{"title":"Death walks into a bar: Humor and profanity in advance care planning messages.","authors":"Christian R Seiter, Zac D Johnson","doi":"10.1080/07481187.2024.2341873","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Although scholars note advantages and disadvantages to using humor and profanity, influential leaders in the Death Positive Movement (DPM) use both message features to motivate end-of-life (EOL) advance care planning (ACP). Through the lens of expectancy violations theory (EVT), this study examined relationships between perceived humor, profanity in messages, trait profanity use in receivers, perceived offensiveness, perceived speaker effectiveness, and perceived message effectiveness. Participants (<i>N</i> = 604) were randomly exposed to a podcast about ACP containing clean humor, profane humor, or no humor. Results indicated that profanity and perceived humor were positively related to offensiveness, and offensiveness was negatively related to perceived speaker and message effectiveness. When perceived as non-offensive, perceived humor was positively related to perceived speaker and message effectiveness. Surprisingly, profane messages offended profane receivers more than they offended less-profane receivers. These results suggest that to be maximally effective, ACP motivators should use humor cautiously and avoid profanity.</p>","PeriodicalId":11041,"journal":{"name":"Death Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Death Studies","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2024.2341873","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Although scholars note advantages and disadvantages to using humor and profanity, influential leaders in the Death Positive Movement (DPM) use both message features to motivate end-of-life (EOL) advance care planning (ACP). Through the lens of expectancy violations theory (EVT), this study examined relationships between perceived humor, profanity in messages, trait profanity use in receivers, perceived offensiveness, perceived speaker effectiveness, and perceived message effectiveness. Participants (N = 604) were randomly exposed to a podcast about ACP containing clean humor, profane humor, or no humor. Results indicated that profanity and perceived humor were positively related to offensiveness, and offensiveness was negatively related to perceived speaker and message effectiveness. When perceived as non-offensive, perceived humor was positively related to perceived speaker and message effectiveness. Surprisingly, profane messages offended profane receivers more than they offended less-profane receivers. These results suggest that to be maximally effective, ACP motivators should use humor cautiously and avoid profanity.
期刊介绍:
Now published ten times each year, this acclaimed journal provides refereed papers on significant research, scholarship, and practical approaches in the fast growing areas of bereavement and loss, grief therapy, death attitudes, suicide, and death education. It provides an international interdisciplinary forum in which a variety of professionals share results of research and practice, with the aim of better understanding the human encounter with death and assisting those who work with the dying and their families.