Kimmel on Climate: Disentangling the Emotional Ingredients of a Satirical Monologue

Abstract

This study explored whether satire (an emotional blend of humor/indignation) can minimize the emotional tradeoffs researchers have documented for humorous appeals about climate change. Using a sample of U.S. young adults, we conducted a 2 (humor: present/absent) × 2 (indignation: present/absent) + 1 (control) experiment in which we manipulated a climate change segment from Jimmy Kimmel Live! Our evidence suggests that it is possible for a late-night host to affect young adults’ climate change risk perception and behavioral intentions under certain conditions. Moderation analyses indicated that avoiding humor helped close the partisan gap in risk perception between Republicans and Democrats.

Keywords

climate change satire persuasion political ideology young adults

Researchers have called for public communicators to move beyond informational communication strategies to engage audiences on an emotional level about science and risk issues (Moser, 2010; Roeser, 2012). The global threat of climate change exemplifies this challenge as perhaps the defining science and risk issue of our time. An October 2018 report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicated that if global warming continues at its current rate, the planet will likely warm 1.5°C (2.7°F) above preindustrial levels between the years 2030 and 2052. Such global warming will be accompanied by a range of meteorological and ecological risk crises, such as rising sea levels, increased ocean acidity, the decline of coral reefs, and the loss or extinction of various animal species.

One promising approach that social scientists have identified to convey climate change risks is humor appeals because humor attracts attention to messages (Eisend, 2009) and because positive appeals about climate change may be a refreshing alternative for audiences fatigued by dire messaging about this issue (Hastings, Stead, & Webb, 2004; Reser & Bradley, 2017). However, one of the challenges in using comedic portrayals is that although they evoke feelings of amusement, they may simultaneously depress negative emotions and/or cognitions—all of which are positively associated with climate change–related outcomes (Nabi, Moyer-Gusé, & Byrne, 2007; Skurka, Niederdeppe, Romer-Canyas, & Acup, 2018). Put simply, humor appeals may have tradeoffs that environmental communicators should aim to minimize.

Satire seems well suited to minimize such tradeoffs because it seeks to fuse positive emotion (i.e., amusement or humor) with negative emotion (i.e., hostility or indignation) to critique the follies of a blameworthy target (Highet, 1972). Media psychologists have studied how viewers process and respond to satirical portrayals of scientific issues (Feldman, 2017), and previous work suggests that viewing satirical news programming has favorable outcomes for scientific and environmental outcomes (e.g., Feldman, Leiserowitz, & Maibach, 2011). However, researchers have not parsed out the emotional elements of satire (humor and indignation) to identify whether they have independent and/or synergistic effects among relevant audiences.

The current study sought to assess the conditions under which a satirical late-night comedy monologue could influence viewers’ climate change beliefs and intentions. Although satire has not traditionally been the focus of late-night comedy programs like The Tonight Show or Late Night (Hoffman & Young, 2011; Holbert, 2005), in recent years, new hosts of late-night shows, like Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers, have made satirical segments central elements of their programs, blending positive and negative emotions to “infotain” their audiences about an array of political, social, and even scientific issues (Moy, Xenos, & Hess, 2005). Jimmy Kimmel, host of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, has been a key player in this arena, having tackled topics like health care, gun policy, and climate change (McCluskey, 2017).

The first goal of this research was to experimentally test whether watching Kimmel discuss climate change would increase risk perceptions and intentions to engage in climate change–related behaviors. Second, we investigated whether combining humor and indignation (thereby creating “satire”) could produce the strongest effects on these outcomes and minimize potential tradeoffs for humor appeals. Finally, there is reason to believe that late-night comedians’ foray into politics and science has polarized audiences along political lines (Frankovic, 2017), so we investigated whether the satirical use of humor to discuss climate change would exhibit different effects among Republicans and Democrats.

