ABSTRACT
Social psychology explores factors that affect our social interactions. This chapter explores the social aspects of humor, such as responding to other people’s laughter, using humor to maintain group status or dominance, and strengthening friendships or romantic relationships. Affiliative humor typically strengthens relationships and mitigates conflict. Social research on bullying informs the need of targets of bullying to understand differences between ridicule/negative humor and positive humor. The study of cavalier humor beliefs (that a joke is just a joke) connects to discussions of whether racist, sexist, and subversive humor function to correct stereotypes or to reinforce them, whether attitudes influence preference for humor, and/or whether exposure to humor (including political humor) influences attitudes. The study of individual differences of social intelligence, race, and gender reveals complex patterns in the appreciation and production of humor.
