervin-Tripp, S. M., & Lampert, M. (2009). The occasioning of self-disclosure humor. In N.  R. Norrick & D.  Chiaro (Eds.), Humor in interaction (pp.  3–27). John Benjamins. Fox, K. (2005). Watching the English: The hidden rules of English behaviour. Hodder. Goddard, C. (2006). ‘Lift your game, Martina!’: Deadpan jocular irony and the ethnopragmatics of Australian English. In C.  Goddard (Ed.), Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context (pp. 65–97). Mouton de Gruyter. Goddard, C. (2009). Not taking yourself too seriously in Australian English: semantic explications, cultural scripts, corpus evidence. Intercultural Pragmatics, 6, 29–53. Haugh, M. (2011). Humour, face and im/politeness in getting acquainted. In B. Davies, M. Haugh, & A. Merrison (Eds.), Situated politeness (pp. 165–184). Continuum. Haugh, M. (2014). Jocular mockery as interactional practice in everyday Anglo-­ Australian interaction. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 34(1), 76–99. Haugh, M., & Bousfield, D. (2012). Mock impoliteness, jocular mockery and jocular abuse in Australian and British English. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 1099–1114. Hay, J. (2001). The pragmatics of humor support. Humor, 14, 55–82. Holmes, J., & Marra, M. (2002a). Having a laugh at work: How humour contributes to workplace culture. Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 1683–1710. Holmes, J., & Marra, M. (2002b). Over the edge? Subversive humor between colleagues and friends. International Journal of Humor Research, 15(1), 65–87. Keltner, D., Capps, L., Kring, A. M., Young, R. C., & Heerey, E. (2001). Just teasing: A conceptual analysis and empirical review. Psychological Bulletin, 127, 1231–1247. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (1990). Les interactions verbales (Vol. I). Armand Colin. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (1994). Les interactions verbales (Vol. III). Armand Colin. Lampert, M.  D., & Ervin-Tripp, S.  M. (2006). Risky laughter: Teasing and self-­ directed joking among male and female friends. Journal of Pragmatics, 38, 51–72. Leech, G. N. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. Longman. Lundquist, L. (2014). Danish humour in cross-cultural professional settings: Linguistic and social aspects. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 27(1), 141–163. Milner Davis, J. (2009). ‘Aussie’ humour and laughter: Joking as an acculturating ritual. In F. De Groen & P. Kirkpatrick (Eds.), Serious frolic: Essays on Australian humour (pp. 31–47). University of Queensland Press. Mullan, K. (2010). Expressing opinions in French and Australian English discourse. John Benjamins. Mullan, K. (2020). Humour in French and Australian English initial interactions. Journal of Pragmatics, 169, 86–99. Mullan, K., & Béal, C. (2018). Conversational humour in French and Australian English: What makes an utterance (un)funny? Intercultural Pragmatics, 15(4), 457–485.

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Mullan, K., & Béal, C. (forthcoming). An in-depth approach to humor in intercultural and cross-cultural communication. In I. Kecskes (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of intercultural pragmatics. Cambridge University Press. Oosthuizen, R. (2021). Resilience as Moderator Between Workplace Humour and Well-being, a Positive Psychology Perspective. In E. Vanderheiden & C.-H. Mayer (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research. Palgrave Macmillan. Peeters, B. (2004). Tall poppy stuff. In B.  Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk & A. Kwiatkowska (Eds.), Imagery in language: Festschrift in honour of Professor Ronald W. Langacker (pp. 613–623). Peter Lang. Plester, B., & Kim, H. (2021). Risky Business: Humour, Hierarchy, and Harmony in New Zealand and South Korean Workplaces. In E. Vanderheiden & C.-H. Mayer (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research. Palgrave Macmillan. Priego-Valverde, B. (2003). L’humour dans la conversation familière: description et analyse linguistique. L’Harmattan. Shardakova, M. (2012). Cross-cultural analysis of the use of humor by Russian and American English speakers. In L.  Ruiz de Zarobe & Y.  Ruiz de Zarobe (Eds.), Speech acts and politeness across languages and cultures (pp. 199–237). Peter Lang. Svennevig, J. (1999). Getting acquainted in conversation: a study of initial interactions. John Benjamins. Traverso, V. (1996). La Conversation familière. Analyse Pragmatique des Interactions. Presses Universitaires de Lyon. Traverso, V. (2000). Autour de la mise en œuvre d’une comparaison interculturelle. L’exemple des actes confirmatifs dans des émissions radiophoniques françaises et syriennes. In V.  Traverso (Ed.), Perspectives interculturelles sur l’interaction (pp. 33–53). Presses Universitaires de Lyon. Traverso, V. (2006). Repères pour la comparaison d’interactions dans une perspective interculturelle. Carnets du Cediscor, 9, 19–55. Vincent-Durroux, L., Mullan, K., David, C., Béal, C., & Poussard, C. (2020). Mastering Second Language Humour: The Ultimate Challenge. European Journal of Humour Research, 8(4), 82–111. Vivero Garcia, M. D., & Charaudeau, P. (2015). Eléments de théorie pour l’analyse discursive de l’humour. Humoresques, 41, 44–55. Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross-cultural pragmatics. The semantics of human interaction. Mouton de Gruyter. Zajdman, A. (1995). Humorous face-threatening acts: Humor as strategy. Journal of Pragmatics, 23, 325–339.

4 Humour as a Strategy to Talk About and Challenge Dominant Discourses of Social Integration: A Case Study of Adolescent German Turkish Descendants in Germany Yesim Kakalic and Stephanie Schnurr

4.1 Introduction and Background This chapter aims to explore how German Turks use humour to respond to mainstream Discourses of social integration that circulate in Germany. Our findings comply with Positive Psychology’s focus on humour and how it is utilised as a coping mechanism (Obialo, 2021; Inya & Inya, 2021; Dore et al., 2021; Oosthuizen, 2021; Turliuc et al., 2021; Gonot-Schoupinsky & Garip, 2021) and an effective method to increase optimism and hence wellbeing (Gable & Haidt, 2005; Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Gable and Haidt (2005, p. 104) define Positive Psychology as “the study of the conditions and processes that contribute to the flourishing or optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions”. Within this context, “humor has been identified as one of twenty-four character strengths considered ubiquitously important for human flourishing” (Edwards, 2013, p. ii). Humour is described as a method and perspective to help people cope better with stressful situations (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988) and develop optimism, which is a protective factor for psychological and physical health (Taylor et al., 2000). In this chapter, we explore

Y. Kakalic (*) • S. Schnurr Applied Linguistics, The University of Warwick, Coventry, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Vanderheiden, C.-H. Mayer (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78280-1_4

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how humour is utilised as a coping mechanism in the context of social integration in Germany. As a country of migration, Germany is characterised by a relatively high level of cultural diversity, which has resulted in ongoing public debates about how well migrants—especially those of Turkish origin (Cigirli, 2012; Trebbe, 2007)—are integrated into German society and what further steps are necessary to enhance this process of social integration (e.g. BeckGernsheim, 2006). In the media—which plays a crucial role in this debate around social integration—families with Turkish roots are often described negatively and as a “problem family” (“Problemfamilie”) (Gemende, 2002, p. 1). Such representations of those with Turkish roots as the “hardest-tointegrate population group” (“die am schwersten zu integrierende Bevölkerungsgruppe”) (Cigirli, 2012, p. 6) continue to contribute to the creation of a “[D]iscourse of misery” (“Elendsdiskurs”) (Hamburger, cited in Gemende, 2002, p.  1), which largely prevails in the public domain and which captures a wide “range of contemporary prejudice against ‘the Turks’” (Ramm, 2010, p. 184). According to latest statistics, the Turkish community constitutes the largest ethnic minority in Germany (Soergel, 2017) with around 2.84 million members (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2020). While a substantial amount of research has been conducted on this migrant group—largely focusing on the first and second generations of migrants (Fertig & Schmidt, 2001)—in this chapter we give a voice to the third generation and explore their views on mainstream Discourses of social integration currently circulating in the German media. We pay particular attention to the ways in which Germans of Turkish origin use humour when responding to mainstream Discourses of social integration. As we elaborate in more detail below, humour is a valuable tool that enables its users to talk about the unsayable (Billig, 2001), to collaboratively make meaning of their own experiences in a difficult context, and to eventually challenge, resist, and possibly change current mainstream Discourses about the difficulties of social integration. In what follows, we first provide a brief background about the situation of German Turks in Germany before outlining some of the functions of humour as a strategy to talk about and challenge dominant Discourses of social integration.

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4.1.1 German Turks in Germany The Turkish community composes the largest ethnic minority in Germany with 2.84 million citizens (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2020), regarded as “the second largest international migration in the contemporary developed world” (King & Kilinc, 2014, p.  126). Ever since the guest worker (Gastarbeiter) programme between the 1950s and 1970s, which Germany commenced after World War II to fill the labour shortage in the country, there has been a continual movement of Turkish immigrants to the country (Celik, 2017; Ramm, 2010). Although initially a return of the guest workers to Turkey was planned, most of these Turkish guest workers permanently settled in Germany due to economic conditions and family reunions (Demirkol, 2019). Ultimately, those guest workers turned into migrants and eventually became not only Germany’s but Europe’s largest migrant nationality (King & Kilinc, 2014). In the last decade, there has been a growing number of “returnees” to their parental homeland (Demirkol, 2019), across multiple generations (Tezcan, 2019), but especially the second generation, who was born and raised in Germany (Kilinc, 2018). Previous research has mainly discussed various problems associated with the social integration of the first, second, and third generations of German Turks, such as their socio-economic integration (Lodigiani, 2018), ethnic retentions, and unwillingness to integrate (e.g. Celik, 2015), resulting in social segregation (e.g. Diehl & Schnell, 2006). Other themes that have been explored are disadvantages in the labour market (e.g. Kalter, 2006), drawbacks in education (e.g. Song, 2011), problems of discrimination (e.g. Tucci et al., 2014), issues of identity and belonging (e.g. Cigirli, 2012; Hary, 2012; Jugert et al., 2020), and religion (e.g. Karakasoglu, 1996; Mutluer, 2020), as well as language problems (Biedinger et al., 2015) and unemployment (e.g. Klinkhammer, 2003). In addition to this considerable scholarly attention, questions around the social integration of the Turkish community in Germany continue to attract extensive media coverage. Due to the relatively high number of Turkish migrants in Germany (Soergel, 2017) and perceived differences with regards to “language, religion, physical features” and behaviour (Mora, 2009, p. 616), German Turks are often portrayed negatively in the media: “[a]mong the foreigner groups, Turks became 1  The term “Ausländer” means “foreigner” and assigns a negative meaning in relation to Germany’s ethnic groups and immigrants. The role of the prototypical “Ausländer” is most prominently played by the German Turk (Schneider, 2001, p. 351), and members of the mainstream society mostly associate this term with people of Turkish origin (Asbrock et al., 2014).

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the most disliked group in Germany” (Mora, 2009, p. 616). In the public perception they took on the role of the typical Ausländer1 (Schneider, 2001, 2018), embodying all the problems associated with immigration more generally (Ramm, 2009). At the same time, media coverage further contributed and reinforced this negative image. For example, in an analysis of headlines and news in Germany’s most prestigious newspapers with the highest distribution rates, Mora (2009, p. 622) found that people with Turkish roots living in Germany are largely represented negatively, namely as people who do not integrate and do not want to integrate into the German public; people who object to learn German; people who have many kids; people who are lazy; people who take unemployment compensation without working; people who exert violence of women; that even newly grown generations are unqualified and lazy; that they are Muslim and have a different culture; that they are potential threat to the German public.

Although this extremely negative portrayal may have changed to some extent over the past decade, recent media coverage of those with Turkish roots remains largely negative and still focuses on issues around integration, alienation from German values and society, and a (negatively perceived) strong link to Turkey. Such negative media portrayal, however, is highly problematic as a close link exists between media representations and social integration of ethnic minorities (Trebbe & Schoenhagen, 2011). Media representations produce and reproduce cognitive (and often negative) stereotypes which manifest themselves in the form of prejudices in the host society, which in turn often leads to discriminating behaviours (Bonfadelli, 2007). Hence, negative portrayals of those with Turkish roots in the German media are a main contributor to creating and shaping a generally negative image of this minority group in mainstream Discourses. As a consequence, more positive developments are often overlooked and do not become part of mainstream Discourses (Sauer, 2007). For example, “research has shown that the share of Turkish migrants holding higher educational degrees and better jobs did increase, not only compared to the first generation but also over time” (Diehl & Schnell, 2006, p. 789). From a Positive Psychology lens, this negative portrayal in the media can be identified as a stress factor for German Turks, as those who identify with the German culture and perform well socio-economically are exposed to generalisations and disappear under the large number of those who are less well integrated (Kakalic, forthcoming). As we show below, however, using humour

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when responding to this dire situation enables German Turks to feel in control (Weaver, 2014), cope effectively with stress, gain distance from those factors causing them stress, and build “feelings of mastery in times of adversity” (Martin, 2004, p. 4). According to Peterson and Seligman (2004), this method increases the levels of well-being and happiness.

4.1.2 Humour as a Means to Talk About Issues of Social Integration Previous research has established that some of the main functions of humour are to create solidarity (Holmes & Hay, 1997; Schnurr, 2010), signal in-group membership (Demjén, 2016; Holmes & Hay, 1997), and exclude non-group members (Holmes & Marra, 2002; Wolfers et  al., 2017). However, since humour “is a highly complex, multi-functional discourse strategy that can perform diverse and sometimes ambiguous and contradictory functions” (Schnurr & Plester, 2017), it is also a valuable strategy that may assist speakers in talking about the unsayable (Billig, 2001), in collaboratively making meaning of their own experiences in a difficult context (e.g. Zajdman, 1995), as well as in challenging and resisting their current situation and mainstream Discourses. For example, Ziv and Zajdman (1993) in a study of Jewish humour described how humour was used as a coping mechanism helping Jews deal with life’s difficulties and challenges (Steir-Livny, 2021). Similarly, Nezlek and Derks (2001, p.  395) observed that “people can and do use humour to cope with stress and adversity”, and Urios-Aparisi and Wagner (2008) found that humour enables people to talk about taboo topics (SteirLivny, 2021). Some research has shown that humour can also be subversive and empowering, and that it may assist challenging, resisting, and sometimes even redefining current practice and mainstream Discourses (e.g. Case & Lippard, 2009; Holmes & Marra, 2002; Schnurr & Rowe, 2008). Moreover, humour is a valuable tool to criticise and challenge existing power relations (e.g. Holmes & Marra, 2002; Schnurr & Rowe, 2008). In the context of social integration, humour may be used to counter and “work[..] against imposed representations” of minority groups (Vizenor, 1988, cited in Weaver, 2014, p. 4), and it can help “creating resistance” and “show[ing] the absurdities of racism and racial stereotypes through juxtaposing them with alternative readings of race relations” (Weaver, 2014, p.  5; Aslı Sezgin & Yolcu, 2021; Pauwels, 2021).

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4.2 Research Methodology In contrast to much previous research studies on Turkish migrants in Germany which employ quantitative methods (Jugert et al., 2020; Schotte et al., 2018), this study is of qualitative nature. Thus, rather than aiming to identify larger patterns, we are primarily interested in exploring the experiences and perceptions of individuals. Among the many benefits of such a methodological aproach is the fact that it allows researchers to zoom in onto the micro-level and gain a better understanding of the specific sense-making and coping mechanisms employed by individuals when dealing with social integration in their personal experience. As we illustrate below, these observations on the micro-level can nevertheless be linked to the macro-level, and although we will refrain from making generalisations and grand claims, our observations will provide new insights into the processes through which social integration takes place. The decision to conduct focus groups with research participants has numerous reasons. As a method which is best used in exploratory research (Vaughn et al., 1996), it is highly suited to the investigation of experiences and attitudes (Kitzinger, 1995) of the third-generation German Turks in this study. Focus groups are aimed to explore how participants structure and formulate their views on the given topic and how they use language as a constructive and functional medium (Smithson, 2000) to construct their identities in relation to the given topics (Wetherell, Stiven, & Potter, 1987). By bringing participants together as a group and presenting selected excerpts of recent media coverage related to social integration, we successfully managed to explore and capture participants’ perceptions and understandings of social integration. The data that we draw on in this chapter is part of a larger study (Kakalic, forthcoming). The subset that we focus on here consists of three focus group discussions that were conducted with eight German Turkish participants. Our participants were between 20 and 35 years old and did know each other before the focus groups. They were all born and raised in Germany to parents who were second-generation Turkish immigrants. Participant recruitment took place via snowball sampling, and overall more than 20 participants were involved in the study. The focus groups were audio- and video-recorded resulting in over 13 hours of data. These data were then transcribed by the first author and translated into English, and instances of humour were identified. In analysing the humorous instances, we draw on interactional sociolinguistics, which is a specific type of discourse analysis (Holmes, 2014, p. 177).

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With its focus on understanding how meaning is constructed and negotiated in an interaction (Gumperz, 2003), interactional sociolinguistics links micro-­ level analysis with macro-level knowledge and issues. More specifically, when using interactional sociolinguistics, researchers “look at what people say but also at how they say it” (Schnurr & Mohd Omar, 2021, p. 201). While identifying humour in spoken interaction is not straightforward (e.g. Schnurr, 2010), we relied on several contextualisation cues (Gumperz, 1999), which are specific “linguistic and paralinguistic features that contribute to the signalling of contextual presuppositions”, and which help researchers identify humour (Schnurr & Mohd Omar, 2021, p. 201). The contextualisation cues that we found particularly useful for identifying humour in our data are laughter, smile, change in pitch, tone of voice, and speed of delivery (e.g. Hay, 2001). In the next section, we analyse three instances of humour that occurred during the focus group discussions to illustrate how our German Turkish participants make use of humour to respond to mainstream Discourses of social integration in Germany.

4.3 Findings and Analysis We have selected three examples to show how humour assists participants to challenge, resist, and possibly change current mainstream Discourses about the difficulties of social integration, to collaboratively make meaning of their experiences in a difficult context, and to talk about the unsayable.

