The effect of humor in dull and interesting informative speeches

Abstract

Subjects were exposed to an informative speech on “listening”; intended to be either dull or interesting and either humorous or serious. They were tested for recall of information in the speech and asked to rate the speaker they heard on ethos scales and the speech they heard on interestingness and humorousness The addition of humor enhanced the interestingness of the dull speech but did not produce greater information retention. Addition of humor to each speech enhanced ratings of speaker character.