Charles R. Gruner

The basic course in speech at U.S. colleges and universities: III

The basic course has changed its orientation substantially in the past five years moving toward a more pronounced public‐speaking emphasis with increased attention to performance activities and instruction based on topics which stress the return to public speaking. Growth is greater than that of either the department or the institution, but the course is staffed with a greater percentage of graduate teaching assistants and junior faculty than five years ago.

The effect of humor in dull and interesting informative speeches

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.

A re‐examination of the first course in speech at U.S. colleges and universities

This investigation replicates a nationwide survey of the basic course in speech conducted five years ago. Results indicate a decided tendency to report a “communication” or “multiple” orientation toward the teaching of the course. Enrollments generally continue to be held at reasonable levels, and the growth in the basic speech communication course is paralleling or exceeding the growth of the college itself.

Audience Reaction to Self-Disparaging Humor.

In the experiment reported here fifty‐eight students in beginning speech communication courses were exposed to dittoed forms of speeches supposedly broadcast on radio. The speeches explained why the source of each speech decided to specialize in either economics or psychology. One version of each contained humor disparaging the academic field otherwise lauded. Subjects rated the messages and message sources on a number of dependent variables. Data as a whole suggest that speakers with relatively high status and ethos (college professors) can in their messages disparage their professional fields and thereby raise their ratings on wittiness, funniness, and sense of humor without damaging other factors of credibility.

Ad Hominem Satire as a Persuader: An Experiment

,Although satire is a literary and witform intended to entertain, many writers also consider it to be persuasive.l There exist but few experimental studies of satire’s persuasive impact, but their findings suggest that oral satire directed against a concept, such as “censorship,” may be ineffective largely because of misunderstanding of it by the listeners. And when the satidst’s thesis is misunderstood, persuasion can hardly result. But the studies hint that satire may be persuasive if the audience does perceive the satire’s Chesis.l Gruner found that professional editorial satire (written by Art Buchwald) produced statistically significant attitude shifts when the readers were told the writer’s thesis.s But even then some readers were unable to reproduce in their own words Mr. Buchwald’s thesis. The same kind of inability to fathom a writer’s intent has been well documented for the political cartoon, The studies cited above concerned satire directed against an abstract concept. Only two known studies have used what the writer calls “ad hominem satire,” that is, satire directed against persons (or, types of persons). One study indicates that bigoted people re-

Effects of including humorous material in a persuasive sermon

It was hypothesized that the inclusion of humor in a persuasive sermon would (1) increase the sermons persuasiveness, and (2) increase the speakers ethos ratings. Results failed to support either hypothesis, although the results regarding speaker ethos ratings were in the expected direction. The study suggests that the subjects exposed to the humorous sermon may have reacted to some aspects of the speakers ethos more than to others.

NOTE ON EDITORIAL SATIRE AND PERSUASION

117 college students were either told or not told in advance the thesis of a satire ridiculing the idea that capital punishment is a deterrent to murder. Subjects were then asked whether they agreed with the statement that capital punishment is a deterrent to murder. Those not told the thesis in advance were also asked to identify which of five statements was the thesis. There may be a relationship between knowing a satires thesis in advance and the persuasiveness of that satire. There also seems to be an association between perceiving a thesis while reading it and the satires persuasiveness. The results tend to support those of prior studies.

“Sick” jokes, speaker sex, and informative speech

This study manipulated speaker sex and “sick” jokes/no‐jokes in a printed speech and secured evaluations of the speech and speaker from college student subjects. Inclusion of the “sick” jokes in the speech generally resulted in negative evaluations of both speech and speaker. The speaker was presumably perceived as using “childish” humor in the speech.

Audience's Response to Jokes in Speeches with and without Recorded Laughs:

Two speakers made videotaped speeches containing apt humor twice before a live audience; in one presentation the live audience laughed at the jokes and in the other there was no laughter. 64 students saw one tape with laughter, then one without and rated each speaker on ethos scales and on “interestingness” and “funniness.” They preferred the speaker who elicited laughter, but a significant order of speakers made the main findings conditional.

Self-Perceived Cynicism, Sex, and Reaction to Gender-Related Satire

Previous research has shown that editorial satire can be persuasive if the respondents understand the serious thesis intended by the satirist (Gruner, 1967). More recent research has investigated what factors seem to influence the nonunderstanding of editorial satire. Gruner (1979) reported that two factors influencing the inability to understand a satirists thesis are dogmatism, as measured by the short-form Rokeach scale, and verbal intelligence as measured by the Stanford Achievement Test. Higher levels of dogmatism and lower SAT Verbal scores are associated with less detection of satirical theses. Priest and Abrahams (1970) noted political affhation influences appreciation of political satire. Since men and women deal differently with different kinds of humor (Wilson, 1975), the present study was designed to measure whether men and women would differ in their understanding or appreciation of genderrelated satires. Also, since a classroom discussion of satire as communication brought out the possibility that cynicism might be related to satire, a crude measure of self-perceived cynicism was included as an independent variable.