4.3.1 Humour to Challenge, Resist, and Possibly Change Current Mainstream Discourses About the Difficulties of Social Integration Most of the humour we found in our data assists speakers to challenge and resist—and possibly change—current mainstream Discourses of the social integration of German Turks in Germany. As we elaborate in more detail elsewhere (Kakalic, forthcoming), our participants often resist and challenge the idea that they “need to integrate”—and rather they view and portray themselves as “fully integrated” and not needing “any help”. This is often achieved through humour ridiculing the lack of understanding of Germans (as in Example 4.2) or humorously embracing stereotypes about the need to integrate themselves, as in the extract below.

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Example 4.1 “I better adapt myself” Context: During a break in one of the focus groups, Melek2 cuts an apple into pieces so that everyone in the group can have some. Melek: Is it okay if I put them ((apple slices)) to this corner or should I

put them there [points to another place]? Toprak: No way ey my GOD where are you even from? Are you from Turkey or what? [quiet and sarcastic-provocative tone of voice] //[joint laughter]\ Melek: /[laughs]\\ I’m just asking because I better adapt myself //[laughs]\ /[joint laughter]\\

This relatively short excerpt illustrates how our participants sometimes use humour—especially self-denigrating humour—as a coping mechanism (Nezlek & Derks, 2001) to make fun of and at the same time criticise mainstream Discourses about the social integration of German Turks in Germany. The humour starts in line 3 when Toprak—in response to Melek’s serious question about where to place the apple slices she has just cut for everyone— teases and mock-criticises Melek. Teasing is an excellent discursive strategy to achieve this as it enables its users to perform two potentially contradictory functions, namely, to criticise someone while at the same time reinforcing solidarity and creating an in-group (Schnurr, 2009). This strategy seems particularly relevant to Positive Psychology, as the ability to use humour effectively and support others emotionally enhances participants’ social support and thus improves the ability to cope with stress (Martin, 2004). Toprak’s exaggerated reaction, including her choice of words and emphasis (“my GOD”) and her rhetorical questions (“where are you even from? Are you from Turkey”) followed by the challenging and potentially aggressive tag question (“or what?”) together with her quiet and sarcastic-provocative tone of voice mark her utterance as humorous (lines 3 and 4). This interpretation of Toprak’s question as humorous is further supported by the joint laughter that it generates (line 5).

 All names are pseudonyms. All examples have been translated from German. For reasons of space we only provide the English translation here. Transcription conventions are listed at the end of this chapter. 2

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The humour is then continued by Melek who uses self-denigrating humour to tongue-in-cheek justify her behaviour by referring to and humorously embracing one of the arguments of mainstream Discourses about social integration, namely the need to “better adapt”. Her use of the verb “adapt” is noteworthy here as it directly links to the omnipresent and far-reaching integration Discourses that circulate in Germany since the 1950s (Diehl & Schnell, 2006), in which the term “adaptation” is frequently used in reference to immigrants, especially Turks (Ramm, 2010). By using this terminology here and by playing along with Toprak’s humour by taking on the role of a stereotyped German Turk who needs to adapt, Melek acknowledges her awareness of these Discourses. Using humour to do this, she thereby directly addresses, picks up, and contributes to the issue of social integration that was already alluded to in Toprak’s previous rhetoric questions about Melek’s country of origin. This humorous exchange can thus be seen as a direct response and challenge of the mainstream Discourses of the social integration of German Turks which participants have discussed immediately prior to this excerpt. According to these mainstream Discourses, German Turks are often depicted as “the others” and portrayed as “victims” who are not able to integrate and “behave appropriately” (Davidowsky, 2012, pp.  61–65). Using humour to send up these stereotypes enables speakers to “work […] against [these] imposed representations” of minority groups by the dominant society (Vizenor, 1988, cited in Weaver, 2014, p. 4). It also assists interlocutors to “create […] resistance” and “show the absurdities of racism and racial stereotypes through juxtaposing them with alternative readings of race relations” (Weaver, 2014, p. 5). Using humour in this exchange thus enables interlocutors to talk about and cope with a difficult situation (i.e. the negative representation of German Turks in mainstream Discourses of social integration). At the same time, it also puts the speakers in control of this difficult situation by providing the tools to make fun off and distance themselves from it (Abel, 2002). The humour in this exchange thus facilitates the formulation of a response to existing and widely circulating stereotypes and racism (Weaver, 2014) and enables speaker to challenge and resist them. In the next section, we analyse an excerpt from another focus group to illustrate how humour may also assist speakers when collaboratively making meaning of their experiences in a difficult context.

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4.3.2 Humour to Collaboratively Make Meaning of Experiences in a Difficult Context Although the previous example has already to some extent illustrated that humour may assist speakers to collaboratively make meaning in a difficult context, we discuss one more example here to further demonstrate this function. Example 4.2 “They don’t eat with knives and forks” Context: After the participants of the focus group have been given an excerpt of an article about German Turks, they start discussing typical titles of such articles. Toprak:  So the Organic-German3 who reads that //thinks of his neighbour\ All: /[nodding]\\ Bora: /Yes right\\ Toprak: Of eh Mehmet blah blah blah who bought a house who has- is an owner of eeh 5 corner shops in Germ- eh in in in [city 1] [excited and serious tone of voice] Bora: And probably does something with money laundering Yesim, Hilal: [joint laughter] Toprak: Whatever and but then he sees that family they have a family day and then they sit JUST LIKE [loud tone of voice] on the picture ((in the presented article)) sit in the garden and he thinks of exactly that //article\ Bora: /exactly\\ Toprak:  And he thinks “oh those //pooooor things” [pitying tone of voice]\ Bora, Yesim: //[nodding]\ Yes Toprak: “They are still not where we //are\ they don’t sit at the table like //us” [pitying tone of voice]\ Bora: /Yes\\ Except Toprak: /[joint laughter]\\ Toprak: “They don’t eat with knives and forks” Except Toprak: /[loud joint laughter]\\ Toprak: Yes it sounds PRIMITIVE but it’s like that

In this extract participants collaboratively construct an extended sequence of fantasy humour (Hay, 2001) to make fun of the current state of social integration of German Turks in Germany. More specifically, the source of the

 This term is used to describe German citizens without a migration background. It was used as a facetious and/or pejorative description of Germans by individuals with a migration background. Since the year 2020, however, it has been developed into a re-appropriated word. 3

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humour is participants’ view on how the ways in which typical Germans (who are here exaggeratingly portrayed as “Organic-Germans” (line 1)) perceive and think about their neighbours with Turkish roots. While the typical German is mocked by Toprak for their preference of organic food, the typical Turkish German is called “Mehmet” (a typical Turkish name) and is humorously portrayed as possessing all the stereotypical—and negative—attributes that Germans—in the eyes of our participants—associate with German Turks. Initially, Toprak describes the prototypical Turk, Mehmet, as owning five corner shops (lines 4 and 5), and Bora contributes that he is also involved in money laundering (line 6), which generates laughter from several participants (line 7). The laughter and participants’ ironic tone of voice function as contextualisation cues here to mark this episode as humorous. This negative portrayal of German Turks as criminal and uneducated— although done in a humorous way—corresponds with and reflects the public perception that Turks embody all the problems associated with immigration and integration more generally (Ramm, 2009). This is further shown in media representations, where German Turks are often depicted as people who “[…] do not want to integrate into the German public; people who object to learn German; people who have many kids; people who are lazy; [and] people who take unemployment compensation without working” (Mora, 2009, p. 622). However, while the humour throughout this sequence is responded to with joint laughter, it is interesting to note that not all participants join in. This could reflect the ambiguous nature of the humour (Schnurr & Plester, 2017; Plester & Kim, 2021) and indicate that not all participants perceive this fantasy sequence as humorous. The utterance initial “whatever” from Toprak in line 8 may function as an acknowledgement of these different reactions to the humour. The construction of the humorous fantasy sequence continues with Toprak’s description of how the typical German and his family sit in their garden (lines 8–10) remembering the news article about German Turks which the focus group participants have just discussed (and in which German Turks were portrayed negatively). The Germans are then described as perceiving their German Turkish neighbours as pitiful, uneducated, lagging behind, and perhaps even being barbarian. In line 12 Toprak gives a voice to the Germans to describe their hypothetical reaction as “those poooor things” (which receives agreement from Bora in line 13), and in lines 14 to 15 she continues to speak as the German neighbour when proclaiming that “they are still not where we are. They don’t sit at a table  like us”. After receiving some minimal agreement

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(from Bora in line 16) and joint laughter from all participants (line 16) which Toprak notably does not join, she continues to develop the humour sequence by adding the clearly exaggerated claim that “they don’t eat with knives and forks” (line 18), which generates more laughter from the others (line 19). The humorous sequence comes to an end when Toprak explicitly spells out the story’s coda (line 20), namely that it is an accurate reflection of the current situation in Germany and reflects common perceptions of German Turks as being backwards (Mehdi, 2012) and unintegrated (Mora, 2009). This final utterance is not responded to with laughter, and participants seem to understand the serious—rather than humorous—implications. This interpretation is further strengthened by Toprak’s choice of pronouns throughout the narrative. She consistently uses the third-person plural “they” (rather than the more inclusive “we”) when referring to the German Turks—a group with which she normally identifies. This choice of pronouns could be interpreted as distancing herself—and by implication the other participants—from the group of typical German Turks, which is a strategy that might help participants to make sense of and deal with the difficult context of social integration in this situation. In the next section, we discuss one last function of humour used by the participants in our focus groups when talking about social integration.

4.3.3 Humour to Assist Speakers to Talk About the Unsayable There is considerable evidence in our data of instances where participants use humour when talking about sensitive or taboo topics. For example, they sometimes make fun of the common stereotype that Turks are considered to beat their wives by ironically commenting that “we are well known for beating and supressing our wives—even though in fact it’s the women beating up the men”. Using self-denigrating humour, irony, and exaggeration (which further adds to the humour) makes claims like these possible, and quite literally, sayable. This example demonstrates how humour enables speakers to say the unsayable (Billig, 2001). Here, the unsayable is related to the status of German Turks who are often perceived and positioned as “others”, non-members, and outsiders. These mainstream perceptions of German Turks are made fun of in

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Example 4.3 “Hitler’s boy” Context: Participants in this focus group are talking about how veiled women in Germany are being stereotyped and discriminated against, when Melda shares the following story.

Melda: By the way ehm a guy in German studies eehm who is in my year is in the AfD4 and he was even on the //election posters from the AfD\ and the other day he was sitting next to my fiancé that /was\\ very funny Yesim: /Ah … okay?\\ /really?\\ Melda: //And then I said “And? What was it like?\” “Yes he laughed at my jokes all the time” ((imitates her fiancé)) Yesim /Did they talk? [laughs]\\ Cansu: Rooobert [laughs quietly] Ela: So your boyfriend ((her fiancé)) has AfD humoour? [smirks] //[joint laughter]\ Melda: /[laughs]: Yees:\\ he probably really has //[laughs]\ /[joint laughter]\\ Melda: If he could he would like to be Aryan [smiles] [loud joint laughter] Ela: Hitler’s booy [laughs] [joint laughter]

this excerpt by ironically and perhaps even sarcastically portraying one specific German Turk (Melda’s fiancé) as someone who sympathises with right-wing populists and their values and ideals. Making fun of these mainstream perceptions of German Turks enables the speakers to articulate and at the same time criticise and problematise them. The humour in this excerpt can be identified, among others, by relying on several contextualisation cues, including the repeated laughter as a response strategy and speaker’s ironic tones of voice. The humorous episode starts with Melda recounting an incident involving her fiancé who is also a German Turk. In her story she tells the others how he was friendly with a member of the right-wing populist political party AfD. Given that this party is described as Europhobe (Olsen, 2018), anti-Islamic, and anti-refugee (Strauß, 2017), portraying her German Turkish fiancé as getting along with a party member is

 AfD for “Alternative for Germany” is a right-wing to far-right political party in Germany.

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clearly ironic. As the story develops, this ironic tone is picked up and further developed by Ela who teasingly asks if this story means that Melda’s fiancé has “AfD” humour (line 9). The humour is then further developed by Melda who subsequently affirms Ela’s humorous suggestion and takes it even further by claiming that “If he could he would like to be Aryan [smiles]” (line 13). The smile and tone of voice with which she utters this claim, together with the impossibility of the proposition, mark this as humorous. The audience’s loud laughter (line 14) in response to this claim further supports this interpretation. Ela then continues the humour even further by calling her fiancé “Hitler’s boy” (line 15). The lengthening of the vowels and her subsequent laughter set her remark up as humorous, and the audience response in the form of more join laughter (line 16) further contributes to this. The humour continues for a few more turns (not shown here due to space limitations), and also involves the first author who was present at the data collection. Portraying Melda’s German Turkish fiancé as Aryan and even as “Hitler’s boy” is a potentially highly problematic action if they had not been conducted in and through humour. In fact, we would argue that it is precisely the humour that makes it possible to talk about right-wing populism and Germany’s former problematic dictator in this context and with this audience (e.g. Urios-­ Aparisi & Wagner, 2008; Weaver, 2014). Interestingly, in addition to making the unsayable sayable here (Billig, 2001), the humour also strengthens the in-group and solidarity among interlocutors (Holmes & Marra, 2002). By making fun of out-group members (here the AfD party member and by implication right-wing followers in Germany) and collaboratively producing humour and joint laughter, participants also create solidarity and signal in-­ group membership (Schnurr, 2010; Schnurr & Plester, 2017). Moreover, by ridiculing the AfD party (and by implications its followers) and Hitler (and his Aryan values and ideals), interlocutors put them in an inferior position and look down on them by making fun of them (Weaver, 2014). The humour thus enables them to signal that they are in control of a potentially difficult situation, namely the increasing popularity of the right-wing populist party, and assists them in coping with this difficulty of social integration.

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4.4 Discussion This chapter illustrated that humour is indeed a valuable strategy that assists its users to cope with and challenge dominant Discourses of social integration in Germany. Due to its ambiguous nature and multifunctionality, humour may perform several functions simultaneously (e.g. Schnurr & Plester, 2017). In line with Positive Psychology, it constitutes an effective method to cope with stress (Edwards, 2013; Folkman & Lazarus, 1988; Martin, 2004; Peterson & Seligman, 2004); to enable its users to challenge, resist, and possibly change current mainstream Discourses about the difficulties of social integration; to collaboratively make meaning of their experiences in a difficult context; to talk about taboo topics and to say the unsayable (Billig, 2001). We have shown that specifically in the context of social integration of German Turks in Germany, humour in its different forms and shapes assists those affected by the largely negative mainstream Discourses of social integration to distance themselves from them and to criticise them by making fun of them with a humorous outlook (Martin, 2004). The humour thereby functions as a coping mechanism (Henman, 2001; Nezlek & Derks, 2001) and provides a vent (Bing, 2004) for those affected that enables them to utter and share their frustration in a safe and acceptable manner. Humour thus “can be a subversive and an empowering tool” (Case & Lippard, 2009, p. 240). Through making fun of existing perceptions, prejudices, and stereotypes as reflected and constantly reinforced in mainstream Discourses around social integration in Germany, interlocutors at the same time open up the discussion around these Discourses and create an opportunity to construct alternative—more positive—Discourses of social integration. Humour—although often overlooked in academic scrutiny—thus constitutes an important and valuable discursive strategy in talking about and challenging the dominant Discourses of the social integration of German Turks that currently circulate in Germany.

4.5 Conclusion and Future Research This chapter contributes to the literature investigating the relationship between Positive Psychology and humour evaluating the social integration process of German Turks in Germany from a discourse analytical perspective. Our findings have provided new insights into the complex processes through which social integration is experienced and talked about by those who are affected by it in their everyday lives. Focusing on humour and conducting a

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qualitative research study, we have identified and described the positive functions that this otherwise inconspicuous and often overlooked discursive strategy may perform in this context. We hope that future research will find our observations and the qualitative approach showcased here useful. There is a dire need for more qualitative indepth studies into the experiences and sense-making mechanisms involved in the processes of social integration. And while this study has focused on humour, future research could analyse other discursive strategies involved in these processes. Insights gained from such undertakings have the potential to make important contributions to largely quantitative research on the social integration of German Turks in Germany.

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Celik, Ç. (2017). Disadvantaged, but morally superior: ethnic boundary making strategies of second-generation male Turkish immigrant youth in Germany. Identities, 25(6), 705–723. Cigirli, Z. (2012). Identität und Wertorientierung von türkischen Jugendlichen in Wien. Doctoral thesis, Universität Wien, Austria, Vienna. Davidowsky, C. (2012). Die Darstellung von Türken und der Türkei in deutschen Lesebüchern seit 1970. Eine inhaltsanalytische Untersuchung. In S.  Ozil, M.  Hofmann, & Y.  Dayioglu-Yücel (Eds.), Türkisch-Deutsche Studien. 51 Jahre türkische Gastarbeitermigration in Deutschland (pp. 62–65). V & R Unipress. Demirkol, E. (2019). German-Turks’ return to the homeland the migration of third generation German-Turks to Turkey. Doctoral dissertation, İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi. Demjén, Z. (2016). Laughing at cancer: Humour, empowerment, solidarity and coping online. Journal of Pragmatics, 101, 18–30. Diehl, C., & Schnell, R. (2006). “Reactive ethnicity” or “assimilation”? Statements, arguments, and first empirical evidence for labor migrants in Germany. International Migration Review, 40(4), 786–816. Dore, M., Vagnoli, L., Addarii, F., Amore, E., & Martin, R. (2021). The Positive Effect of Humour and Amateur Dubbing on Hospitalised Adolescents. In E.  Vanderheiden & C.-H.  Mayer (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research. Palgrave Macmillan. Edwards, K. R. (2013). The role of humor as a character strength in positive psychology. Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. Fertig, M., & Schmidt, C.  M. (2001). First-and second-generation migrants in Germany-what do we know and what do people think? IZA Discussion Papers, No. 286. Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). Folkman, S., & Lazarus, R. S. (1988). Coping as a mediator of emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(3), 466–475. Gable, S. L., & Haidt, J. (2005). What (and why) is positive psychology? Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 103–110. Gemende, M. (2002). Interkulturelle Zwischenwelten: Bewältigungsmuster des Migrationsprozesses bei MigrantInnen in den neuen Bundesländern. Juventa. Gonot-Schoupinsky, F., & Garip, G. (2021). The Covid-19 Pandemic as an Opportunity for Positive Psychology to Promote a Wider-ranging Definition of Humour and Laughter. In E. Vanderheiden & C.-H. Mayer (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research. Palgrave Macmillan. Gumperz, J. (1999). On interactional sociolinguistic method. In S.  Srikant & C. Roberts (Eds.), Talk, work and institutional order. Discourse in medical, mediation and management settings. de Gruyter. Gumperz, J. (2003). Response essay. In S. Eerdmans, C. Prevignano, & P. Thibalut (Eds.), Language and interaction: Discussions with John J. Gumperz. John Benjamins.

