When Do Consumers Experience Humor?

Humor is a psychological response characterized by the positive emotion of amusement, the appraisal that something is funny, and the tendency to laugh (Martin 2007; McGraw et al. 2012; Veatch 1998). Consumers seek humor in products, activities, and relationships, because humor is enjoyable and contributes to psychological and physical well-being (Martin 2007). Despite its benefits in consumption contexts, marketing research has focused largely on humor in advertising (e.g., Eisend 2009; Gulas and Weinberger 2006; Woltman et al. 2004). Focusing only on humor in an advertising context, however, may be inhibiting the development of broader theoretical and practical insights. Thus, we turn our attention to the important topic of what drives perceptions of humor in consumption contexts. The most popular humor theories suggest that humor occurs when one perceives an incongruity (Morreall 2009; Nerhardt 1970; Woltman Elpers et al. 2004). The literature, however, has not defined or operationalized incongruity consistently. Some define incongruity as something unexpected (i.e., surprise), whereas others define it as something that is different than what typically occurs (i.e., atypicality) or as a contrast of concepts or ideas that do not normally go together (i.e., juxtaposition). Moreover, some versions of incongruity theory suggest that humor occurs only when an incongruity is resolved, or made sense of, in some way (Suls 1972; Woltman Elpers et al. 2004). Although the variants of incongruity theory have led to useful insights in the perception of humor in jokes (e.g., Suls 1972; Shultz 1972) and advertisements (e.g., Alden, Hoyer, and Lee 1993; Woltman Elpers et al. 2004), we contend that they have difficulty explaining the perception of what is funny (and what is not funny) in many consumption experiences.