ABSTRACT
Critics of psychological methods have identified potential sources of gender bias at each stage of the research process. Researchers have tried to remedy gender bias in humor experiments by systematically varying the gender of the recipient of hostility or the butt of sexual innuendo and by including the humor of female comedians in stimulus materials. If the problem with humor research were simply that it has incorporated the sorts of gender bias described, it could be remedied relatively easily through better use of experimental methods. Research on gender and communication provides a useful framework for the study of women's conversational humor, especially when it is extended to include the communicative experiences of diverse groups of women. Experimental research on humor has been compromised by the sorts of gender biases found in other areas of psychological research, such as bias in choice of stimuli and interpretation of gender differences.