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Hary, S. C. D. (2012). ‘Kyopo’daughters in Germany: The construction of identity among second-generation German-Korean women in Germany. Doctoral dissertation, University of Sussex, Sussex. Hay, J. (2001). The pragmatics of humor support. Humor, 14(1), 55–82. Henman, L.  D. (2001). Humor as a coping mechanism: Lessons from POWs. Humor, 14(1), 83–94. Holmes, J. (2014). Doing discourse analysis in sociolinguistics. In J.  Holmes & K. Hazen (Eds.), Research methods in sociolinguistics (pp. 177–193). John Wiley. Holmes, J., & Hay, J. (1997). Humour as an ethnic boundary marker in New Zealand interaction. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 18(2), 127–151. Holmes, J., & Marra, M. (2002). Humour as a discursive boundary marker in social interaction. In A.  Duszak (Ed.), Us and others: Social identities across languages, discourses and cultures (pp. 377–400). John Benjamins. Inya, O., & Inya, B. (2021). Interrogating the Phenomenon of Suffering and Smiling by Nigerians: A Mixed Methods Study. In E.  Vanderheiden & C.-H.  Mayer (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research. Palgrave Macmillan. Jugert, P., Pink, S., Fleischmann, F., & Leszczensky, L. (2020). Changes in Turkish-­ and resettler-origin adolescents’ acculturation profiles of identification: A three-­ year longitudinal study from Germany. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 49, 2476–2494. Kakalic, Y. (forthcoming). “Why is integration still associated with us?” Approaching issues of social integration of German-Turkish descendants in Germany from a sociolinguistics perspective. Doctoral thesis, University of Warwick, Coventry, England. Kalter, F. (2006). Auf der Suche nach einer Erklärung für die spezifischen Arbeitsmarktnachteile von Jugendlichen türkischer Herkunft. Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 35(2), 144–160. Karakasoglu, Y. (1996). Turkish cultural orientations in Germany and the role of Islam. In D.  Horrocks & E.  Kolinksy (Eds.), Turkish culture in German society today (pp. 157–180). Berghan Books. Kilinc, N. (2018). Lifestyle returnees at ‘home’: The second-generation Turkish-­ Germans’ search for self in Antalya. Doctoral dissertation, University of Surrey. King, R., & Kilinc, N. (2014). Routes to roots: Second-generation Turks from Germany ‘return’to Turkey. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 4(3), 126–133. Kitzinger, J. (1995). Qualitative research. Introducing focus groups. BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 311(7000), 299–302. Klinkhammer, G. (2003). Modern constructions of Islamic identity. The case of second generation Muslim women in Germany. Marburg Journal of Religion, 8(1), 20–31. Lodigiani, M. (2018). Turks in Germany: An evaluation of socioeconomic integration. Colloquium: The Political Science Journal of Boston College, 2(1), (20–31). Martin, R. A. (2004). Sense of humor and physical health: Theoretical issues, recent findings, and future directions. Humor, 17(1–2), 1–19.

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5 The Position of Humour in Social Crises: When and What Does Turkish Society Laugh at? Ayşe Aslı Sezgin and Tuğba Yolcu

5.1 Introduction Positive Psychology focuses on the conditions and processes contributing to the development or optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions. The development of Positive Psychology can be traced back to the introduction of ‘healthy mindedness’1 by William James in 1902. Nowadays, a variety of psychological research investigating different aspects of life have grown in importance. Such research fields include attachment, optimism, love, and emotional intelligence. Social experiences such as hope, curiosity, and humour

 In William James’s ‘The Varieties of Religious Experience’ (1902), the author examined the reasons why some people always seem happy, even in the face of adversity. He also portrayed constantly sad or melancholic lives of people who lacked an aim or purpose as opposed to people who always look happy. In line with this determination, he further mentioned two different understandings of the universe: ‘Healthy mindedness’ and ‘a Sick Soul’ (James, 1985). 1

A. A. Sezgin (*) Faculty of Communication, Department of Communication Sciences, Çukurova University, Adana, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] T. Yolcu Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Tarsus University, Tarsus, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Vanderheiden, C.-H. Mayer (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78280-1_5

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were also the subject of research before the year 2000 (Gable & Haidt, 2005, p. 104). This study aims to examine the principles of Positive Psychology on life satisfaction of societies, in particular, with reference to Turkish society. The impact of neoliberal transformation of the society in the decade after 2010, stigmatized as a time frame when people tend to be apolitical, was examined in relation to humorous content being generated every day. The important role of Positive Psychology in the process of building what is good as well as its efforts to improve it at the social level were evaluated based on the relationship between Turkish society and humour. Conducted with a descriptive analysis method, the study discussed the role of Twitter-generated content of humour on the incidents considered as a ‘social crises’ in Turkey in the last decade.

5.2 Humour: Source of Resilience Humour plays an important role in people’s lives. There has been an increased interest in humour, especially regarding its contribution to social welfare. Positive Psychology is also a source of studies on humour due to its role in constituting what is good. Humour has the potential in itself to contribute to people’s well-being (Wellenzohn et al., 2016, p. 584; Oosthuizen, 2021). An important study titled the ‘Values in Action, Classification of Strengths and Virtues’ (Peterson & Seligman, 2006) conducted in the field of Positive Psychology, which studies the aspects that make life worth living (Edwards & Martin, 2014, p. 505), defined 24 traits,2 which enable human development and are owned by strong characters, and classified them under 6 overarching virtues (wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence) that are interculturally valuable. It was intended to create a sort of ‘mental health guide’ in line with this definition. The sense of humour is one of these 24 strong character traits. A person with the skill of humour is defined as ‘the person who has the ability to make jokes and make others laugh’ (Edwards & Martin, 2014, p. 505). Various components play their part related to the relationship between Positive Psychology and humour. These can be defined as happiness, routes to happiness, resilience, and morality (Edwards & Martin, 2014, p. 507). The  Creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, wisdom, bravery, persistence, integrity, vitality, love, kindness, social intelligence, citizenship, fairness, leadership, forgiveness and mercy, humility and modesty, prudence, self-regulation, appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humour, and spirituality (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). 2

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concept of resilience, especially emphasized in this study, should be used when explaining the impact of humour, which is preferred as a means of social reaction to spread Positive Psychology, at the social level. Resilience is defined as ‘the process of positive adaptation or development against negative experience’ (Edwards & Martin, 2014, p. 507). Humour can be a means that reveals social support by changing individuals’ perspectives and enable people to distance themselves from problems. It can also increase positive emotions and ease tension, as well as being an effective means of adaptation in the face of stress. For resilience, the ‘self-enhancing’ humour has an important impact to cope with distress (Edwards & Martin, seems remarkable. In times of social crises in Turkey since 2014, p. 507). As examined in this study, the self-enhancing aspect of humorous content in social media posts 2010, it is noteworthy that young generation have created social and cultural-based humorous content towards contemporary discourse (Kakalic & Schnurr, 2021; Mayer & Mayer, 2021).

5.3 Turkey in the Context of Cultural and Social Properties Turkey, though young as a republic, has a long history dating back to ancient times with its culture. The Ottoman system during the classical period protected the cultural background and sustained its multi-religious, multi-lingual, and multi-ethnic character as well as the principle of undivided power. However, especially after the Tanzimat Era, it started to become one-dimensional with one religion and one language (Tabakoğlu, 2017, p. 40). A social and cultural modernization process started through the end of the Ottoman Empire. İnalcık (1993) stated that modernization was in the form of transferring the cultural elements. The policy followed was to reject the values of the West, but to adopt relevant knowledge and science only. During the Republic year, however, it was understood that this would not be possible and a complete change was performed. In response to the multinational structure of the Ottoman State, it was aimed to create a common culture within the single-national structure of the republic, and the most important tool in that effort was education (Acun, 2017). Religion and traditions constituted the most important factors of Turkey’s social and cultural structure. The administrative traditions from the old Turkish states not only sustained their existence but were also effective in shaping the social structure. Furthermore, the family in the social structure is considered the most important building block in which culture is transferred.

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It is, therefore, natural to see a strong system of values in such a social structure. While such a situation embraced modernity, it also gave rise to a conservative culture. The social and cultural structure, intended to be created by the state during the foundation years of the Republic, changed with the political transformation in the 1950s. The transition to a multi-party system and the change of government brought along some changes in the social and cultural structure. At that time, mechanization also played the role of a pillar of modernization, giving rise to the elite class who gained wealth and chose to meet their longings for westernization with luxury consumption (Eroğlu, 2003). Migration from villages to cities eliminated the judgement about villages as obstacles to modernization, and villagers changed not only the texture of the city but also of their own villages (Gültekin, 2011). Changes all around the world after the 1980s affected Turkey as well. In the free market conditions triggered by neoliberal policies after 1980, consumer culture increased with individualism, selfishness with ignorance, and greed for money (Kazgan, 2005). As being knowledgeable lost its importance, people who considered becoming knowledgeable a virtue were replaced by those who cared about superficial things (Sartori, 2004). The migration from rural to urban resulted in the problem of alienation. By changing the ways of sharing and consuming, alienation boosted individualization instead of the traditional sense of cooperation and solidarity (Özsoy, 2011). Alienation grew with the emergence of the first television broadcasts (Özsoy, 2011). During that period, television triggered the creation of consumer culture. Many TV series and films aimed to encourage and diversify consumption by spreading the image of society living in abundance (Oktay, 2002). The effect of television was, therefore, especially felt in cultural life, creating the visualization and entertainment industry (Oktay, 1996). Television also shaped the daily life after the 1980s. In the recent past, the internet associated the great influence of television in shaping the cultural and social structure. Television, telephone, and internet are among the fundamental elements of today’s technology, which is the main determinant in the formation of material culture. Technology has, therefore, become a force that regulates the rules, implications, and values among people (Kongar, 1985). This force has turned the internet into a social space where new forms of social relations are created beyond its function as a means of communication (Timisi, 2003). Mass media provide the basis for a particular group and class to construct an image of life and value for other groups and classes. They are also held responsible for generating images and thoughts to adopt the social structure as a pluralistic whole, which has become even more complex with contemporary conditions

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of capital and production (Hall, 1999). This responsibility has caused media to undertake an important role in the creation and transmission of popular culture products. Entertainment and curiosity have formed the basis of popular culture. Today, media has become a means of entertainment, while public incidents have formed a small part of media content (Curran, 2002). Popular culture shaped by media has become an important element that changes the cultural structure of our age.

5.3.1 Humour in Turkey Which has a very old history of culture, Turkey is influenced by many cultures because of its geographical location and also affected a lot of cultures. Considering the Turkish states established throughout history, it can be said that independence is important in the cultures of Turks. In this geography where people with different identities lived together in the past, there is a cultural structure dominated by tolerance. The world’s one of the oldest settlements in Turkey, which is based on the Andaol possible to see the traces of these cultural riches. Limited to the period from 1980 to 2015, the study conducted by Boylan (2015) on the social role of humour in Turkey stressed the existence of four different themes in Turkey. The first is ‘humour as a means of freedom of expression and opposition’, the second is ‘humour as a defence mechanism’, the third is ‘humour as a means of hope and survival’, and the last one is ‘humour to establish communication and connection’. Social phenomena play a significant role in the emergence of these themes of humour in Turkey. The influence of oral tradition is remarkable in Turkish humour during the reigns of Seljuk and Ottoman Empire in Anatolia. While anecdotes had an important effect in this period, irony and satire were also elements of humour that drew attention against the oppression of the government (Karahisar, 2015, p. 79). Political humour gained more importance with the increased influence of the print media. The first humour magazines criticizing the administration were important means of opposition through the end of the Ottoman Empire. The changes in the early periods of the Republic were also reflected in the form of humour. In addition to everyday problems, political issues were used to produce humour in a freer environment. With the transition to a multiparty system, humorous stories began to be written. The planned economic development activities in Turkey started in the 1960s, referred to as the beginning of the modernization period, during which social problems such as

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rural-to-urban migration became important sources of humour. The 1970s also witnessed significant sociological, economic, and political transformations in Turkey. In the 1980s, a social structure in which individualism stood out began to emerge. And in the 1990s and 2000s, humour became a commercial and then a digital product (Karahisar, 2015, pp. 80–81). Social crises in Turkey since the 2000s, when the transition to digitalization started, have caused significant changes in the content and source of humour produced in the digital environment. Since 2010, many political, economic, and social phenomena have been transferred to digital media in the form of humorous content, which, in a sense, should be evaluated as the reflection of the concept of resilience expressed individually on the social level. Especially the younger generation, fed from Turkey’s historical and cultural past, has been a source of humorous content with a unique language.

5.4 The Social Crises in Turkey’s Near Term Crises is defined as the moment or process when it seems impossible to find a solution to a problematic situation (Yazıcıoğlu, 2001, p. 34). Social crises is, on the other hand, more about social change and development, including cultural and socio-psychological elements. It disrupts the balance of society and reflects on other fields (Kotil, 1998; Inya & Inya, 2021). The study examined the case studies affecting the social balance within social change and development from 2010 to 2020. Since yearly political, economic, and social phenomena that have affected social processes are examined in the study, giving brief information about such events was necessary for the descriptive analysis as well as for the theoretical framework of the study. The psychological and social effects of humour in times of crisis draw attention. People turn to humour as a way of coping with psychological factors such as stress and anxiety caused by crisis processes. In this sense, humour can be seen as a tool used to get rid of the tension caused by the crisis processes. With its social impact, humour mediates the opposition of society to political decision-makers, especially in crisis processes. Individuals realize social opposition by using the humour tool against the decision-makers they hold responsible for the crisis and the institutions that are effective in the decision-making process. Under this heading, brief information about the crises selected in this context was given first.

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5.4.1 Resignation of CHP’s Leader, 2010 The crises chosen for the year 2010 is the resignation of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal and the change in the party leadership. Founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, it is one of the oldest political parties in Turkey. The change of the leader of the political party, which is the most important representative of the centre-left ideology of our time, occupied an important place in Turkey’s agenda. Since the political party discipline has always been strong in Turkey, the change of leaders in political parties usually takes place when the leader dies or at an extraordinary situation. It was, therefore, a remarkable incident in Turkish political life and evolved into a social crises. Deniz Baykal resigned on May 10, 2010, due to the scandal in which he alleged that there had been a conspiracy against him (Hürriyet, 2010). Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was elected the new CHP Leader in the 33rd Convention of CHP held on May 22, 2010 (Milliyet, 2010).

5.4.2 The Match-Fixing Scandal in Fenerbahçe Football Club, 2011 The selected incident is the issue of match-fixing in a football team in Turkey. Though established in 1907, the history of Fenerbahçe Sports Club dates back to old times and is one of Turkey’s oldest sports clubs (Fenerbahçe, 2020). During the investigation conducted against the authorities of the Club, 46 people were taken into custody for ‘establishing an armed criminal organization, managing it, and becoming a member of an organization founded for the purpose of committing a crime’ (Hürriyet, 2011).

5.4.3 Syrian Migration Wave, 2012 The case chosen for the year 2012 is the flux of immigration from Syria. Due to the Civil War in Syria that started in 2011, many people took refuge in Turkey. In fact, although the process started in 2011, the wave of immigration became massive in 2012 and increased gradually. According to the data of the Directorate General of Migration Management, 224,655 people had immigrated from Syria by the end of 2012. Nowadays, 3,579,420 people are residing in Turkey in the temporary protected status (GİGM, 2020).

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5.4.4 Gezi Park Protests, 2013 The crises chosen for the year 2013 is the Gezi Park Protests, one of the most discussed issues both in Turkey and in the world. The protests started due to the plan to build Artillery Barracks in Gezi Park in Istanbul. The ‘Stand Up for Taksim Platform’ started the actions to stop the demolition work in the park via social media on May 27, 2013 (Hürriyet, 2013). Spreading across the country and continuing for days, the protests are still the subject of ongoing discussions.

5.4.5 Increase of Inflation, 2014 The case study chosen for the year 2014 is about the inflation rate, which has a significant impact on social crises related to the economy. The prolonged droughts above the seasonal norms resulted in increased food prices, leading to high inflation (Hürriyet, 2014). It can also be regarded as a reflection of the local and presidential elections in 2014 on the economy.

5.4.6 March 31st Power Outage, 2015 The power outage in many provinces across Turkey was chosen as a case study for the year 2015. Although it was said to have been caused by a malfunction in the transmission lines, a crises desk was established in the Ministry of Energy to consider every possibility. The power outage was defined as the most serious incident in the electrical system after Marmara earthquake on August 17, 1999 (BBC, 2015). After the power outage, many people showed their reactions through social media.

5.4.7 July 15th Coup Attempt, 2016 The case study chosen for the year 2016 is the July 15th Coup D’état Attempt, whose impacts still continue, as one of the most important incidents in Turkish political life. On the night of July 15, 2016, some streets and the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul were closed to traffic by tanks and military vehicles in addition to low-flying military aircraft and helicopters in Istanbul and Ankara to initiate a coup d’état attempt (Alkan, 2016), but it never succeeded.

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5.4.8 Referendum for a Constitutional Amendment, 2017 Considered a turning point in Turkish politics, a referendum was held for a constitutional amendment in 2017 to introduce the Presidential System, which then started in Turkey, governed for many years by the parliamentary system. Upon the constitutional amendment, the parliamentary system was replaced by the Presidential System, and the prime minister’s office was abolished (Official Gazette, 2017).

5.4.9 Economic Crises, 2018 The economic crises, caused by the fluctuations in exchange rates in 2018, affected the whole society and was also described as a currency crises. The Turkish Lira depreciated against foreign exchange, resulting in price mark-ups in many products (BBC, 2018).

