Humor Complexity and Political Influence: An Elaboration Likelihood Approach to the Effects of Humor Type inThe Daily Show with Jon Stewart

The effects of exposure to different types of humor on argument scrutiny were examined in the context of televised messages. A resource allocation hypothesis (Young, 2008) and a discounting cue hypothesis (Nabi, Moyer-Guse, & Byrne, 2007) are discussed and explored. Participants (N = 188) watched clips of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in which Stewart satirized American policy toward Iraq using either sarcasm (not complex) or irony (complex). Participants were then asked to counterargue these messages. A coding scheme was used to assess the extent of counterargumentation, and attitude change was also assessed based on a pretest/posttest semantic differential scale. Results indicated that irony reduced argument scrutiny on the premises of the messages relative to sarcasm, but no main effect was found for type of humor on attitude shift. Results also indicate a conditional effect of political efficacy, which moderates the effect of humor type on argument scrutiny. Implications for persuasion and public op...