Self-denigrating humor for constructing relationships and regional cultural differences in Japan: A focus on blunder-telling behavior

Sora Niwa, Shun'ichi Maruno
2009 Journal of Social Evolutionary and Cultural Psychology  
Based upon its historical and economic backgrounds, we hypothesized that Kansai (Osaka area) people culturally share the value of self-denigrating humor, as an interpersonal strategy for constructing friendly relationships with others. If this value has been ingrained in the contexts of their daily lives, Kansai people would particularly appreciate blunder-telling behavior, because it is an everyday life-interpersonal strategy of self-denigrating humor for constructing relationships. To test
more » ... s, we administered a questionnaire study on Kansai and Kanto people (a comparison group). As expected, Kansai people showed more favor towards blunder-telling behavior than Kanto people (Study 1). Also, we discovered that, only Kansai people deeply incorporated the value of blundertelling behavior as a part of the self (Study 2). These results appear to support our hypothesis; even in their daily life-contexts, Kansai people uniquely put a high value on self-denigrating humor for constructing relationships.
doi:10.1037/h0099325 fatcat:tpxvwpe6kbej5fxic4trv6wkza