5.4.10 Shopping Bag Sale, 2019 The sale of shopping bags led to discussions and turned into a social crises in 2019. The Ministry of Environment and Urbanization decided that plastic bags would be given to users at sales points for a fee as of January 1, 2019, to prevent environmental and visual pollution and stop unnecessary use (Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, 2017).

5.4.11 Covid-19 Pandemic, 2020 The crises selected for the year 2020 is the Covid-19 pandemic, which is both related to public health and other areas of society. Despite appearing in China, the pandemic has profoundly affected the whole world; in Turkey, the first case was reported on March 10, 2020, by the Ministry of Health. Since then (until May 27), approximately 159,000 cases have been reported, and 4431 people have died (Ministry of Health, 2020).

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5.5 Humour Inspired by the Crises Social crises, which defines unexpected and sudden incidents causing interruptions in daily life, also refers to confusion in the social order. Attacks, diseases, economic problems, natural disasters, accidents, and political problems are the main reasons for social crises. Such crises, in addition to the existing problems, provide the source for worth-watching and sensational appearances on media. Losses and grievances can become striking headlines. While worry, fear, and panic are reinforced with this content, different dramas are also encountered in the media content (Çaplı & Taş, 2010, p. 237). In the study conducted on the sociological functions of humour, Coser (1959) emphasized the effect of joking behaviour on establishing bonds, especially in group communication. The author stated that humour is a social means of contribution in groups whose members are constantly changing (i.e. the hospital work environment). With this aspect, Coser pointed out the contribution of humour to social economy (Coser, 1959, p. 181). The effect of humour is also important in the production of media content. Reaching a ‘consensus’ is also significant in the production of humour, in which a common ground and shared norms are emphasized. The consensus in humour represents an agreement on mutually accepted norms of behaviour. It is based on cultural consensus (Brennan, 2011, p. 830). The impact of humour arising from the crises, especially on cultural reconciliation, has been striking in group posts on social media networks in recent years. In the face of problems for which there is a consensus, reactions occurring in the social process are now conveyed through social media posts. Humour in social media content is likely to affect taboos, especially in relation to social crises. Normally, if expressed seriously, an issue may cause problems and tension, but a humorous discourse may lead to a different evaluation. Humour does not often need to be taken into account as much as the main discourse. Humour is not often officially accepted (Griffiths, 1998, p. 875). Messages whose elements are manipulated intentionally, semantically, or structurally result in perceptual reactions of those who encounter them. The manipulated humour coming from the source and perceived by the receiver (Xiao et al., 2018, p. 249) is the sort of content widely produced on social media, especially in times of social crises. Humour has always accompanied societies though its form, content, and style in response to social, cultural, and technological trends may change. Today, the internet plays an important role in the production and communication of humour with numerous web pages containing humour. E-mails and

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social media posts containing humorous messages can be found on digital environments (Shifman, 2007, p. 187). It is a remarkable fact that humour on social media may differ depending on symbolic elements in an online environment. Humour influences communication through the syntax and language that users in social media platforms collectively use. As far as the relief, superiority, and incongruous juxtaposition theories are concerned, humour produced on social media seems to be presented with different emphasis (Davis et al., 2018, p. 3902). Social media offers a new perspective in producing humour in the context of these theories, especially in times of social crises.

5.6 Method The previously determined conceptual structure of the research had a steering role in the description for trying to find an answer to the question of ‘what does Turkish society laugh at?’ in brief. The research was summarized and interpreted according to the themes determined in the descriptive analysis method, with an aim to organize and interpret the data, and present the research to the readers. For this reason, the findings were systematically and clearly described (Şimşek & Yıldırım, 2018, p. 237). A frame is formed for the descriptive analysis method, in which the basic research question determines the boundaries. The themes according to the research question and the data obtained according to the themes are processed, and the results are defined and interpreted (Şimşek & Yıldırım, 2018, p. 237). In the descriptive analysis, some flexible steps should be followed in the research process according to the qualitative research. First, data is collected from among the samples determined selectively. Then, the semantic units are defined and processed in line with the conceptual framework. In the research, data is evaluated within a general organizational structure. The themes are created, the findings are summarized, and the results are interpreted as a result of the research (Elliott & Timulak, 2005, p. 156). The sample of this study consists of the randomly selected humorous posts on Twitter3 about the incidents causing social crises in Turkey in and after  Twitter is a microblogging site (or a platform) that provides a medium for information flow as a social network structure. On Twitter, users can share updates via Tweets and follow other users’ updates. A user on Twitter can share a short message/post/status with a maximum of 280 characters (Purohit et  al., 2013). In this study, the posts on Twitter were examined with respect to their capacity to enable users to share information quickly, especially in terms of facilitating instant transmission of thoughts and emotions. 3

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2010. While selecting the social crises in Turkey in 2010 and after, especially, Twitter posts were chosen randomly under different categories. Under the themes of politics, economy, sports, health, and daily social life, specific social incidents were selected from among those that can be evaluated as a ‘crises’ in the social sense and that suddenly changed daily life and inspired humour content. Such incidents also stood as an example for the concept of resilience in the relationship between Positive Psychology and humour at the social level. Each crises-related humour was interpreted as ‘removing oneself from the problem, relieving tension and adapting to stress’. The themes for social crises are presented under the themes in Table 5.1. The main question of the study is as follows: ‘What is the position of humour in the incidents which caused social crises in Turkey?’ Depending on this basic research question, the semantic units identified for descriptive analysis were determined out of the resilience scale (Table 5.2) developed by Connor and Davidson (2003) in order to ascertain the impact of resilience reflecting from the individual to the social level through humour. Based on the descriptions in this scale, the aim was to determine the nature of the resilience dimension of the humorous content produced on Twitter amid the social crises between 2010 and 2020 by trying to find an answer to the main question of the research. The 25 separate descriptions in the scale provide important data for the descriptive analysis in addition to social conditions. Randomly selected posts, stated under the mentioned themes related to the incidents causing social crises as to years, describe the position of humour in the face of crises in Turkey. The descriptions such as adapting to changes, fatalism, and coping with stress are used to explain the level of resilience through these contents. Table 5.1  The social crises by themes in Turkey (2010–2020) Social crises Resignation of CHP’s Leader The match-fixing scandal in Fenerbahçe Football Club Syrian Migration Wave Gezi Park Protests Increase of inflation March 31st power outage July 15th coup attempt Referendum for a constitutional amendment Economic crises Shopping bag sale Covid-19 pandemic

Theme of descriptive Year analysis 2010 Politics 2011 Sports 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Daily social life Daily social life Economics Daily social life Politics Politics Economics Daily social life Health

5  The Position of Humour in Social Crises: When and What Does…  Table 5.2 ConnorDavidson resilience scale (Connor & Davidson, 2003, p. 78)

101

No

Description

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Able to adapt to change Close and secure relationships Sometimes fate or God can help Can deal with whatever comes Past success gives confidence for new challenge See the humorous side of things Coping with stress strengthens Tend to bounce back after illness or hardship Things happen for a reason Best effort no matter what You can achieve your goals When things look hopeless, I don’t give up Know where to turn for help Under pressure, focus and think clearly Prefer to take the lead in problem solving Not easily discouraged by failure Think of self as strong person Make unpopular or difficult decisions Can handle unpleasant feelings Have to act on a hunch Strong sense of purpose In control of your life I like challenges You work to attain your goals Pride in your achievements

5.7 Results This study analysed Twitter posts regarding the research question, ‘What is the position of humour in the incidents which caused social crises in Turkey?’ The incidents in Turkey from 2010 to 2020, as identified earlier and considered as social crises, were taken into consideration, and Twitter posts with humorous content were randomly selected. The first case study examined was related to the unexpected resignation of the leader of the opposition party in 2010. At that time, CHP Leader, Deniz Baykal, resigned from the party chairmanship due to a development regarding his private life, inciting an unusual crises in the country’s agenda. Deniz Baykal is an important political identity that led the CHP, which has a deep-rooted position in Turkish politics, throughout the year 2000. It is noteworthy that after the 2000s, a leader-oriented policy was sustained within the party, which has always been an uncompromising advocate of secularism

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and Kemalism4 in Turkey (Kömürcü, 2011). At the centre of the criticism against the CHP laid Baykal’s persistent and long-term party leadership. The sudden resignation, therefore, became important on Turkish media. The posts about the unexpected situation evaluated in a humorous style on social media were selected for the purposes of this study. The impossibility of Baykal’s resignation under ordinary conditions drew much attention in the evaluations saying that it could only be considered as a sign of apocalypse. Tweet 5.1 makes a reference to Israfil the angel, who is said to blow into the horn three times as a sign of the apocalypse according to Islam. The social media user who shared the following post expressed his astonishment saying: ‘Deniz Baykal has resigned. The horn will be blown into for three times very soon. Get ready!’. The organization of political parties in Turkey and the oligarchy of the leaders within the organization have become a source of humour in the eyes of the society. Evaluated under the description of ‘see the humorous side of things’ on the scale of Connor-Davidson, this interpretation reflects the social perspective of an incident that caused a political crises in the country. The topics on the agenda clearly indicate that politics and football rank first in Turkish agenda. Fenerbahçe Sports Club, being among the football clubs established in the early 1900s, has a long history and is among the Big Four, including the group with Galatasaray, Beşiktaş, and Trabzonspor. The allegations of match-fixing against Fenerbahçe Football Club in 2011 evoked different judgements in the fan awareness in football, to which much attention was paid in Turkey. Fenerbahçe Football Club President, Aziz Yıldırım, who also owns many companies in different sectors, was arrested on the charge of interfering with the results of the matches (Yanarocak, 2012). Tweet 5.2 says, ‘If Fenerbahçe is relegated with the claim of match-fixing, then it will have done what none of the greatest clubs could ever do, and gone down in history’, indicating in a tragicomic style that Fenerbahçe, which has experienced great championships, would go down in history, but with the

Tweet 5.1  Resignation of CHP’s Leader  Kemalism, M. Kemal Ataturk’s ideas, is defined as the founding ideology of the Republic of Turkey. This concept was first used by Western writers. Kemalism, which is among the rationalist ideologies, started to be used in the 1930s. This ideology, which consists of the basic principles of the Turkish revolution movements, predicts a state system based on these principles. 4

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Tweet 5.2  The match-fixing scandal in Fenerbahçe Football Club

Tweet 5.3  Syrian Migration Wave

claim of match-fixing. This can be assumed to represent the dominance in football expressed as ‘I like challenges’, indicating a social crises criticised in a humorous way as mentioned in the resilience scale. In 2012, the Migration Wave from Syria started, deeply affecting the sociocultural and economic structure in Turkey in the long term. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing civil war in Syria took refuge in Turkey. The migration has been criticized over time by people living in Turkey. The fact that the immigration turned into a settled life in time has also caused some economic, political, and cultural problems. In particular, the situation of Syrian refugee students included in the current education system was the leading criticism. Tweet 5.3 says, ‘If they really take Syrian immigrants to university without examination, a migration to Syria may start soon, high schoolers run!’, a criticism reflected in a humorous manner. Drawing attention to the Syrian students who were exempt from the university exam, which is normally required to start university, a social crises was mentioned in a humorous language though it actually expressed an intense criticism. The criticism referred to the migration policy, on the one hand, and the education system, on the other. Considered an unprecedented social crises in Turkey in 2013, Gezi Park Protests started with the protests of an environmentalist group in Gezi Park, Istanbul, and reached a different dimension in time to come up in the world agenda. During the protests, many posts in which humour came to the fore were made by the participants of the demonstrations. In Tweet 5.4, the motto, ‘If you love it, go and resist’ with reference to Gezi Park replaced the popular expression, ‘If you love her, go and talk to her’, which is frequently used among Turkish youth.

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Tweet 5.4  Gezi Park Protests

Tweet 5.5  Increase of inflation

Generation Z, who were criticized for being apolitical, played an active role in the protests about which their social media posts with unique expressions draw attention, representing the description ‘I like challenges’ on the ConnorDavidson resilience scale. Tweets 5.5 and 5.9 were posted while the economic crises in 2014 and 2018 led to social crises, respectively. Tweet 5.5 saying ‘I feel like a plucked goose due to the inflation trouble’ (this sentence is the second half of the poem) is a poem written by the user. With these expressions, the user compared himself to a goose with no feathers left, and tried to approach the situation in a humorous way in compliance with the description ‘see the humorous side of things’, despite being in a very difficult financial situation. In Tweet 5.9, a user posted a tweet during the economic crises in 2018 to say: ‘Come to the defence for God’s sake’, on the economic crises in relation to the following description—see the humorous side of things. In that post, with reference to the football literature, the difficulty faced by the Central Bank was expressed as the need for support in defence. Tweet 5.6 is one of the humorous posts shared on Twitter during the power outages experienced across Turkey on March 31, 2015, interpreted as an astonishing incident in the twenty-first century. The post saying, ‘Is there a power cut out there, buddy?’ was shared as a humorous expression as a reference to Nikola Tesla, known for his contributions to the alternating current electrical supply system. Such a crises experienced in Turkey in 2015, when the world was following different agendas, was criticised with a critical language in relation to the following description—see the humorous side of things. Tweet 5.7 is about the coup d’état attempt on July 15, 2016, in Turkey, which has experienced many coups in its history, but this time with a very

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Tweet 5.6  March 31st power outage

Tweet 5.7  July 15th coup attempt

Tweet 5.8  Referendum for a constitutional amendment

different scope and nature from the previous ones. Supported by different actors to seize political power, the coup attempt was eliminated as a result of the unity of the people in Turkey. However, it remained on the agenda for a long time and affected the whole society. The post saying, ‘The girl you love starts talking about the coup attempt when you say I love you’ conveys in a humorous way that the incident caused a trauma beyond the crises in the social sense and continued to be spoken by everyone in every environment. On the Connor-Davidson scale, the description chosen for that traumatic situation can be evaluated as under pressure, focus and think clearly. Tweet 5.8 is a post regarding the outcome of the Constitutional Referendum held in April 2017 and brought about significant changes in political sense in Turkey. Having been approved by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the referendum, proposing the change in the governmental system and political institutions, resulted in 51% of people voting ‘Yes’ (Demirhan, 2017). Upon the referendum, another example of the balcony speech, which the country has been accustomed to seeing since the 2000s, was held after the political victory. Such speeches emphasizing the victory of democracy have also taken their place in the political communication literature (Göksu, 2019). The post saying, ‘Let me wash the balcony’ in Tweet 5.8 is a humorous way of conveying that the balcony speech was expected after the election. As there had been other expectations about getting ‘No’ as a result of the referendum, a reference

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Tweet 5.9  Economic crises

Tweet 5.10  Shopping bag sale

Tweet 5.11  Covid-19 pandemic

was made to a political change that may take place in Turkey in the ConnorDavidson scale under the description of being able to adapt to change (Tweet 5.9). Tweet 5.10 is about the sale of shopping bags in markets and shopping malls that society had difficulty adapting to and which turned into a social crises over time. With the aim of combatting environmental pollution, bags have been sold at a price of 0.25 Turkish Lira, becoming the subject of discussion. Many of those who did not want to pay that amount brought up the sale of bags to discussion. In the post saying, ‘I wish I had collected shopping bags instead of good friends’, produced under economic pressure, standing for an example of humour for the opposition in accordance with the description on the Connor-Davidson scale, under pressure, focus and think. The Covid-19 pandemic, which has affected the whole world since the first months of 2020 and evaluated as a global crises, has affected Turkey as well. The worry and haste prevalent in the first days of the pandemic started to be replaced by the need for relaxation over time, leading to humorous content shared in posts on social media. Tweet 5.11 saying, ‘2020 recommendations: Stay away from positive people’ is a reference to those who test positive for Covid-19, reflecting adaptation to change through humour in accordance with the description on the Connor-Davidson scale, being able to adapt to change.

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5.8 Discussion and Conclusion This study investigated the reflection of social crises in Turkey on the society in the form of humour during the years of 2010–2020. According to the resilience scale, the impacts such as ‘change, pressure, seeing the humorous side’ were remarkable in Twitter posts. While such posts express what Turkish society laughs at, they also give an idea about the cultural structure. Additionally, the clues to political culture include the presence of leader-oriented political party organizations, frequent talk of political events in daily life, and adaptation to change. In the social structure, on the other hand, a critical language has often been the subject of humour. Humour expressed through social media reflects harmony through the use of humorous language in the face of changes, in contrast to the resistance to change by conservative identities, which can be explained by the popular culture dominant in the social structure after 1980s. The subjects to humour have included the isolation of the individual by popular culture, and the preference of multiple emotions such as friendship and love to an incident that is sometimes political, sometimes economic, and sometimes health-related. Pressure also seems prominent among the elements subject to humour. This pressure is expressed in humorous content as it is created by a situation frequently spoken in social media and in daily life. The search for an answer to ‘What is the position of humour in the incidents which caused social crises in Turkey?’ revealed the important role of Positive Psychology in the process of building what is good and the efforts to improve it at the social level as communicated through humour. This study will be enlightening in terms of future studies in examining the role of humour both individually and socially. The study presented an example of the sense of humour formed depending on the social structure and explained this by associating it with psychological factors. In terms of examining different social humour elements and humour approaches within this framework, it can be a start for future studies.

