Exposure to political disparagement humor and its impact on trust in politicians: How long does it last?

Indexación: Scopus.The experimental research that looks into the effects of political humor on an individual's attitudes toward politics and politicians does not evaluate its long-term effects. With this in mind, this study aims to determine the possible effects that being exposed to humor which belittles politicians may have on an ordinary citizen's trust in them, while at the same time it observes the possible effects that such exposure has on them and the time such effects last. Two hypotheses were tested. The first one was that humor involves less cognitive elaboration, which leads to a short-term impact on the perception of the individual. The second one was that the repetition of a message can augment the swing of such message. Also, a series of elements regarding disposition toward politicians and political affiliation were considered. Two experiments were designed. The first experiment, (N = 94), considered three groups: one exposed to political disparagement humor; one control group exposed to disparagement humor against non-politician subjects; and a control group exposed to a non-humorous political video. Trust in politicians was evaluated first at baseline, then immediately after the experimental manipulation, and once again a week after the experimental manipulation had happened. In the second experiment (N = 146), participants were randomly assigned to one experimental and two control groups. The trust in politicians of the three groups was estimated and they were sent political cartoons, non-political cartoons, and newspaper headlines regarding political topics twice a day for a week via WhatsApp. Trust in politicians among the three groups was assessed again after 1 week, and for a third time 1 week after that. As a result, it was observed that a one-off exposure to political disparagement humor affects trust in politicians negatively; however, the effect it attains is short-lived and can be explained through the political content of the item and not only humor. Also, being exposed to cartoons constantly for a week had no impact whatsoever on the way politics and politicians were perceived during the time the experiment was carried out. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02236/ful

Attitudes towards drug policies in Latin America: results from a Latin-American survey

Background: in recent years Latin American countries have increasingly rejected the traditional prohibitionist paradigm of drug policy, reflecting its failure to reduce either consumption or trafficking. The extent to which these policy trends currently command pubic support is unclear, however. This article goes some way to filling this gap, providing a snapshot of public attitudes towards drug policies in nine Latin American countries. Methods: the 2014 Annual Survey of the Observatory of Drug Policies and Public Opinion, which has representative population samples, was used to measure public opinion. Country comparisons are made using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: countries fall into three groups: Peru, Bolivia and El Salvador are the most conservative countries on drug policy and perceptions of risks of cannabis use; they also score lowest on Human Development Index. On the other hand, the public in Chile and Uruguay are more likely to support drug policy reform. The remaining four countries (Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Peru) tend to occupy the middle ground between these extremes. In addition, cannabis legalization is explained by its recreational use, being this the main meaning attached to cannabis policy among Latin American citizens. Conclusion: There is a significant heterogeneity in attitudes towards drug policies in Latin American countries, which suggests that people are questioning the policies that set the norm in Latin America without achieving any consensus regarding future measures for each country

Suicidal Ideation Mediates the Relationship Between Affect and Suicide Attempt in Adolescents.

Indexación: ScopusSuicide, as one of the leading causes of death for the adolescent population, both in Chile and globally, remains a complex and elusive phenomenon. This research studies the association between positive and negative affect in relation with suicidal ideation and suicidal attempt, given that affectivity is a fundamental basis on which people make evaluations on their satisfaction with life. First, it examines the reliability, structure, and validity of Watson’s positive and negative affect scale (PANAS) scale in a representative random sample of Chilean high school students (N = 4,568). The scale evidences strong reliability coefficients and a confirmatory factor analysis, excluding one positive (excited) and one negative (nervous) item. The scale shows a satisfactory goodness of fit. Secondly, it investigates the association of PANAS positive and negative affect scores with suicidal ideation as well as reported attempt in adolescents, controlling for the potential effect of age and sex (N = 420 high school students). Low positive and high negative affect, but not sex and age, show a significant association with suicidal ideation. Suicidal ideation totally mediates the association of affect with suicide attempt, as expected. Results are discussed regarding prevention and it considers how positive and negative affect can be relevant as indicators for prevention and treatment using widely available technology.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.524848/ful

Suicidal Ideation Mediates the Relationship Between Affect and Suicide Attempt in Adolescents

Indexación ScopusSuicide, as one of the leading causes of death for the adolescent population, both in Chile and globally, remains a complex and elusive phenomenon. This research studies the association between positive and negative affect in relation with suicidal ideation and suicidal attempt, given that affectivity is a fundamental basis on which people make evaluations on their satisfaction with life. First, it examines the reliability, structure, and validity of Watson’s positive and negative affect scale (PANAS) scale in a representative random sample of Chilean high school students (N = 4,568). The scale evidences strong reliability coefficients and a confirmatory factor analysis, excluding one positive (excited) and one negative (nervous) item. The scale shows a satisfactory goodness of fit. Secondly, it investigates the association of PANAS positive and negative affect scores with suicidal ideation as well as reported attempt in adolescents, controlling for the potential effect of age and sex (N = 420 high school students). Low positive and high negative affect, but not sex and age, show a significant association with suicidal ideation. Suicidal ideation totally mediates the association of affect with suicide attempt, as expected. Results are discussed regarding prevention and it considers how positive and negative affect can be relevant as indicators for prevention and treatment using widely available technology. © Copyright © 2020 Rubio, Oyanedel, Bilbao, Mendiburo-Seguel, López and Páez.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.524848/ful

