| Abstract: | A study was conducted to investigate the facilitative and informational effects of an audience upon a subject's expressive behavior (i.e., smiling and laughing) and his rating of cartoon stimuli. Forty-eight male and 48 female subjects were shown single frame cartoons accompanied by audience laughter and were asked to rate the cartoons for funniness and liking. Two aspects of the audience were varied: the appropriateness of the audience setting for the expression of laughter (the audience was identified as viewing the cartoons in a classroom or party condition) and the consistency of the audience's laughter (either consistently high for both good and poor quality cartoons, or varied, high for good cartoons and low for poor cartoons). The findings show that male subjects discriminated most between good and poor cartoons when the audience laughter was in an appropriate (party) setting and was varied with cartoon quality. They discriminated least (gave similar ratings to good and poor cartoons) to a party audience that expressed consistently high laughter. No convergence in rating of good and poor cartoons was found in the inappropriate classroom conditions. These results support the hypothesis that male subjects use the audience laughter as information about cartoon quality either averaging or discounting the audience laughter with the perceived quality of the cartoon. For female subjects, on the other hand, the party audience and consistently high laughter elevated observed expressions of mirth and elevated cartoon ratings. The fact that variables which increased expressive behavior also increased ratings is consistent with the two-part hypothesis that female subjects base their cartoon ratings on their feeling states, and that these feelings states reflect the pooled impact of the quality of the cartoons and the subject's expressive behavior. There was no overall difference in amount of audience influence for male and female subjects. Thus, male and female subjects differ in the way they are influenced by an audience rather than in how much they are influenced. |