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6 Humour as Cultural Capital in Transitions Mariana Lazzaro-Salazar

6.1 Introduction Humour has been widely described as a discursive resource that helps people cope with difficult situations. In particular, positive psychologists (GonotSchoupinsky & Garip, 2021; Mayer & Mayer, 2021; Oosthuizen, 2021) have emphasised the role of humour in fostering positive psychological capacities and positive affective experiences (Hughes, 2008) and as an adaptive defence during adverse or stressful situations (Kuiper, 2012; Maiolino & Kuiper, 2014). Cultural transition, that is, the process of transitioning from one culture to another which characterises the migration experience (Zayts & Lazzaro-­Salazar, 2020), is often a highly stressful social phenomenon since the person has to ‘reorganize his/her social roles, and to cope with temporal and structural changes in daily life’ (Manzi et al., 2009, p. 970). Possibly due to this, humour has received increasing attention in studies of cultural transitions where it has mainly been investigated in light of the many challenges and mismatch of sociocultural expectations involved in processes of cultural adaptation when migrants interact with people from the host culture at different social and workplace levels (Lazzaro-Salazar & Zayts, 2019). The exploration of humour in cultural transitions, then, has mostly been developed in the

M. Lazzaro-Salazar (*) Universidad Católica del Maule, Talca, Chile © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Vanderheiden, C.-H. Mayer (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78280-1_6

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field of intercultural communication.1 In fact, the literature on intercultural communication contributes extensively to our understanding of the way humour varies from culture to culture, and how the resulting sociocultural differences prompt different national styles of humour (Sinkeviciute & Dynel, 2017), and differences in the discursive and linguistic realisation of it (Marra & Holmes, 2007). Research in intercultural communication aligns with positive psychologists’ views on humour by showing that people use it positively as a psychological strategy and a discursive resource to cope with job stressors and to relieve tensions in an effort to achieve psychosocial equilibrium in transitions. This, naturally, does not mean that humour is never used with a negative (or even aggressive) function. Humour has, in fact, also been described as a ‘repressive discourse device’ used by subordinates to contest superiors and by superiors to soften directives and/or criticism, for instance (Holmes & Marra, 2002). However, as the examples in this chapter will illustrate, humour in cultural transitions is mainly positively oriented and supportive, and enhances the social integration of migrant doctors into their new social and workplace cultures (Plester & Kim, 2021). Individuals’ orientation to humour (whether positive or negative) is highly context-sensitive, that is, its use and interpretation depends on the contextual characteristics in which it occurs. In this light, cultural transitions, as a multi-­ dimensional social phenomenon, provide quite a unique context for its exploration as migrating to a new country is problematic at different levels. In line with previous literature (e.g. Li, 2016), for the migrant doctors involved in the study on which this chapter builds, the cultural transition experience involved different degrees of pre-migration trauma (including guilt of leaving family/friends behind) and, once arrived in the host country, different degrees of acculturative stress, which was often related to social isolation, interactional difficulties and loss of professional status (Lazzaro-Salazar & Pujol-Cols, 2017). Though migrating is often a highly stressful experience (e.g. Urzúa et al., 2019; Kakalic, & Schnurr, 2021; Shrestha & Fluri, 2021), it seems to be even more difficult and traumatic for these migrant doctors because they report feeling they were forced to leave their country in search of a socially and politically stable country that would not endanger the lives of their close families. In this context, this chapter aims to show how humour is used in positive ways to overcome the difficulties of a seemingly forced transition process (see Lazzaro-Salazar, 2019). To this end, this chapter explores the role of humour in cultural transitions as a way of making sense of the migration process in reflections of the  Intercultural communication refers to the communication between people from two or more different cultures (Kotthoff & Spencer-Oatey, 2008). 1

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migration experience (at a macro level), and of managing sensitive topics during the research interview (at a micro level). Guided by views of positive psychology and sociolinguistic research, the discussion in this chapter reflects on how migrant doctors actually perceive humour in cultural transitions, and on the socio-pragmatic functions of humour when migrant doctors reflect on their experiences of cultural transitions. In doing this, the current chapter hopes to provide a rather comprehensive (albeit brief ) view of the positive uses of humour by migrant doctors and to reflect on it as a discursive resource that is part of their cultural capital for facing the struggles of the transition process.

6.2 The Study: Migrant Doctors in Chile Before delving into the discussion of the role of humour in cultural transitions, it is important to unpack some background information to understand the context of study on which this chapter draws. The data used to illustrate the points made here were collected for a three-year study that included nineteen migrant doctors of public healthcare institutions in central and northern regions of Chile (Fondecyt n° 3160104, 2016–2018). This three-year study followed an interpretive-descriptive design guided by the principles behind the framework of interactional sociolinguistics (Gumperz & Cook-Gumperz, 2006) that combined qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis. Migrant doctors in Chile constitute 19% of the total medical workforce of the country and over 30% of the medical staff working in public healthcare institutions (Superintendence of Health Report 20192), which puts Chile in the fifth place among the OECD countries with the highest percentages of foreign doctors. Migrant doctors come predominantly from other Latin American countries; nevertheless, in spite of speaking the same language (i.e. Spanish) as local doctors, they belong to very different cultural groups to that of the host culture in Chile (Lazzaro-Salazar & Pujol-Cols, 2017). Over the last decade, Chile has had two major migration waves of medical doctors. The first one began shortly after the 8.8 massive earthquake that hit Chile in 2010 when hospital authorities actively recruited foreign medical doctors to overcome the shortage of healthcare professionals. The second migration wave occurred between 2015 and 2018 and was motivated by the political and social crises in countries such as Venezuela, which has prompted healthcare professionals to move to Chile in search of a safer and more stable environment in which, for instance, to raise their kids (2017). 2  Information available at: http://www.supersalud.gob.cl/documentacion/666/articles-18219_recurso_ 1.pdf.

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Facing yet another crisis, during the current COVID-19 pandemic, migrant doctors in Chile have been referred by the media as the Migrant Health Brigade3 for their invaluable support in overcoming the health crisis. In particular, the migrant doctors in this study were contacted through the authorities and other relevant staff of the participating public health institutions who were able to assist us by spreading word of our wish to contact migrant doctors (Lazzaro-Salazar & Pujol-Cols, 2019), and also by following the ‘snowball technique’, that is, by asking participating migrant doctors to provide the contact of other migrant doctors potentially interested in this study (Goodman, 1961; Zayts & Lazzaro-Salazar, 2020). The migrant doctors in this study were 71.41% women, and they were between 27 and 50 years old. Regarding the country of origin, 67.5% were from Venezuela (which is why this chapter focuses on these participants); other origins include Cuba, Ecuador, Argentina and Peru. These doctors mainly specialise in paediatrics (17.95%), anaesthesiology (15.38%) and general practice (17.95%). In a sociodemographic survey, 33.33% of the participants indicated that the main reason for migrating to Chile was their professional development as in Venezuela the shortage of medical supplies and reduced budget prevented them from practicing ‘good medicine’. In addition, 30.77% of participants indicated they migrated for their personal safety, 17.95% for political reasons, 15.38% for family reasons (also related to their safety, wellbeing and growth possibilities) and the remaining 2.56% for sociocultural reasons. When leaving their country, most of these migrant doctors carry the burden of leaving their loved ones behind amidst a political crisis, food shortages and social chaos, often with the hope of reuniting with them in the host country as soon as they manage to settle in. During in-depth interviews, these migrant doctors explained they feel they were given no choice but to leave their country because of its social and political upheavals, and most of them continue to comment that they would go back as soon as political stability is achieved in their country of origin (Lazzaro-Salazar, 2019). In their discourse of forced migration, then, the emotional strain and the tensions of the transition process become salient and recurrent as participants reflect on their migration experience. Such pre-migration trauma may then be further aggravated by acculturation stressors (consider Lazzaro-Salazar & Pujol-Cols, 2020). In this context, the study of humour as cultural capital that is used as an adaptive coping strategy to face traumatic or stressful events (see Greenspoon, 2016) seems most appropriate. 3  Source: https://radio.uchile.cl/2020/03/24/brigada-migrante-de-salud-medicos-extranjeros-paraenfrentar-la-crisis-sanitaria/.

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6.3 The Interviews Thus, in order to investigate the role of humour as a coping strategy to face cultural transitions, nineteen in-depth research interviews with migrant doctors in Chile were carried out as part of this study. The invitation to the interview was emailed and/or sent via text message (according to participants’ preferences) by heads of department at the participating healthcare institutions and by the author, and then forwarded from participant to participant. The interviews were mostly conducted in the author’s office at the university and sometimes at participants’ workplaces (also according to participants’ preferences). Conducting the interviews in participants’ workplaces could be seen as a limitation to the study since it is often the case that such work spaces are not private and thus participants may not speak freely about sensitive topics. To minimise the risks of this, interviews were conducted in participants’ workplaces only when a private office or meeting room was available for the purposes of this study. Moreover, this study and the informed consent form that all participants signed at the start of the interview were approved by the Ethics Committee of Universidad Católica del Maule in Chile (records #28/2015 and #57/2017). The interviews were conducted in Spanish, and their duration ranged between twenty minutes and one hour. The interviews adopted a sociolinguistic approach with the aim of gathering data that were as casual and natural as possible (consider Zayts & Lazzaro-Salazar, 2020). To this end, a topic guide about participants’ working experiences in the countries of their origin and of destination (i.e. Chile) was used. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. These data were analysed following the quality principles of thematic analysis proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006). Interestingly, during the interviews, participants not only reflected on the role of humour but also resorted to employing humour when discussing sensitive matters. In what follows, then, the chapter provides an exploration of the interview data regarding the positive role of humour in cultural transitions by considering both participants’ perceptions and actual use of humour in research interviews to explore the ways in which humour becomes a cultural capital in transitions. The examples in this chapter were selected following the considerations of authenticity, representativeness and their potential to illustrate recurrent phenomena suggested by Lingard (2019). These examples then are representative of the kinds of values, practices and reflections that were commonly observed in these interviews. I will begin by outlining the main concepts of the cultural capital theory to build the argument that humour is a cultural capital in cultural

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transitions. Then, I will briefly explore the functions of humour as cultural capital in migrant doctors’ reflections during research interviews.

6.4 Cultural Capital of Migrants and Humour The concept of cultural capital was introduced by Bourdieu (1986) and is one of the forms of capital in his theory. Cultural capital refers to preferences, attitudes, ideas and symbols, among others, that can be strategically used as resources in social action. In this framework, cultural capital is viewed as a ‘habitus’, that is, a socialised tendency of a group of people to think, act and/ or feel in a certain way. According to Bourdieu (1986), cultural capital can be invested, accumulated and transmitted from generation to generation and can be converted into other forms of capital (e.g. social and economic). Cultural capital appears in three states: objectified, institutionalised and embodied (1986). This chapter focuses on the latter because it can be related directly to the value attached to linguistic resources like, as proposed here, humour. The embodied state (also known as incorporated cultural capital) involves the dispositions, sets of meaning, modes of thinking, system of values, work experience, language skills and cultural knowledge that a person has, which are acquired through both socialisation and educational processes. The embodied capital, and, in particular, that of language skills, is an inherent part of migrants’ identities and social practices and becomes especially relevant in accessing and succeeding at intercultural jobs (Erel, 2010). When doctors in the study were asked about the role of humour in their new workplace routines, they reflected on its value in their adaptation process as ‘an active pause amidst the overwhelming workplace dynamics’ and as ‘a vital aspect to lighten up and cope with the workload of shifts’. Example 1 further illustrates the perceived value of humour as a cultural capital in their new workplace routines. Example 1 Here at the hospital and everywhere really … we laugh at everything, that’s the way Venezuelans are, the way we face things. We’re all humour [meaning Venezuelans joke about everything]. You can see them laughing all day long. Everything is a joke. You’ll never be in a meeting or a shift here with serious-­ looking Venezuelans. One of the basic assumptions of Bourdieu’s theory is that capital is instrumentally used by individuals to reach their goals and so the way they use it determines the chances of success of their actions. It follows then that the way

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the embodied state of cultural capital, in particular humour, is employed during cultural transitions can potentially affect migrant mobilities. It is worth mentioning then that when these migrant doctors left their country, they did so carrying the burden of leaving their families and friends behind at the mercy of their country’s mayor political crisis. Caring and reaching out to them every day and keeping themselves up-to-date with the political news of their country of origin are something they must deal with on a daily basis. In this context, migrant doctors reflect on how humour is a resource that helps them cope with the political reality of their country of origin (and possibly also with the guilt of leaving loved ones behind) as an integral and painful part of their transition processes. Example 2 We like humour so much that we still have Maduro in power [laughs], every day we see him on the news and every day we laugh at what he did. Imagine the kind of sense of humour we have around here! [sarcastic tone, pointing at the hospital building from a cafeteria across the street] Explorations of cultural capital in migration studies draw on human capital approaches and build on the idea that different ethnic groups have identifiable characteristics, including cultural norms, values, practices and social networks (Zhou, 2005). Until recently, most studies in the field have widely assumed that these different characteristics were ‘transplanted with minor modifications by immigrants in the new land and there transmitted and perpetuated from generation to generation’ (2005, p. 134). From this perspective, cultural capital is viewed as a legitimate source of domination when its resources are recognised and valued within a community. The concept of habitus is vital to this process of evaluation and recognition of cultural capital as it provides the norms that allow communities to assign values to their practices and resources. In this light, the general assumption dictates that, if not valued or legitimised in the host community, migrants’ cultural competences and resources can result in a number of in-group/out-group boundary distinctions in which the dominant forces of the host culture often prevail (see Kim, 2018). Thus, a number of migration studies in the field have shown that cultural capital may be used as a power resource to ‘prioritise specific competencies in home/host locations (Weenink, 2008), to define migrants’ cultural distance (Friedmann, 2002), and to affect the “value” of their social positions’ (in Shubin, 2020, p. 2). More current studies, however, show that while this may be the case during the early stages of cultural transition (consider Example 3), in time cultural practices and competences often evolve and interactants of different cultural groups begin to develop new ways of social understanding,

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as is the case of those doctors who have worked in Chile for two years or more (consider Example 4). Example 3 From each thing, situation we make a joke, that is, always + but of course there’s a big difference with the Chilean doctors. I don’t understand the Chilean jokes [giggles] that is true. And many times when I’m talking to a Venezuelan, they don’t understand our jokes, so in that sense there has been a little bit of + at the best distance because you make a joke and you don’t understand it and everyone laughs and you look like [looking confused, laughs]. In this example, the interviewee reflects on how being unable to grasp the socio-pragmatic meaning of Chilean jokes (and vice versa) alienates them from social interaction with local colleagues, distancing migrant and local doctors and drawing clear in-group/out-group boundaries. However, this changes over time as both cultural groups begin to share a history of mutual engagement in professional activities and to adjust to each other’s norms of social behaviour, as Example 4 illustrates. Example 4 The way we use humour is different, different terms, expressions, even intonation I think but we have both [Chilean and Venezuelan doctors] adapted to each other. They are more serious here but we now laugh at each other’s jokes, we understand each other more now. It took me time to understand their humour… but at least we understand each other now. Thus, migration studies have recently witnessed a shift from considering cultural capital as a product, that is, a set of fixed, non-adaptable characteristics and habitus that migrants need to abandon when transitioning into a new cultural context, to viewing it as a dynamic process. Current socio-­constructionist and interactionist approaches to the understanding of cultural capital show that migrants’ practices and resources interact (rather than always clash and collapse) with those of the host culture and seldom remain intact but rather often create new forms of cultural capital, a new habitus where the different cultural groups coexist (see Erel, 2010). Example 4 illustrates this idea showing how humour as part of these migrants’ cultural capital is accepted and valued in the new social space, and while both cultural groups seem to maintain their own humour styles, they both also seem to have a positive attitude towards accepting the humour styles of the other cultural group. Recognition of migrants’ cultural capital is central for its mobilisation, and those who possess ‘recognised’ cultural capital are perceived as competent interactants and professionals.

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In this light, the paradigm shift in the exploration of cultural capital also moves forward from the idea that cultural capital functions mainly as a resource ‘used for social and cultural exclusion from jobs, resources and high status groups’ (Prashizky & Remennick, 2015, p. 19) towards a more positive standpoint as current studies focus on its value in actually facilitating occupational mobility (consider Lazzaro-Salazar, 2020). In line with this, migration studies have recently explored the ways in which migrants employ and sometimes ‘adapt’ their cultural capital as they face new workplace situations in order to ‘facilitate social and geographical mobility’ (Shubin, 2020, p. 2). The use of humour as one of the resources of their cultural capital that help them face the difficulties of adjusting to a new culture and to a new workplace environment is mentioned by migrant doctors as a vital aspect of their transition process, as Example 5 shows. Example 5 Humour is an intelligent way to handle certain situations. It helps communication and breaks down barriers with our colleagues, as long as it is appropriate. It helps me to deal with stressful situations more easily, especially in this situation [referring to their migration experience] always in a moderate way. It’s a friendly approach for me. This supports current views of cultural capital theory (as well as sociocultural and sociolinguistic views on migration phenomena) that claim that migrants exert high degrees of agency over how they use their cultural capital during their transition process, that they are active in deciding the best strategies to help them deal with the hardships of cultural transition and that these resources are more often employed positively to achieve satisfactory outcomes rather than to mainly build group boundaries as earlier literature suggested. With this in mind, some authors argue that migrants’ creative agency constructs new forms of ‘migration-specific cultural capital’ so that old resources and practices can be managed to face new situations (Erel, 2010, p. 656). In the next section, I will briefly explore the functions of humour as cultural capital in migrant doctors’ reflections during research interviews.

6.5 Functions of Humour as Cultural Capital Now that the conceptual framework of cultural capital has been laid out in relation to migrant doctors’ use of humour in cultural transitions, I will endeavour to briefly discuss the functions of humour as a cultural capital in such a context.

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Fig. 6.1  Humour in cultural transitions

To begin with, migrants’ reflections on their use of humour were classified according to five emerging topics, namely, cultural differences, relational closeness, local-migrant balance, facing mistakes in professional practice and making sense of transitions. In turn, these topics were grouped into two major themes, that is, reflecting on the intercultural experience and reflecting on life strains (Fig. 6.1). As the discussion below will show, when migrant doctors reflect on the role of humour in cultural transitions and their workplace experience, they also resort to humour to manage interactional tension during the interview. The first theme reflects an interpersonal dimension of the use of humour. When reflecting on their transition experience, migrant doctors often discussed the cultural differences they noticed in the styles of humour of their Chilean colleagues. Though these differences were sometimes discussed as a source of misunderstanding and even mockery (thus, as a boundary-marking strategy, Vine et al., 2009), they more often reflected on these differences as a source of shared amusement, as Example 6 illustrates. Example 6 They [Chilean doctors] talk about our way of talking and we also talk about their way of talking or jokes. Many words that I didn’t know [giggles] many many, they have taught me the Chilean dictionary so there we started to laugh together but there is a moment, as I was explaining, we are so many Venezuelans that we all speak the same language and they remain just like [puzzled face]. Once a Chilean told me ‘I feel like a foreigner’ [laughs] we were a lot of Venezuelans in the operating room and suddenly all the Venezuelans were talking and he was like ‘no now I’m the foreigner’ [humorous tone] and he laughed with us. This example is also useful in illustrating other points from the previous discussion, such as how this doctor actively engaged in learning new vocabulary to understand local humour, which is a sign of positive cultural bargaining and adaptation (Erel, 2010), and evidence of how humour can be used to build positive intercultural relations as they can now share this social activity and ‘laugh together’.

