Making sense of humour among men in a weight-loss program: A dialogical narrative approach

ABSTRACT

Humour appears to be an important aspect of health-promoting efforts for some men. A better understanding of the role humour plays in men’s health contexts may provide insight into the optimal design of health interventions for men. In this study, we explored the role banter, humour that blurs the line between playfulness and aggression, plays for men in a men’s weight loss context. We applied dialogical narrative analysis to thirty interviews conducted with men involved in a men’s weight-loss program that leverages competition to drive weight loss. Banter served several functions for men in the program, including allowing them to determine their social position during early group formation, feel good, develop camaraderie, experience respite, provide male inter-personal support in a counter-intuitive way, and ‘be themselves’. Men could use banter as a tool to develop resilience for themselves, but could also adapt their approach to use banter as a means of providing support for others. Banter could also cause trouble, through conflict and misunderstandings, primarily understood through a lens of narratives of progressiveness, inclusiveness, and a ‘changing culture’. Banter could do harm, by positioning oneself against certain characteristics, and as a tool to get under people’s skin. However, an approach-orientation to one’s problems may allow misunderstandings that arise due to banter to lead to enhanced group cohesion. Intervention developers ought to explicitly address the potential for banter (and humour more broadly) to have positive and negative effects in men’s health contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Humour
• banter
• men
• masculinities
• health
• sport

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Timothy Budden

Timothy Budden is an Associate Lecturer in Exercise and Health Psychology at The University of Western Australia, an Early Career Researcher, and member of the Psychology of Active, Healthy Living (PAHL) Group. 

James A. Dimmock

James Dimmock is a professor of Health Psychology at James Cook University, and the co-director of the Psychology of Active, Healthy Living (PAHL) Group.

Brett Smith

Brett Smith is the Director of Research and Professor of Disability and Physical Activity in the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Durham University, UK.

Michael Rosenberg

Michael Rosenberg leads the Health Promotion Evaluation Unit, and is a Professor specializing in Public Health in the School of Human Sciences at UWA.

Mark R. Beauchamp

Mark Beauchamp leads the Psychology of Exercise, Health, and Physical Activity (PEHPA) Lab at the University of British Columbia, Canada.J

Ben Jackson

Ben Jackson is the head of Brain and Behaviour at Telethon Kids Institute (in Western Australia), and co-director of the Psychology of Active, Healthy Living (PAHL) Group.