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15 - Emotional Responses to Sarcasm

from Part V - Irony, Affect, and Related Figures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2023

By
Ruth Filik
Edited by
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr  and
Herbert L. Colston
Herbert L. Colston
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
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Summary

Ironic language often conveys and elicits intense emotions. This chapter describes much of the relevant experimental research on the ways people emotionally react to sarcastic messages (e.g., “You’re so strong” when the person is actually rather weak). She considers some of the communicative reasons why people employ sarcasm in their speech, including possible affective messages they may wish to express. Experimental studies have employed eye tracking and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) measures to assess examine people’s anticipated emotional responses to story characters who were presented with either ironic (e.g., “You’re so strong”) or literal (e.g., “You’re so weak”) criticisms. The results suggest that readers initially anticipated a hurt response to ironic criticism, but eventually found it easier to integrate a hurt response following literal criticism (i.e., a “two-stage model” of emotional responses). But there are important individual differences in the ways people respond to sarcasm, not surprisingly. For example, autistic individuals do not easily distinguish between ironic and literal criticisms. Older adults also exhibit reduced abilities to understand and emotionally respond to sarcastic utterances. There are also significant variations in the ways people from different cultures use, interpret, and emotionally respond to sarcasm.

Keywords

affectcultural differencesemotional reactionsimplied criticismindividual differencesliteral languagesarcastic messagestwo-stage modelverbal irony
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought , pp. 255 - 271
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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