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However, the doctor’s reflection also makes another topic salient: the fact that in many public healthcare institutions in Chile migrant doctors outnumber local doctors, and, thus, the local-migrant workforce balance is inverted. In Example 7, a migrant doctor from another region in Chile further reflects on the fact that there are no Chilean doctors in the psychiatric ward where she works. Example 7 Well, no, you see what happens is that here we seem to be United Nations darling! Because we have, um, here we are three Venezuelans, uh, we have two Ecuadorians, Bolivians, Colombians, everything but, you see! [laughs] This is naturally a sensitive issue to reflect on as local doctors begin to develop a sense of displacement in their own country. Thus, when pointing this out, the migrant doctors felt the need to downplay the seriousness of the issue in the interview by employing humour. To achieve this, the interviewee in Example 6, for instance, made sure to use the seemingly same humorous tone the local doctor employed when quoting them and to leave on record the fact that this local doctor laughed at the end of his turn. This works to show how humour is used to manage tense situations and sensitive topics in cultural transitions during not only workplace interaction but also the research interview when reflecting on such topics. Moreover, as Example 6 shows, being able to use humour as a joint communicative activity helps locals and migrants construct positive relationships and possibly build a common cultural capital as both cultural groups develop their own jokes based on shared workplace experiences. In this light, as Examples 8 and 9 illustrate, humour also emerges in migrant doctors’ reflections as a bonding strategy and a sign of relational/social closeness. Example 8 So far we’ve begun to understand some things about Chilean humour but it’s taken them a long time to feel like they trusted us um they are very reserved. Now we all joke more often. Example 9 We didn’t trust each other at the beginning, then suddenly the [work] shifts were like a little boring, more serious. For example, I worked at the beginning in the emergency room of the old hospital, it was always my own team who were in the emergency room then, since they didn’t know me well, they called me and I went

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down, to do my job and I went back up. After they got to know me and they liked me. That’s how they started saying ‘let’s have tea’ and it became very pleasant. We chat, we laugh, it’s better now that we know each other. In these two examples, humour emerges as a sign of trust and acceptance. As a bonding sign, humour is used here as a positive face strategy (Rogerson-­ Revell, 2007) to assess the improvement and quality of intercultural relations, and the relational closeness among co-workers. As Wise (2016, p.  489) explains, ‘when one feels comfortable and safe to make a joke and it is well received, this signals that the bond is established’. Humour also appears as fundamental to the production of positive feelings in the workplace, an interactional resource that makes work shifts more bearable and pleasant. In this regard, the use of humour among co-workers is further connected to the granting of migrants’ access to other (local) social spaces, such as the teatime break (Example 9). These uses of humour in intercultural interaction have been found to enhance a feeling of belonging and have, therefore, been described as displaying an affiliative function. In turn, affiliative humour has been found to be a predictor (and consequently to be able to increase) self-­ esteem and subjective happiness (Yue et al., 2014), all of which can contribute to supporting and enhancing migrants’ adaptation and integration into their workplace culture. The second theme that emerged in the interviews reflects a rather personal dimension of the use of humour as migrant doctors ponder on the ways they face life strains and stressful situations related to cultural transitions. In this context, facing professional mistakes is a main concern for this group of migrant doctors because, as discussed in previous studies, professional errors are dealt with differently according to whether the incidents involve local or migrant doctors (Lazzaro-Salazar & Zayts, forthcoming). For these doctors, these high stakes issues may be face threatening (and, consequently, have a negative impact on their professional image) and a major source of stress (since it naturally hinders relationships among co-workers and may permanently harm their professional practice). This can jeopardise migrant doctors’ integration into their workplace teams, and so the way they manage these incidents (see Lazzaro-Salazar, 2020) gains heightened importance. During the interviews, migrant doctors also explain they adopt a positive attitude towards stressful situations and cope with them by ‘seeing the humorous side of things’. In particular, interviewee in Example 10 reflects on the use of humour to mitigate the impact of work mistakes in social interaction.

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Example 10 I really like to cope with things with a lot of humour. When someone makes a mistake at work, we tell jokes, well-intentioned ones, obviously the person shouldn’t be offended by it. But that has led us… in fact I have, that is, not only do I have Venezuelan colleagues, but I have some good friends, Chilean colleagues… at least there in Venezuela one always tends to laugh at oneself, at something that happened to them and not make a drama out of it, of mistakes you know? But rather see the humorous side of the situation. While self-deprecating humour has often been found to be used as a way to downplay one’s achievements and to be humble about them (e.g. Holmes & Schnurr, 2005), migrant doctors in the study explain that to them self-­ deprecating humour is an amusing way of managing sensitive issues in the workplace. In this group of migrant doctors, self-deprecation emerges as the preferred norm when addressing professional mistakes (consider Holmes, 2007) and as a resource to strengthen social relations and minimise negative self and others’ evaluations of job performance, as shown in Example 11. Example 11 We joke about everything [laughs]. Look, if you make a mistake, you tell a joke about it because Venezuelans are not generally confrontational. If a Venezuelan doesn’t agree with you, they’ll try to make it something funny because I think it’s a way to downplay what it’s really happening, so you won’t get angry about that, you won’t be bothered by that. Just what you are going to do is make a joke out of it, people laugh with you. You see, it’s like a positive reinforcement because everyone is belittling the situation just like you, you laugh at that and you move on and that doesn’t affect you. Finally, as Example 12 illustrates, the use of humour to cope with sensitive issues in cultural transitions also emerges in those instances when doctors reflect on their reasons for migrating and work towards making sense of this transition in conversation (Zayts & Lazzaro-Salazar, 2020). Example 12 Look, nobody really imagines the suffering that we go through there [in Venezuela] to have money and not have food, that is, not being able to consume or buy whatever you want or the amount of hours you spend queuing waiting at the gas station. That exhausts you mentally, morally and we make jokes out of all that. We always find the funny side of life.

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As mentioned earlier, the socio-political conflicts in the country of origin emerge as a major concern and torment for these migrant doctors. In this context, migrant doctors use humour not just as a discursive strategy to manage situated interaction but also as a way to face life strains as they navigate the hardships of cultural transitions.

6.6 Discussion and Concluding Remarks This chapter shows that humour, as part of the set of cultural resources that these migrant doctors brought with them from their country of origin, plays a key role in their occupational and social mobility. Migrant doctors’ reflections on their intercultural experience and life strains during their cultural transition show that humour is used as a way to adopt a positive attitude towards coping with stressful situations, managing sensitive issues at work and in actual interaction, and towards evaluating social relations and strengthening bonds. Very importantly, the chapter reflects on the value of humour as a cultural capital that helps migrant doctors navigate such complexities of cultural transition processes. The functions of humour seem to be both personally and interpersonally oriented and are certainly context-dependent. For the interpersonal orientation, the different styles of humour may sometimes distance locals and migrants, possibly drawing and/or reinforcing in-group and out-group boundaries during actual interaction. However, as migrants become familiar with the vocabulary and norms of the host culture, humour becomes a cohesive resource that helps them build solidarity with local doctors and assess their interpersonal relations while both cultural groups begin to socialise their cultural capital and develop a shared space of social interaction. This attests to the idea that the cultural capital of migrants does not remain intact when immersed in the host culture and that it can be adapted to fit the new workplace context. In doing so, naturally, humour fulfils an affiliative, bonding function and enhances positive relations among local and migrant co-­workers, fostering the social inclusion of migrant doctors. Moreover, at an interpersonal level, humour also helps these migrant doctors to manage job stressors (such as medical errors) and sensitive topics during conversation in non-­ confrontational ways, creating a positive self-image and successfully downplaying and coping with conflict situations. For the more personal orientation, the use of humour emerges as a core cultural resource to overcome the suffering involved in cultural transitions characterised by a forced migration experience. Cyrulnik (2003) explains that

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humour allows people to position themselves above a painful affect by representing it through a joke. Humour then is a way to communicate sensitive issues, to release the tensions and to manage the negative feelings involved in dealing not only with adaptation processes in the host culture but also with the frustration and burden of leaving loved ones behind amidst a political and social crisis. Humour can then be used as a strategy to re-orient migrants’ emotional distress into a positive state (consider ‘emotion-focused coping’ in Greenspoon, 2016). Humour, in this context, works as a resilience resource for migrants (Vaillant, 2000), which is naturally connected with their feelings and perceptions of psychological wellbeing (Kuiper, 2012), and is a sign of mentally healthy people who have, through humour, developed adaptive or health-promoting defences (Vaillant, 2000). Cultural transitions certainly involve considerable amounts of stress and other negative feelings at a personal and interpersonal level, which seem to become more burdensome for those who feel that the social and political crises in their countries of origin forced them to migrate. Positive psychology and sociolinguistic research have contributed to showing humour as a vital personal and relational resource. In this light, the chapter reflects on the value of humour as a cultural capital that helps migrant doctors cope with social and job stressors of the transition process, while highlighting the multiplicity of functions of humour as a culturally relevant and positive attitude towards that life-changing process. In this  context, this chapter zoomed in on the reflections of Venezuelan doctors in Chile because they constituted the most representative ethnocultural group of my study. This leads me to suggest that future research explores cross- and intercultural comparisons of the functions of humour not only within a professional group or workplace but also across a variety of disciplines, professional and non-professional contexts to shed light on how and whether humour plays a role as migrants’ cultural capital in cultural transitions. Finally, from a practical perspective, viewing cultural diversity as an asset to workers’ social wellbeing and promoting institutional strategies that (a) recognise and value the cultural capital of migrant workers and that (b) provide ‘space’ for migrant and local groups to co-create new (and shared) cultural capital is key to fostering workplace integration and ethnocultural inclusion (see Pujol-Cols & Lazzaro-Salazar, forthcoming). Acknowledgements The project was supported by the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID), FONDECYT N° 3160104 (2016–2018).

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7 Nigerian Cultural Concept of Humour and its Use as a Coping Strategy Felix-Kingsley Obialo

7.1 Introduction Until recently, social psychologists tended to study the negative aspects of human emotions and behaviours. This led to the neglect of the positive dimensions of human behaviours and emotions until the advent of positive psychology. Positive psychology reveals the gains of positive human emotions and behaviour in relation to the welfare and well-being of individuals in many areas of life such as in personal and social relationships; in cognitive, developmental, and personality domains and the like. Humour is one of those positive constructs that have captured the focus of positive psychological research. “Humor is a ubiquitous phenomenon, present as part of everyone’s life; studying it can illuminate many aspects of human behavior” (Greengross, 2007, p. 90). People naturally laugh in every human society. Consequently, “being able to enjoy humor and express it through laughter seems to be an essential part of what it means to be human” (Martin, 2007, p. 3; Gonot-Schoupinsky & Garip, 2021). However, what they laugh at and why they do so vary. The uniqueness in different people’s concept of humour suggests a cultural dimension to the use of humour and so encourages a foray into understanding humour so as to reveal the commonalities and the diversity in people’s understanding of the phenomenon. Humour is therefore “a highly contextual and subjective phenomenon that may be interpreted differently by individuals

F.-K. Obialo (*) Dominican University Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Vanderheiden, C.-H. Mayer (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78280-1_7

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and can create unintended and unexpected … outcomes that impact the psychological well-being of individuals” (Kim & Plester, 2019, p. 2; Plester & Kim, 2021). Psychological well-being concerns “qualities associated with positive psychological functioning” (Huta & Waterman, 2014, p. 1430). Humour and laughter impact humans in many positive ways. This fact becomes necessary in considering a holistic approach to treating the entire human person. Consequently, positive psychology promotes the gains of humour research to facilitate well-being in different contexts (Wellenzohn et al., 2016). Since the advent of positive psychology in 1998, psychological research has shifted focus from preoccupation with depression and turmoil to what causes people to thrive (Kim et al., 2018). This development has engendered a global stimulus on building positive qualities in humans as opportunities for growth resulting in the reduction of negativities which until then seem to be the main purview of psychological research. The concepts inspiring research in positive psychology include humour, happiness, resilience, positive youth development, meaning, virtue, etc. However, in a review of international research in positive psychology, Kim et al. (2018) revealed that the field is hegemonic and insensitive to real issues with the dominance of western, especially North American, influence. Theoreticians and critics aver that the strong North American influence has occasioned placing the individual as the focus of research, while excluding political, historical, cultural and societal contexts (Martin & Kuiper, 2016; Becker & Marecek, 2008; Christopher & Hickinbottom, 2008). The implication is that extant literature will force stakeholders to conceive positive psychological research from a biased perspective. This development therefore leaves a lacuna to be filled by other sections of the human race. No wonder, Kim et al. (2018, p. 65) revealed in their study that “As positive psychology gets close to the end of its second decade of existence, this review provides a summary of the first 17  years of the field across the world and highlights the emergence of what might be termed as the next generation of positive psychology that is increasingly diverse, culturally responsive, contextual, and influential”. This chapter is a response to the challenges raised by the new direction being charted for positive psychology research specifically as it pertains to humour study. The positive impact of humour on humanity is enormous. A holistic approach to understanding this impact should reflect on humour studies. This chapter thus answers the questions: What are the cultural conceptions of humour in the Nigerian sociocultural milieu, and how Nigerians use humour as a coping mechanism? The chapter specifically adds to the African contribution to global humour research

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by describing Nigerian conceptions of humour. Relying primarily on the Relief Theory of humour and storytelling technique, this work builds on the need to showcase the Nigerian ideas of humour and how these understandings have facilitated the well-being of the Nigerian people over time (Inya & Inya, 2021). The chapter concludes with implications of the findings and prospects for further research.

7.2 An Overview of Humour Though humour can be identified in every human setting, its understanding varies. Human emotions like humour, joy, fear, anxiety, depression and laughter affect psychological and physiological processes (Savage et al., 2017). These emotions are essential to human functions. Humour research has been neglected for so long due to the emphasis of psychological research on myriads of human problems such as depression and anxiety. This predominance is gradually yielding to the inclusion of humour and other positive human emotions in psychological research. The advent of positive psychology facilitated this inclusion.

7.2.1 What is Humour? Humour is from the Latin word umor or humor meaning “body fluid” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). The word grew from ancient Greek humoral medical practice which believed that the balance of fluids (yellow bile, black bile, blood and phlegm, called umor/humor) in the human body is responsible for human emotions and health. According to the ancient theory of humour, each of these fluids was connected to a personality trait, and each individual’s unique mixture determined their disposition (Mayer, 2019). Humour therefore simply means to be fluid and flexible. Scientific research has shifted since the ancients’ understanding of humour. There is a gamut of scientific details about humour in contemporary research. Even though humour is common to every human being, it is a complex multifaceted phenomenon to define. It provides a complex social interaction that may include emotions of amusement or evocation of laughter (Plester, 2016). Humour has positive, negative or unexpected outcomes. It is beneficial to the human condition occasioning many studies. Humour is also used for many things and in different situations. In this chapter, humour is used in the broad sense that comprises the comic, joking, wit, and so on. What then is humour?

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Martin and Ford (2018, p. 3) define humour as a broad, multifaceted term that represents anything that people say or do that others perceive as funny and tends to make them laugh, as well as the mental processes that go into both creating and perceiving such an amusing stimulus, and also the emotional response of mirth involved in the enjoyment of it.

The philosopher Schopenhauer (1966) believes humour and laughter emerge from the abrupt seeming incongruity between a concept and the actual objects that had been thought through in some relation. Humour thus arises once abstract conception does not equal concrete perception. Also, Kierkegaard believes humour, or as he puts it, the “comical”, occurs by a contradiction between expectation and experience (Kierkegaard & Hannay, 2009). The idea of incongruity in understanding humour is supported by Oden (2004) who explains that our consciousness of the comic is mostly informed by “incongruity, especially when the incongruity is unexpected or accidental” (Oden, 2004, p. 10).

7.2.2 Theories of Humour There are primarily three dominant theories of humour: superiority, relief and incongruous theories. They attempt to explain humour, its social function and what constitutes humour. Each theory also delineates the role of humour in particular situations (Wilkins & Eisenbraun, 2009). The Relief Theory of humour concerns the physiological release of tension. Humour may, for instance, serve to facilitate relief of the tension caused by one’s fears. Laughter relieves repressed nervous energy. The nervous energy relieved through laughter is the energy of inappropriate emotions (Morreall, 2020). Alternately, individuals may laugh at something humorous, which then results in a feeling of mirth and a sense of relief. Relief may include a cognitive release from anxiety or a physical release of tension. Essentially, the Relief Theory holds that “laughter provides relief to various tensions and allows repressed desires to be satisfied” (Ermida, 2008, p. 22). This position would seem to have fuelled the recourse to laughter and humour as a therapeutic tool in many contexts. The Superiority Theory of humour developed out of the works of Plato and Aristotle and Thomas Hobbes. The theory states that the origin of laughter is triumph over other people or conditions, engendering elation when we compare ourselves positively to others as being less stupid, less ugly, less

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unfortunate or less weak (Keith-Spiegel, 1972). “Simply put, our laughter expresses feelings of superiority over other people or over a former state of ourselves” (Morreall, 2020, p. 5). Roger Scruton builds on this position when he asserts that amusement is the attentive demolition of an individual or anything connected with an individual such that, “If people dislike being laughed at, it is surely because laughter devalues its object in the subject’s eyes” (cited by Morreall, 1987, p. 168). Morreall (2020) explains that the eighteenth century saw the weakening of the Superiority Theory when Francis Hutcheson wrote a critique of Hobbes’ account of laughter, arguing that feelings of superiority are neither necessary nor sufficient for laughter. Laughing does not necessarily mean comparing oneself with another because one may laugh at oneself or at other things not out of Hobbesian “sudden glory”, and without comparing oneself with another. This position makes a lot of sense. What amuses people at times goes beyond what concerns another person and might be inexplicable to others. Incongruity Theory arose in the eighteenth century to challenge the Superiority Theory. “Humour is the perception of something incongruous— something that violates our mental patterns and expectations” (Morreall, 2020). This method of joking is comparable to the techniques of contemporary stand-up comedians. Comedians speak of the set-up and the punch (line). The set-up is the beginning of the joke which generates the expectation. The punch line is the last part that disrupts that expectation. For Incongruity Theorists, the ending of the joke is incongruous with the beginning. This theory also has a number of criticisms. However, Morreall (2020) argues that incongruity seems better able to account for laughter and humour than the Relief Theory. It is also more comprehensive than the Superiority Theory because it can justify the kinds of humour that seem not founded on superiority, such as puns and other wordplay. A biological explanation says: “Humour seems to engage a core network of cortical and subcortical structures, including temporo-occipito-parietal areas involved in detecting and resolving incongruity (mismatch between expected and presented stimuli); and the mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic system and the amygdala, key structures for reward and salience processing” (Vrticka et al., 2013).

