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Humor is widely used across diverse cultures (Weinberger, Gulas, & Weinberger, 2015). Feinberg’s (1971) study found that both the Eastern and the Western cultures use humor through criticism, sarcasm, irony, exaggeration, disguise, unforeseen changes of reasoning, and superiority over criticized victims. Based on the evidence collected from hundreds of tribes, religions, and ethnic groups, Apte (1985) stated that humor is wide-reaching in interpersonal communications. In his cross-cultural comparison of humor, Ruch (1992) concluded that people from the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East use humor in a similar manner. Other studies also found a great amount of similarity in the use of humor by people from Asia and North America (Chen & Martin, 2007; Nevo, Nevo, & Yin, 2001). Thus, humor is a very important language across cultural boundaries. It is important to study the similarities and differences of humor in interpersonal and inter-cultural communications (Weinberger, Gulas, & Weinberger, 2015).
Humor has long been known for its excessive psychological benefits. Not only can it be used for the relief of intrinsic stress (Dixon, 1980), but it also helps build personal relationships and cope with interpersonal tension (Ziv, 1984). Previous research has highlighted the positive role of humor in romantic relationships (Cann, Zapata, & Davis 2011; Feingold, 1992; McGee & Shevlin, 2009; Sprecher & Regan, 2002). Individuals with a good sense of humor are often considered self-confident and sociable (Chafe, 2007). They also appear to be creative and intelligent when using humor with their dates (Cann & Calhoun, 2001; Miller, 2000). A good sense of humor can give many positive signals, therefore increasing the appeal and attraction in dating (Cann, Calhoun, & Banks, 1997; Martin, 2007). Thus, humor is regarded by many people as a highly desirable quality in their selection of partners (Li et al., 2002; Fletcher et al., 1999). It will be very interesting to distinguish how humor is manifestly expressed by different cultural groups in the advertising and promoting of romance.
Although humor has been widely used as an effective stimulus in advertising, previous research has not yet paid much attention to how humor is expressed by individuals in culturally diverse digital communities to achieve their personal ad communication objectives (Wang, Wu, and Lou, 2020). In digital communities, individuals enjoy a higher degree of active presence and interactivity than non-interactive platforms such as online classified ads (Capriotti, Zeler, and Camilleri, 2021). It is important to bridge the gap on how humorous messages are used in digital communities to better present individuals’ self-images and more effectively interact with each other. To better understand humorous messages as C2C advertisements in digital communities, this study attempts to use content analysis in investigating women’s social dating ad humor styles. The objective of this study is to quantitatively compare Hispanic and Caucasian Generation Y women’s use of the four humor styles conceptualized by Martin et al. (2003). A comprehensive theoretical framework will be built to explain why cultural norms, gender role, and education can influence the humor styles of young women who are in search for their significant others. Further, the content analysis of dating ad humor styles can provide further empirical evidence on whether humor is significantly used for social dating purposes in digital communities, and which humor styles are more popular among others. Beyond a better clarification of humorous communication styles by women in social dating, the findings are expected to offer insights into how diverse consumers express humor in C2C advertisements and social media interactions.