Date of Award

8-2007

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Sociology

First Advisor

Dr. Thomas Ford

Second Advisor

Dr. David Hartmann

Third Advisor

Dr. Thomas Van Valey

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

This study was designed to contribute to the literature on sexist humor by attempting to establish identification with the humor target as a critical variable mediating the relationship between hostile sexism and women's amusement with sexist humor. Past research has shown a positive relationship between hostile sexism - antagonism towards women (Glick and Fiske, 1996) - and amusement with sexist humor (Ford, 2000; Greenwood & Isbell, 2002). It is possible, however, that this relationship is more complicated for women, who are both the recipient and target of the sexist joke. This study attempted to provide an explanation for why this relationship is more complicated for women by examining the potential mediating effect of dis-identification with the humor target. The findings suggest that hostile sexism is negatively related to the degree of identification with women in nontraditional gender roles ( e.g., feminists), and the relationship between hostile sexism and amusement is greater for jokes targeting feminists and women as a group than for jokes targeting housewives. Dis-identification with the humor target, however, was not established as a mediating variable in the relationship between hostile sexism and amusement with sexist jokes.

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