7.3 Humour and Culture Despite the universality of humour, most studies on humour are dominated by western, especially North American, cultural perspectives (Kim & Plester, 2019; Kim et al., 2018; Schermer et al., 2021; Mullan & Béal, 2021; LazzaroSalazar, 2021; Plester & Kim, 2021). These studies use western theoretical

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conceptions and underpinnings. This development presents extant literature with a limited understanding of humour from the global multicultural perspectives. Furthermore, studies on humour use quantitative research methodology, thereby limiting the contributions of non-western conceptions of humour (Kim et al., 2018; Kim & Plester, 2019) to extant literature. The gap created by this tilt needs to be addressed because environments influence humour in varied ways. For instance, the study of Obialo (2018a) in Nigeria about perception of humour revealed the benefits of humour in learning. However, some of the participating teachers revealed emic considerations which limit their promotion of humour in the classroom. In the same token, Davis’ (2016) study of satire and humour in Australia, Japan and China demonstrates the complication of humour recognition and reactions in different cultures and timeframes. “Because humor is relational and contextual, language and norms adopted by individuals involved in humor exchanges can impact how humor is used and interpreted” (Kim et al., 2018, p. 3). A quick examination of the peculiarities of Western and Eastern conceptions of humour reveal some inconsistencies. Whether there are cultural differences in conception, usage or not, comprehending cultural influences as well as humour’s implications for psychological well-being is critical because of humour’s significant consequences for human psychological well-being (Jiang et al., 2019). The foregoing thus underscores the urgency of the need to make the humour conversation more culturally diverse.

7.4 Nigerian Cultural Conceptions of Humour “As long as people collect and begin to share their lives together, cultures develop with time. Culture becomes the totality of their experiences becoming a stable phenomenon” (Obialo, 2018b, p. 2865). Culture defines people. People’s cultural identity is an adaptation to the conscious and unconscious circumstance of such a people. Traditional Nigerian culture includes those primordial practices which define the different groups of people living within the political and geographical territory called Nigeria. Nigerians are a multiethnic people (Inya & Inya, 2021). While three tribes, Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa, are the majority, there are hundreds of other minority tribes populating Nigeria. If one talks about any phenomenon in Nigeria, one must determine such from multiple perspectives such as cultural, tribal/ethnic, religious, modern and sociopolitical. For the objectives of this chapter, the Nigerian cultural perspective of humour will involve an eclectic use of three tribes’ (Igbo, Ogoni and Yoruba) perspectives on humour. This is to accentuate the

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rich diversity, yet unity of the Nigerian cultural heritage. That is why there is a truly traditional as well as a modern conception of issues in Nigeria (Obialo, 2018b). This peculiar duality must be appreciated within the general context of the African historical experience which is both traditional and modern. The modern experience is a product of both colonialism and contemporary global developments which have made the world a global village. These experiences have also impacted the African perspectives on humour as there exists commonalities in African comprehension of phenomena just as in other cultural contexts. Therefore, this present task agrees with Gérard AkéLoba, an Ivorian writer, that “Africans laugh when they are happy, angry or unlucky” (cited by Ngwira & Lipenga, 2018, p. 21). This assertion would seem to capture the essence of the African attitude towards humour. It further connotes a psychological role for humour in the African milieu. Humour thus becomes a coping mechanism for the people developing out of the need to creatively overcome their existential challenges. From the preceding discussion, two out of the three major tribes, namely Igbo and Yoruba, are purposively chosen to elicit information on humour’s cultural conceptions in Nigeria. Further, the methodology deliberately chose Ogoni cultural views of humour to represent the many minority tribes found in Nigeria. The availability of participants informed the choice of the tribes within the timeline for this study. Consistent with this study’s goal, men of age and authority who are custodians of history, culture, tradition and the like were interviewed (Oguntola-Laguda, 2014). Those interviewed were men over 70 years old and one expert who has authority based on scholarship and profession. The study sought the interviewees to provide information on humour’s cultural concepts and its usage among their tribes. The use of interview is due to a paucity of literature on this aspect of Nigerian life. Moreover, African traditional and cultural explanations of phenomena are still very much oral under the custody of elders, authorities and institutions.

7.4.1 An Overview of the Cultural Contexts of the Igbo, Yoruba and Ogoni of Nigeria The Igbo are domiciled in the eastern part of Nigeria with some found also in the south-south region of the country. The origin of this ethnic group is controversial. Some assert that they migrated while others believe they had always occupied their present location. However, many Igbos accept that they all first lived in the area known as Nri-Awka-Orlu complex before some of their forebears migrated to other areas from the complex (Varvar & Akor, 2016). Igbos

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are very religious with their belief in a Supreme Being expressed in the worship of multiple gods. They celebrate festivals such as masquerade festival and the Ofala which reenact their historical experiences. They live in dispersed family compounds. The average traditional Igbo compound had a shrine dedicated to the worship of gods. Igbo elders, diviners, medicine men and women are mostly perceived as the custodians of culture and traditional values in the society and thus highly revered. The Yoruba are concentrated mostly in the southwestern part of Nigeria and parts of the south-south and northcentral regions of the country. They initially did not belong to one cultural or language group but to smaller units or monarchical states (Omolewa, 1986). These units who possessed similar values and traditional practices eventually became known as Yoruba. The Yoruba trace their ancestry to “Oduduwa” believed to have established Ile Ife which is regarded as the place of creation and the cradle of civilization. The Yoruba are very indigenous and the most urbanised group in Nigeria. The rich Yoruba culture is reflected in their numerous songs, poems, dances, rituals and myths. Like other Nigerians, they are very religious believing in the Supreme Being worshipped through many deities. The Yoruba defer to elders and institutions as the custodians and sources of wisdom, history, culture and tradition. The Ogoni people are a small minority tribe in Nigeria who have lived in the Niger Delta for more than 500 years (Logbaby, n.d.). Two opposing views about their origin contend that they either migrated from across the Imo River or Ghana. However, they popularly celebrate the belief in their migration from Ghana based on similarities between their cultural practices, languages and agricultural practices. Many features of the indigenous Ogoni culture, tradition and religion persist till date. They revere the land and the rivers surrounding them. They see the land not only providing food but also as a god that is worshipped. This explains the difficulties that the Ogonis have with the degradation of their environment due to oil pollution. Consequently, the farming period is a spiritual, religious and social occasion (Logbaby, n.d.). There is a lot of respect for elders as well as customs and traditions of the people which are held sacred.

7.4.2 The Ogoni and Humour The researcher approached an elder from the Ogoni tribe by name Michael Ayarabe for an interview on the subject matter.

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According to Michael Ayarabe a 73-year-old man from Bori, Ogoni (Rivers State): The Ogonis (Rivers State) call humour Nu mum (a thing of laughter, comic relief or joke). Therefore, there is a contextual meaning to what is regarded as humour. This means that what causes laughter must fit into a situation or circumstance that must be considered as eliciting laughter. The context thus determines whether the transaction qualifies to be labeled humorous or not. In the same vein, a social dimension exists in the Ogoni perception of humour. That is why humour is used in various contexts which benefit the community not just the individual.

The implication of the above is that society guides and guards the use of humour. As custodians of what is regarded to be humour, a communal agreement exists, even though not written, as to how and when humour can take place. When one becomes humorous, there is a tendency to take cognizance of what would not offend the societal accommodation of what qualifies as humour. The above communal monitoring of the usage of humour influences how humour is used among the Ogoni. Michael Ayarabe explains further: Satire is used to correct individuals and situations in the community while employing humour. Such people or situations are ridiculed in order to provoke the change the community desires. Sarcasm is another way of using humour whereby the individual and community interests are looked out for. Another use of humour is to provide diplomatic relief in very tense atmosphere. The Ogoni might avoid confrontation. Yet, need to communicate the message of change. They resort to humour passing on the intended message without hurting anyone. Finally, humour is used for entertainment purposes by employing the use of songs, masquerades, dance and the like to achieve the sense of relaxation among the people.

To underscore the use of humour to promote hard work in farming and other areas, Ayarabe asserts: I must not forget to mention one important communal use of humour. When an Ogoni child from particular clans is adjudged old enough to learn the art and act of farming and house chores in a rural setting, they are taken to the farm and humorous songs are sung as an initiation rite for the child. It is believed that the humorous songs motivate and encourage the child psychologically not to see work as a difficult task but an enjoyable and profitable undertaking. Unfortunately, all that is being lost to modern attractions.

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7.4.3 The Igbo and Humour There was a need to seek a peer review of information available concerning the Igbo view of humour. So, the researcher interviewed two Igbo elders. According to Mazi Innocent Ikechukwu Okorafor, a 73-year-old Igbo man: The Igbo of Nigeria conceive humour from three perspectives namely, njakirito make fun by using familiar expressions. Secondly, iko onu- deliberate attempt to ridicule and simultaneously catch fun at the object’s expense. The third is Ihe ochi- entertainment which elicits fun and laughter. What is important in these three instances is that the originator of humour has at least one person that is the recipient of what is regarded as humour either in terms of ridicule or entertainment. For humour as entertainment, there was no professional entertainers in the traditional setting as we have today. Those who entertained took it upon themselves to entertain people and so were neither commissioned nor paid to do so. Another peculiarity of the Igbo and humour is the use of humorous songs that are full of idioms to elicit fun and laughter.

In the same token, Oparaebo Dominic Agbarakwe, an 86-year-old Igbo man, offers a delineation of the use of humour among the Igbo. He averred that: The Igbo use humour to lighten mood, enlighten and correct people. They also pass very difficult messages through humour. Humour is used to convey proverbs which teach, correct and communicate. In the case of humour and songs, Agbarakwe mentioned a practice in his town (Umuokpo, Abajah, Imo State) where an annual festival witnesses the gathering of the whole village in the village square. The youth of the village use the festival as an opportunity to expose the ills and virtues of the citizens after x-raying events of the past year. People are castigated and commended accordingly during the iro uri of the ihe amuma celebration. The uri amuma is a folk music.

In conclusion, Mazi Innocent Ikechukwu Okorafor observed that: Humour is part and parcel of the social life of the Igbos. It features prominently in everyday interactions between people of all ages. It is used to correct societal errors and missteps. It is a psychological way of teaching and correcting where necessary. It comes in handy in delivering a message. It is therefore a creative way of communication, easing tension when tempers seem to boil over. Unfortunately, not many people these days accept jokes or humour aimed at them as a result of modernization. They may claim defamation and threaten legal action.

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7.4.4 The Yoruba and Humour The Yoruba of Nigeria would seem to be the tribe with the most literature on their culture and tradition. There are scholars both in Nigeria and outside documenting this tribe. The researcher thus turned to an expert in the culture of the Yoruba who is also a Catholic priest. Humour in Yoruba is called efe or awada. Rev. Fr Paul Asawale, an expert in Yoruba language and tradition, contend that: Humour is intentionally put forward by the speaker to elicit laughter or smile from the audience and the environment. It hits the audience hard and changes the mood of the environment. The intention of laughter in Yoruba belief is to make the world happy: Ki inu aye dun. The implication would be that whatever does not bring happiness to the society might not qualify as humour. Furthermore, humour in the Yoruba cultural setting is conveyed through figures of speech. The use of figures of speech to convey the humorous allows for instance, the younger or inferior to break cultural limitations imposed on the young or inferior to poke fun at the elder or superior without incurring the wrath of anyone.

Rev. Fr Asawale points to a superiority type of humour in Ibadan, Yoruba (Oyo State) usage of humour in the traditional Ibadan worship of Oke Ibadan deity. He posits that: The adherents sing and dance round the city chatting various humorous songs intended to ridicule individuals who are walking alone. Such individuals’ lonesomeness is derided as songs about their private parts are sung to elicit laughter from both worshippers and passersby. To avoid such, people wisely seek company when going to places during this festival as no one knows which path the adherents will take during the celebration. We must note that the use of private part in the festival songs is deliberate because the Yoruba do not mention private parts publicly in their daily discourse. They use euphemisms instead.

Furthermore, Rev. Fr Asawale revealed the use of humour among his people thus: The Yoruba use humour to discredit immorality in the society. Humour is also didactic. It relieves tension. It is used to forget sad experiences and states. It is used in the political realm as well as for therapeutic purposes. Nowadays religious leaders of all persuasions engage humour in their sermons to capture the attention of their audiences. Proverbs also play an important role in the deployment of humour for both individual and communal or group usage. The Yoruba use proverbs by playing on words.

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The interviews with the participants for this study revealed two important aspects of humour. The three tribes used for this chapter all use gesticulations for humorous effect. For instance, if a young person disagrees with an elder, but for the sake of maintaining the respect due to such an elder, the younger one would make some gestures behind the elder to show disapproval before those watching. Such motions are understood as signs of displeasure. Those around would immediately understand that the young person is both showing respect for the elder and expressing frustration at their inability to protest or confront the intimidating elder. Humour in this instance becomes a means of protestations by the weak against the strong or the advantaged. Again, due to the Nigerian tradition of respect for elders, anyone who regards themselves as older than another ensures that they do not compromise their position before a younger person to the point that they lose this age-given respect. That is why some older people become very cautious when joking with their younger counterparts. As the average Nigerian would say: I don’t want to lose my respect before that small boy/girl. This attitude tends to restrict the extent to which humour could be employed. This limiting attitude was revealed in the study of Obialo (2018a) who found that both teachers and students agree that humour fosters creativity and learning. However, teachers and senior students were slow to accept its entrenchment in the teaching-learning process because they felt it could lead to disrespect of teachers and senior students. The foregoing brings out one salient point about humour in the Nigerian context. Humour is an integral part of our culture but we barely deliberate over what it tells us concerning who we are and how we live (Sunday & Filani, 2019). This fact challenges more research into the core values of humour within the different cultural heritages of the Nigerian nation.

7.5 Contemporary Nigerian Perspectives of Humour The cultural duality of the Nigerian brings the present conversation to how humour is conceived in contemporary culture. Even though humour research is emerging in Nigeria (Obadare, 2009; Imo, 2016; Ogoanah & Ojo, 2018), one consistently noticeable feature is the admixture of the old conceptions with the existential realities of contemporary Nigeria. This is not surprising since humour has social implications. Humour is a product of its environment, private or public. Present Nigerian reality is one that is bedevilled with sociopolitical woes peculiar to the African narratives. To fit into this array of sociopolitical woes, some of the traditional humour forms discussed earlier still find relevance. For instance, Ogoanah and Ojo (2018) discovered the

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involvement of kinetic mechanisms consisting of strategic movements by Nigerian comedians on stage. The protest songs against societal ills wrapped in humour as depicted by the Iro uri during the Ime Amuma annual festival in Igboland and the Oke Ibadan festival songs of the Yoruba have become a contemporary medium of fighting injustice of the political class. A pioneer of this genre of music is Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the inventor of Afro Beats. On an individual level, humour has become an integral part of daily life. It has become accepted for people to deliberately develop their humour skills. Unlike in the past when people skilled in humour did not get paid, more Nigerians now eke out a living through comedy (Obadare, 2009).

7.6 Humour, Survival and Coping Strategy in Nigeria Each civilization has always devised means of survival. It is an integral part of the human species to always develop strategies for survival in their multiple contexts. One of these means of coping and survival is humour. So far, this present study has shown that humour eases anxiety, boosts involvement and increases motivation. Cultural, sociopolitical struggles and priorities in Africa have joined to foist a constant need to survive and cope with a lot of uncertainties on the continent. These crises have left trauma and violence and outcomes such as coping and recovery in Africa. “Most accounts of the grim existential reality in African countries conclude by noting that, even amid the all-pervading gloom, the African’s zest for life remains palpable” (Obadare, 2009, p. 243). Nigeria features prominently in this African conversation. A New Scientist survey of over 65 nations adjudged Nigerians to be the happiest people on earth (Bond, 2003). What is it that makes Nigerians survivors? This seemingly unquenchable gaiety is distinguished in people’s capacity for laughter and humour (Obadare, 2009). One way to explain this phenomenal coping skill is the ability of the average Nigerian to diminish the effect of the consequences of their negative realities. Martin and Kuiper (2016) conceive …humor as quite a broad and multifaceted psychological phenomenon that encompasses several components … The first is the cognitive aspect, namely the perception of incongruity, which has also been referred to as “bisociation” or “cognitive synergy”. It seems to involve the simultaneous activation of two or more incompatible interpretations of a situation in the mind. It also tends to be associated with a playful, non-serious frame of mind and some degree of diminishment, in which things are viewed as being less important or admirable than they usually are. (p. 502)

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The ability to quickly cognitively diminish negative experiences and settle for playful, non-serious perspectives of otherwise traumatic experiences would seem to be the secret behind the Nigerian’s seemingly endless capacity to cope with the ills thrown at them by their situations. “From an evolutionary perspective, laughter, like all traits that are passed on through natural selection, must have survival value. Laughter serves many functions essential to human survival—a bonding function, a peace-making function, and a health-­ boosting function” (Wilkins & Eisenbraun, 2009, p. 349). This mindset facilitates optimism, hope and desire to survive. This is captured in a popular pidgin expression in Nigeria: E go beta! Simply put, it shall be better! This underpinning conviction is also reflected in the names given to children in dire circumstances. Thus, in Igbo Ogadinma, “It will be well” in Yoruba Iretiogooluwa, “Awaiting the glory of God” and in Ogoni Esaalee, “It will be well”. On the political scene, Nigerians have become so helpless that they do not really expect that any leader would consider their welfare in the scheme of things. So, they cope by laughing at the maladministration of their leaders. This is because “laughter serves a variety of functions for the oppressed African subject—as ‘vengeance’, ‘coping mechanism’, a ‘means of escape’, ‘subversion’, not to mention as a means of ‘resistance’” (Obadare, 2009, pp.  243–244). Furthermore, this laughter therapy has thrived because of the social media. There is virtually no unfavourable decision of government that does not end up in funny videos. At times there are multiple videos communicating to government officials that though the people might look helpless, they are not fooled. Nigerians get comic relief from these trending videos and share them home and abroad. It has resuscitated traditional media of protest like oratory, theatre and the readiness to use humour, ridicule and outright abuse (Obadare, 2009). Another dimension to the Nigerian use of humour as a coping mechanism is the growth of the comedy industry. In spite of the issue of unemployment in Nigeria over the years, the humorous dimension of Nigerians has birthed a thriving comedy industry (Fosudo, 2008; Obadare, 2009; Ogoanah & Ojo, 2018). The industry has provided jobs for hundreds of those who would have been out of jobs, inspiring youth to pursue careers in comedy. The humour industry has prospered in tandem with the tumbling of the economy. Fresh graduates are now becoming self-employed and employers of labour through comedy. It is noteworthy to mention that the jokes of Nigerian comedians are mostly in pidgin and generally meant to encode the sociopolitical malaise and economic degeneration in the country. Pidgin is the language of the streets and of the oppressed and powerless, thereby excluding the oppressors and the advantaged.

