Culture, gender, and gender mix in encoders of sarcasm: A self‐assessment analysis

This study examined various characteristics of encoders of sarcasm. Sarcasm is a complex communication activity, but little is known about the individuals who use sarcasm. For this study, we paired participants and asked them to converse using a list of questions that we anticipated would elicit sarcastic responses. Following each conversation, participants completed questionnaires that we used to determine their understanding of their own and their partner's use of sarcasm. Results indicated that men were more sarcastic than women. Men were more sarcastic when interacting with other men than when interacting with women; women, on the other hand, were more sarcastic when interacting with men than with other women. Also, it was discovered that individualists were more sarcastic than collectivists.

[1]  J. Haiman Talk Is Cheap: Sarcasm, Alienation, and the Evolution of Language , 1998 .

[2]  Skye McDonald,et al.  Clinical Insights into Pragmatic Theory: Frontal Lobe Deficits and Sarcasm , 1996, Brain and Language.

[3]  Ross Buck,et al.  The communication of emotion , 1984 .

[4]  C. Sigelman,et al.  Making Good Impressions in Job Interviews: Verbal and Nonverbal Predictors. , 1978 .

[5]  L. Anolli,et al.  Irony as a Game of Implicitness: Acoustic Profiles of Ironic Communication , 2000, Journal of psycholinguistic research.

[6]  R. Kreuz,et al.  How to be sarcastic: The echoic reminder theory of verbal irony. , 1989 .

[7]  B. Ackerman,et al.  Form and function in children's understanding of ironic utterances☆ , 1983 .

[8]  H. Triandis,et al.  Scenarios for the Measurement of Collectivism and Individualism , 1998 .

[9]  Daniel N. Maltz,et al.  A Cultural Approach to Male-Female Miscommunication , 1983 .

[10]  C. Ross,et al.  Asian ethnicity and the sense of personal control , 1998 .

[11]  Alex Preminger,et al.  The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics , 1994 .

[12]  N. Dirubbo,et al.  You Just Don??t Understand , 1992 .

[13]  D. E. Bugental Interpretations of naturally occurring discrepancies between words and intonation: Modes of inconsistency resolution. , 1974 .

[14]  J. A. Russell,et al.  The contempt expression and the relativity thesis , 1991 .

[15]  Bruce Bowe The Face of Emotion , 1985 .

[16]  R. Krauss,et al.  Verbal, vocal, and visible factors in judgments of another's affect. , 1981 .

[17]  Neal R. Norrick,et al.  Involvement and joking in conversation , 1994 .

[18]  David Matsumoto,et al.  Cultural influences on facial expressions of emotion , 1991 .

[19]  E. Winner,et al.  Children's understanding of nonliteral language , 1988 .

[20]  E. Winner,et al.  Why not say it directly? The social functions of irony , 1995 .

[21]  B. Major Gender Patterns in Touching Behavior , 1981 .

[22]  J. Forgas,et al.  Recent advances in social psychology : an international perspective , 1989 .

[23]  Alex Preminger,et al.  Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics , 1974 .

[24]  Julia Jorgensen,et al.  The functions of sarcastic irony in speech , 1996 .

[25]  David S. Kaufer,et al.  Understanding ironic communication , 1981 .

[26]  William B. Gudykunst,et al.  Culture and interpersonal communication , 1988 .

[27]  Ross Buck,et al.  Communication of specific emotions: Gender differences in sending accuracy and communication measures , 1993 .

[28]  N. Henley,et al.  Gender and Nonverbal Behavior , 1981 .

[29]  Steven R. Corman,et al.  That's Not Funny: Understanding Recipients' Responses to Teasing. , 1996 .

[30]  Sally McConnell-Ginet,et al.  Women and Language in Literature and Society , 1980 .

[31]  Sonia S'hiri A Pragmatics of Verbal Irony in Literary Discourse: An Example from Drama. , 1992 .

[32]  Philip M. Smith Language, the Sexes and Society , 1985 .

[33]  A. Mulac,et al.  Male/Female Gaze in Same‐Sex and Mixed‐Sex Dyads Gender‐Linked Differences and Mutual Influence , 1987 .

[34]  Richard J. Gerrig,et al.  On the pretense theory of irony. , 1984, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[35]  M. Bond Emotions and their expression in Chinese culture , 1993 .

[36]  Herm Smith,et al.  The formation of gender‐differentiated sentiments in Japan , 1998 .

[37]  Penelope Brown,et al.  Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage , 1989 .

[38]  J. Coates Women, men, and language , 1986 .

[39]  Lori J. Ducharme Sarcasm and Interactional Politics , 1994 .

[40]  Ron Sept Culture and Interpersonal Communication , 1991 .

[41]  P. Ekman,et al.  A new pan-cultural facial expression of emotion , 1986 .

[42]  B. Ackerman Contextual Integration and Utterance Interpretation: The Ability of Children and Adults to Interpret Sarcastic Utterances. , 1982 .