Psychometric Comparisons of Benevolent and Corrective Humor across 22 Countries: The Virtue Gap in Humor Goes International

Recently, two forms of virtue-related humor, benevolent and corrective, have been introduced. Benevolent humor treats human weaknesses and wrongdoings benevolently, while corrective humor aims at correcting and bettering them. Twelve marker items for benevolent and corrective humor (the BenCor) were developed, and it was demonstrated that they fill the gap between humor as temperament and virtue. The present study investigates responses to the BenCor from 25 samples in 22 countries (overall N = 7,226). The psychometric properties of the BenCor were found to be sufficient in most of the samples, including internal consistency, unidimensionality, and factorial validity. Importantly, benevolent and corrective humor were clearly established as two positively related, yet distinct dimensions of virtue-related humor. Metric measurement invariance was supported across the 25 samples, and scalar invariance was supported across six age groups (from 18 to 50+ years) and across gender. Comparisons of samples within and between four countries (Malaysia, Switzerland, Turkey, and the UK) showed that the item profiles were more similar within than between countries, though some evidence for regional differences was also found. This study thus supported, for the first time, the suitability of the 12 marker items of benevolent and corrective humor in different countries, enabling a cumulative cross-cultural research and eventually applications of humor aiming at the good

Moving Forward in Fostering Humour: Towards Training Lighter Forms of Humour in Multicultural Contexts

The following theoretical position paper has the aim to outline two important future directions of humour intervention research. Firstly, existing humour trainings have not differentiated explicitly between different uses of humour or humour that may be virtuous or not. Within the realm of Positive Psychology, all virtuous forms of humour need to be identified and interventions developed that aim at fostering these benevolent/lighter forms. Secondly, most humour trainings have been adapted and conducted in one cultural context. Future trainings should consider cross-cultural perspectives to allow for comparative research and practice. Thus, the current paper first gives an overview on the extant literature on the distinction between lighter and darker forms of humour, as well as showing how humour can serve the virtues proposed by Peterson and Seligman (2004). Then, we elaborate on the findings on humour and well-being, as well as findings on existing humour interventions. The second section starts with open questions and hypotheses on how a new generation of trainings targeting lighter forms of humour could look like. Then, we discuss (potential) cultural differences in humour and how this may affect the design of interventions. When aiming for cross-cultural adaptations of the same humour program, several challenges have to be overcome, such as the term “humour” not having the same meaning in every culture, and cultural rules on what can be laughed at

Comic styles and their relation to the sense of humor, humor appreciation, acceptability of prejudice, humorous self-image and happiness

Abstract The present study investigates the relationships of eight comic styles (fun, benevolent humor, nonsense, wit, irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism) with acceptability of prejudice (laughing at different groups and topics), humorous self-image (funniness and frequency of laughter), humor appreciation (funniness and aversiveness of cartoons with different structures and contents), and happiness. A representative Chilean adult sample (N=857, 60.8% women; age M=40.50, SD=17.28) was recruited in face-to-face interviews and online surveys. They completed self-reports of all variables as well as a humor appreciation test. Most of the comic styles related to finding the cartoons funnier. Furthermore, the darker styles were more strongly related to laughing at a variety of topics and groups. Also, happiness was positively related to fun and benevolent humor and negatively to cynicism. This study provides evidence of the criterion validity of the Comic Style Markers in Latin-American cultures and highlights differences between lighter and darker styles.</jats:p

Benevolent and Corrective Humor, Life Satisfaction, and Broad Humor Dimensions: Extending the Nomological Network of the BenCor Across 25 Countries

Benevolent and corrective humor are two comic styles that have been related to virtue, morality, and character strengths. A previous study also supported the viability of measuring these two styles with the BenCor in 22 countries. The present study extends the previous one by including further countries (a total of 25 countries in 29 samples with N = 7,813), by testing the revised BenCor (BenCor-R), and by adding two criterion measures to assess life satisfaction and four broad humor dimensions (social fun/entertaining humor, mockery, humor ineptness, and cognitive/reflective humor). As expected, the BenCor-R showed mostly promising psychometric properties (internal consistency and factorial validity). Consistent with previous studies, benevolent humor correlated positively with life satisfaction in most countries, while corrective humor was uncorrelated with life satisfaction. These relationships were only slightly changed when controlling for social fun/entertaining humor and mockery, respectively. Benevolent humor was mostly positively associated with cognitive/reflective humor, followed by social fun/entertaining humor and mockery. Corrective humor was mostly positively associated with mockery, followed by cognitive/reflective and social fun/entertaining humor, although these relationships differed between the countries. Overall, the present study supports the viability of benevolent and corrective humor, which has yet received insufficient attention in psychology, for cross-cultural investigations and applications of humor, well-being, and morality