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7.7 Conclusion This chapter attempted to contribute to the humour, positive psychological literature by investigating the Nigerian cultural perspectives. It revealed the commonalities and peculiarities with other cultural conceptions of humour as a means to provide relief within diverse settings. Humour serves as a protest tool in the traditional and contemporary Nigerian milieu. A work of this nature is limited in numerous ways. It did not, for instance, provide a detailed conception of how each tribe used for the analysis perceives humour. It uses a qualitative method. The use of quantitative method could also enhance future inquiry. However, this chapter should inspire more detailed investigations into the perspectives of humour among the hundreds of tribes and ethnic groups in Nigeria. A detailed study of each tribe’s perspectives will certainly provide in-depth data. Such details will assist the use of humour beyond the gains of comedy and employment, satire and politics, interpersonal relationship and the like. It certainly will include the educational, health, industrial, environmental and sundry areas of the Nigerian state. Furthermore, the world is full of crisis and in need of coping strategies. Nigeria does not possess a monopoly of its current sociopolitical milieu. There are similarities globally. Investigation of humour-based coping strategies prevalent in Nigeria will assist their application in similar contexts elsewhere.

7.8 Recommendations for Future Research 1. The global community has been battling with the consequences of Covid-19 pandemic. All information points to the fact that it would be around for a while. Humour becomes a veritable tool for soothing victims of the pandemic either due to bereavement, loss of income and so forth. Researchers can deploy positive psychology to study how humour can become an integral part of the healing process for those affected by the pandemic. 2. The study revealed that Nigerians, especially the youth, are eking out a living using humour. Positive psychology should research the context of humour to assist the Nigerian government in harnessing this potential. 3. The global economy has taken a downward turn. The crisis has affected the economic fortunes of Nigeria. A lot of people are now depressed in Nigeria. To cushion the effects of the recession in Nigeria, research into how a once happiest people on earth have become depressed would help to stem the tide of rising cases of depression in the country using positive psychology.

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4. Positive psychology research should become a part of the Nigerian national health care system. Such a policy would assist patients in the process of recovery. 5. Positive psychologists see humour as a character strength. Nigerian educational system is facing some challenges in terms of moulding character of students. Positive psychology will assist the educational system in building character strength among the students through the Nigerian educational system.

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Obialo, F.-K. (2018b). Creativity and Culture: Nigerian Conceptions. Creative Education, 9, 2863–2877. https://doi.org/10.4236/ce.2018.916215 Oden, T.  C. (2004). The Humor of Kierkegaard: An Anthology. Princeton University Press. Ogoanah, F. N., & Ojo, F. O. (2018). A Multimodal Generic Perspective on Nigerian Stand-up Comedy. European Journal of Humour Research, 6(4), 39–59. https:// doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2018.6.4.ogoanah Oguntola-Laguda, D. (2014). African Traditional Religion. In D. A. Leeming (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-­1-­4614-­6086-­2_9120 Omolewa, M. (1986). Certificate History of Nigeria. Longman. Online Etymology Dictionary. (n.d.). https://www.etymonline.com/word/humor Plester, B. A. (2016). The Complexity of Workplace Humour. Laughter, Jokers, and the Dark Side of Humour. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­319-­24669-­7 Plester, B., & Kim, H. (2021). Risky Business: Humour, Hierarchy, and Harmony in New Zealand and South Korean Workplaces. In E. Vanderheiden & C.-H. Mayer (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research. Palgrave Macmillan. Savage, B. M., Lujan, H. L., Thipparthi, R. R., & DiCarlo, S. E. (2017). Humor, Laughter, Learning, and Health! A Brief Review. Advances in Physiology Education, 41, 341–347. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00030.2017 Schermer, J. A., Papazova, E., Kwiatkowska, M. M., Rogoza, R., Park, J., Kowalski, C. M., Branković, M., Doroszuk, M., Khanh Ha, T., Iliško, D., Malik, S., Lins, S., Navarro-Carrillo, G., Oviedo-Trespalacios, O., Torres-Marín, J., Włodarczyk, A., de Aquino, S.  D., Volkodav, T., & Krammer, G. (2021). Predicting SelfEsteem Using Humor Styles: A Cross Cultural Study. In E.  Vanderheiden & C.-H.  Mayer (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research. Palgrave Macmillan. Schopenhauer, A. (1966). The World as Will and Representation. Dover. Sunday, A.  B., & Filani, I. (2019). Playing with Culture: Nigerian Stand-up Comedians Joking with Cultural Beliefs and Representations. Humor, 32(1), 97–124. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-­2017-­0085 Varvar, T. A., & Akor, F. O. (2016). Notable Ethnic Group in Southern Nigeria. In J.  E. Agaba & C.  S. Orngu (Eds.), Perspectives on Nigerian Peoples and Culture (pp. 22–35). Department of History, Benue State University Makurdi, Nigeria. Vrticka, P., Black, J.  M., & Reiss, A.  L. (2013). The Neural Basis of Humour Processing. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14(12), 860–868. https://doi. org/10.1038/nrn3566.PMID24169937 Wellenzohn, S., Proyer, R. T., & Ruch, W. (2016). Humor-based Online Positive Psychology Interventions: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Long-term Trial. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 11(6), 584–594. https://doi.org/10.108 0/17439760.2015.1137624 Wilkins, J., & Eisenbraun, A.  J. (2009). Humor Theories and the Physiological Benefits of Laughter. Holist Nursing Practice, 23(6), 349–354.

8 Interrogating the Phenomenon of Suffering and Smiling by Nigerians: A Mixed Methods Study Onwu Inya and Blessing Inya

8.1 Introduction The lived experience of Nigerians in this post-colonial state is fraught with stresses, absurdities, reversals, irregularities and sometimes outright buffoonery of the government or leaders of the nation. Scholars (Mbembe, 1992; Obadare, 2009, 2010; Afolayan, 2013; Yeku, 2016) agree that a fundamental response, amongst others, is a hilarious, ridiculous and jocular recontextualisation of these national troubles as comedy or humour. Such a creative recontextualisation provides the experiencers with ‘coping strategies’ (Obadare, 2010, 92). In Nigeria, there exists an expression for this phenomenon of laughing at one’s troubles, while at the same time enduring the burden of the difficulties, namely, suffering and smiling (cf. Zombobah, 2020). We, therefore, operationalise the phrase suffering and smiling as a show of resilience and agency in the face of personal and socio-political troubles. This study, therefore, examines to what extent this understanding of suffering and smiling subsists among Nigerians. In order to achieve this broad aim of the study,

O. Inya (*) Department of General Studies, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria e-mail: [email protected] B. Inya Department of English and Literary Studies, Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Vanderheiden, C.-H. Mayer (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78280-1_8

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we designed an online survey that requested Nigerians to self-report their emotional and cognitive responses to cartoon depictions of Nigeria’s experience of recession. The choice of recession cartoons was strongly motivated by the assumption that the caricaturing of suffering might have the potential of evoking the feelings of amusement together with those associated with sufferings. In other words, the study took as its point of departure self-reported emotional and cognitive responses to Nigerian recession cartoons and the endgame being the interrogation of the phenomenon of suffering and smiling by Nigerians. At a more remote level, the study is geared towards seeking to understand the constituents of this resilient disposition of Nigerians in the face of both personal and socio-political ills. We hypothesise that Nigerians seem to possess an eternally positive outlook on life and a constant tendency of humorously reframing personal, socio-political troubles. For instance, the Gallup World Poll’s ranking of happiness in Africa, between 2014 and 2016, has Nigeria in sixth place of the 44 countries evaluated, and on the Map of Africa with average happiness score, Nigeria has an average score of 5.0–5.4 (Helliwell et al., 2017). This statistics seems to point to the fact that Nigerians are happy people. We further assume that this happy disposition has a relationship with the gender, educational attainment and religion of Nigerians. These constituted the variables that were tested against some of the answers respondents provided to the questionnaire. Furthermore, respondents were requested to provide qualitative responses to two open-ended questions that bordered on emotional reactions to Nigerian recession cartoons and to indicate what they thought were the central messages of the cartoons. These responses were analysed with insights from visual metaphors, appraisal framework and political humour. Taken together, both the quantitative and qualitative analyses seem to indicate that Nigerians, regardless of gender, tend to display a complex emotional and cognitive response to unfavourable situations. This disposition seems to have some association with their religious affiliations and educational attainment and seems to position them as resilient individuals.

8.2 Literature Review Since the aim of the study was to assess how Nigerians draw on humour and positivity to respond to personal and socio-political troubles, we took recession cartoons as a point of departure to our goal. Nigeria experienced economic recession between 2015 and 2017 (cf. Marshal & Solomon, 2017) and the attendant economic hardship is a shared experience of suffering that we believe the respondents drew on in filling out the questionnaire. Furthermore,

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the choice of political cartoons was motivated by the resourcefulness of this communicative genre. Political cartoons allow the cartoonist to make satirical, cutting commentaries on socio-political experiences in a format that is extremely appealing. Political cartoons are the quintessential example of humorous, (non)playful recontextualisation of sensitive, socio-political topics that communicate serious political meanings (cf. Dynel, 2017; Inya & Inya, 2018). Cartoons are also considered visual representations of metaphorical thoughts, concepts and emotional meanings (El Refaie, 2003), and thus, are suitable for investigating emotional and cognitive responses. As a matter of fact, in their theory of caricaturing, Bal et al. (2009) opine that a necessary condition for caricaturing to succeed is the ability of readers to sympathise or relate to the phenomenon being cartooned. They argue that ‘[t]he key is to have an affective bond with the object, be that affect love, hate, derision etc.’ (Bal et  al., 2009: 232). We suggest that this affective bond evoked by the recession cartoons should provide a window into the phenomenon of suffering and smiling by Nigerians. The phrase suffering and smiling, rendered as ‘Shuffering and Shmiling’, is the actual title of the 1978 famous song by Fela Ransom Kuti, Nigeria’s Afrobeat legend (Chabal, 2013). In this song, Fela critiques religion as the bane of progress and agency in Nigeria/Africa. Such that from the very inception of the concept of suffering and smiling, religion plays a significant contributory role. Other interrogations of this concept have ranged from philosophy, politics, to health and intimate partner violence. Taking a philosophical perspective, Zombobah (2020) argues that ‘genuine happiness is not a weak and fleeting emotion that shrivels at the first hint of hardship, but, rather, something much more resilient, unshakable and deeply rooted in us’ (Zombobah, 2020, 343). He opines that ‘Nigerians […] are authentically positive people who are happy with their lives and they create fun from every difficult situation’ (Zombobah, 2020, 346). Zombobah (2020) indicates that this positive disposition of Nigerians is underscored by their belief that progress and advancement would still be achieved and by their strong religious inclinations. He contends that religious belief in the power of prayer, in the afterlife, in a higher power, which superintends over one’s life, and in the understanding that everything happens for a reason, creates a resilient mind-set in such believers. Zombobah (2020) concludes that it is important to embrace a positive mind-set and to understand that happiness is at the volition of the individual. Chabal (2013) draws on the concept of suffering and smiling in his seminal work on theorising post-colonial politics in Africa. Chabal (2013) links the concept of suffering and smiling to the question of agency in development efforts in Africa. He argues that the emphasis on agency, namely, ‘directed,

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meaningful, intentional and self-reflective social action’ (Chabal, 2013, 7), in the theorisation of African (under)development, amongst a number of uses, has been deployed as an argument against Afro-pessimism. He opines that this focus on agency is occasioned by ‘a deep and real concern that, contrary to the expectations of the early post-independence period, the continent has failed to develop’ (Chabal, 2013, 13). Hence, agency, whether individual or collective, provides a conceptual lens to understand how ‘Africans manage to cope in the adverse circumstances of a systemic condition in which development is not really on the agenda’ (Chabal, 2013, 15). Contextualising this argument in this chapter, we operationalise suffering and smiling as a show of resilience and agency by Nigerians in the face of both personal, and especially, socio-political ills resulting from leadership failure. As the data will show, Nigerians indicated the need to take their own destinies in their hands in view of the incompetence of political leadership. Furthermore, the concept of suffering and smiling was also invoked in a study of diasporic West African women’s experience of intimate partner violence (IPV) in Australia (Ogunsiji et al., 2012). The study adopted a qualitative naturalistic inquiry design and conducted face-to-face in-depth interviews with 21 women, 18 of whom indicated IPV as a health concern. The interviews were thematically analysed, and the theme of suffering and smiling dominated the women’s accounts of intimate partner violence. This theme bifurcated into suffering in silence and the reluctance to seek help. For the women interviewed, suffering and smiling meant they ‘laughed, smiled and used pretence to deal with the suffering of IPV’ (Ogunsiji et al., 2012, 1661). This understanding of suffering and smiling seems to border on a resignation to their fate with little attempt at confronting their troubles, namely IPV. As Ogunsiji et al. (2012) reported, a combination of patriarchal, socio-cultural and immigration-related factors contributed to the women’s resignation to suffering and smiling. This is an interesting finding relative to the current investigation as uncritical resignation to one’s plight constituted Nigerians’ understanding of suffering and smiling.

8.3 Method This study adopted a mixed methods research design, which included both quantitative and qualitative approaches (cf. Clark, 2017). As Clark (2017) indicates, mixed methods design proves useful when interrogating a complex research problem as is the case with the current study, which examines self-­ reported emotional and cognitive responses to recession cartoons as a means to interrogating the phenomenon of suffering and smiling by Nigerians. The

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quantitative method involved descriptive statistics and bivariate analyses, while the qualitative analysis conducted a thematic analysis (Clarke & Braun, 2017) on the participants’ qualitative responses. The findings of this aspect of the analysis were contextualised within a discourse analytic framework, which specifically drew theoretical insights from visual metaphors, appraisal framework and political humour.

8.3.1 Participants The study participants comprised 192 Nigerians, who were either in the country (96.4%) or in the Diaspora (3.6%). More than half were male (58.3%) and 80 were females (41.7%). The participants were within the age ranges of 21–30 years (47.4%), 31–40 years (27.4%), 41–50 years (14.6%), below 20 years (6.8%), 51–60 (2.1%) and above 60 years (1.6%). Most of the participants had either a First Degree or a Higher National Diploma (58.3%), while others had Master’s Degree (27.1%), a Doctorate (9.4), or a Secondary School Leaving certificate (5.2%). Over 83% self-identified as Christians, 15.1% as Muslims and 1.0% as African Traditional Religion adherents (Table 8.1). Table 8.1  Demographic Characteristics of Participants

Characteristics Age Below 20 years 21–30 years 31–40 years 41–50 years 51–60 years Over 60 years Gender Male Female Current geographic location In Nigeria In the Diaspora Religion Christianity Islam African Traditional Religion Highest Educational Level WAEC First Degree/HND Master’s Degree PhD

Frequency (%) 13 (6.8) 91 (47.4) 53 (27.6) 28 (14.6) 4 (2.1) 3 (1.6) 112 (58.3) 80 (41.7) 185 (96.4) 7 (3.6) 161 (83.9) 29 (15.1) 2 (1.0) 10 (5.2) 112 (58.3) 52 (27.1) 18 (9.4)

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8.3.2 Procedure and Instrument The survey for the study was done through Google Forms and the link was shared on social media platforms, such as WhatsApp and Facebook. On these sites, individuals were requested to respond to the questionnaire. The inclusion and exclusion criteria were as follows: the respondents needed to be Nigerians of 21 years and above, able to read and understand the English language, had access and were able to use smartphones/personal computers, had access and were able to navigate social media platforms, and were willing to give consent. Respondents completed the questionnaire between 8 and 11 January 2021. The study adopted a snowball sampling method as respondents were requested to share the Google Forms link with their friends and contacts. Lawal et al. (2020) adopted a similar sampling method. The instrument for the data collection was a questionnaire designed by the researchers tagged ‘Emotional and cognitive responses to Nigerian recession cartoons and the phenomenon of suffering and smiling’. The online questionnaire was divided into three broad sections, namely, a section on the demographic information of respondents, another that evaluated respondents’ emotional and cognitive responses to political cartoons on the Nigerian recession, and another that invited responses on the phenomenon of suffering and smiling by Nigerians. The demographic information collected proved useful in establishing whether relationships existed between these characteristics of the respondents and the phenomenon of suffering and smiling. Furthermore, 10 questions were asked in all with two being open-ended questions, one being a polar question, one being a closed-ended question, and the remaining six were rated on a five-point scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. A Cronbach’s alpha of .466 was got for the six items rated on a five-point scale. The instrument had high face validity (Holden, 2010) as the purpose of the questionnaire was very clear to the respondents, as indicated by the appropriateness of their responses, as well as the relevance of the items to the ongoing experience of recession in Nigeria.

8.3.3 Data Analysis Two levels of analyses were undertaken in the study. The first was a quantitative analysis of the data collected using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24. A preliminary analysis of the data was done with descriptive statistics such as percentages and frequency distribution of various levels of variables. Furthermore, a bivariate chi-square test was used to test the

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study’s assumptions by separately determining the significant relationships between gender, educational attainment and religion, and suffering and smiling variables (items) in the study. Results were significant at either p