Aggressive Humor and Social Connectedness: The Moderating Roles of Subjective Social Status and Gender

Abstract

Aggressive humor has been conceived as a maladaptive humor style that jeopardizes social relationships. However, past studies have yielded inconsistent findings regarding the detrimental effects of aggressive humor on social relationships. This study attempts to advance the existing literature by examining the gender difference in the moderating role of subjective social status in the association between aggressive humor and social connectedness. Participants were 228 (53.1% female) adults aged from 18 to 53 years (M = 23.19, SD = 6.43). The hypothesized moderated moderation effect was significant, suggesting that gender significantly moderated the moderating effect of subjective social status on the association between aggressive humor and social connectedness. Subjective social status significantly moderated the association between aggressive humor and social connectedness for men but not for women. For men, aggressive humor was negatively associated with social connectedness when subjective social status was low or medium, but the association was not significant when subjective social status was high. For women, aggressive humor was not associated with social connectedness regardless of subjective social status. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Keywords:

• Gender issues
• humor
• interpersonal relations
• social interaction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Ting Kin Ng

Ting Kin Ng is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology, Lingnan University. His research interests include social relationships, mental health, and cross-cultural psychology.

Ting Hin Lee

Ting Hin Lee is a research postgraduate student at the Department of Psychology, Lingnan University. His research focuses on social relationships and mental health.