Satire and Climate Change Communication

Satire theorists have struggled (and in some cases, refused) to identify a clear definition of satire because of the eclectic strategies and topics that satire subsumes (Caufield, 2008). The term satire has its lineage in the Latin satura (Highet, 1972; Knight, 2004), which refers to a dish of various ingredients mixed together. Some define satire as “artful political critique” (Caufield, 2008) because it combines aggressive critique of blameworthy targets (often in positions of power) with the playfulness of mirth (Highet, 1972; Test, 1991). Stated more eloquently, Highet (1972) reasoned that “the purpose of satire is, through laughter and invective, to cure folly and to punish evil; but even if it does not achieve this purpose it is content to jeer at folly and to expose evil to bitter contempt” (p. 156). Satire has three interconnected elements: the satirist (the messenger), the satirized (the target for ridicule), and the satiree (the audience) (Simpson, 2003). Satire achieves its intended effect only when the satirist and the satiree share knowledge, norms, and practices. As such, satire is tied to cultural factors and individual differences (Test, 1991).

It may seem intuitive to conceptualize satire as its own genre, but literary critics have argued that satire is better treated as a frame of mind that mimics other genres rather than a unique genre unto itself (Knight, 2004). For example, popular satirical programs like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah adopt a broadcast news format that imitates the format of nightly news programs. In this way, satirists are uniquely positioned to playfully deride powerful figures because they are not confined to conventional norms of journalistic objectivity (Young, 2008).

Research has shown that satirical news programs can have persuasive effects in the context of political and scientific issues. Hoffman and Young (2011) found that satirical news content (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report) indirectly promoted political participation by way of political efficacy. In the context of climate change, one study showed that self-reported exposure to satirical news programming positively predicted attention to global warming in the news (Feldman et al., 2011), and another investigation showed that satirical programs (i.e., clips of Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart addressing climate change) can increase certainty that climate change is happening (Brewer & McKnight, 2015). Other work suggests that a humorous climate change message can increase intentions to engage in climate change activism (Skurka et al., 2018). Though Skurka et al. (2018) did not find direct effects of the humor appeal on risk perception or intentions to perform personal mitigation behaviors, their investigation did not focus specifically on satire, which may limit the transferability of their findings to the present investigation on late-night comedians’ use of satire.

How might late-night comedians’ satirical approach affect audience’s beliefs and willingness to take action—particularly in the context of a critical science and risk issue like climate change? Drawing on the evidence cited above on the favorable impacts of satirical news programs (Brewer & McKnight, 2015; Feldman et al., 2011; Hoffman & Young, 2011), we first predicted that exposure to a clip of Jimmy Kimmel addressing climate change (relative to a Kimmel segment unrelated to climate change) would increase climate change risk perceptions (Hypothesis 1a), intentions to partake in climate change activism (Hypothesis 1b), and intentions to perform climate change mitigation behaviors (Hypothesis 1c).

The Emotional Ingredients of Satire

Communication scholars have raised concerns about using humor appeals—and by extension, satire—in the context of climate change. Namely, humor appeals may generate feelings of amusement while simultaneously dampening negative emotions. Skurka et al. (2018) found that a humor appeal about climate change indirectly increased intentions to perform climate change–related behaviors through greater perceptions of humor, but the humor appeal indirectly decreased intentions through reduced fear, anger, and perceived message informativeness. The authors reasoned that the negative effects on perceived informativeness could have been driven by the fact that the humor version included less actual information about climate change than the other conditions because it replaced some of that information with joke setup and punchlines. Nevertheless, because humorousness, fear, anger, and informativeness were all positively associated with perceived risk and intentions to take action to mitigate climate change, the authors recommended that climate change communicators aim to harness both humor and negative emotions in their messaging to minimize the observed tradeoffs for humor.

Satire seems a promising solution to address these competing pathways of influence given that it is a “mixed dish” that blends a sense of humor with appeals to hostility emotions like anger, contempt, and disgust. According to Highet (1972), “the final test for satire is the typical emotion which the author feels, and wishes to evoke in his readers. It is a blend of amusement and contempt” (p. 21). Similarly, Test (1991) identified four ingredients for satire: aggression, judgment, play, and laughter. Thus, the satirist aggresses toward a target by casting judgment, and at the same time, the satirist does so in a playful manner likely to provoke laughter among his or her audience.

In spite of the fact that satire is an emotionally charged technique, most of the work on satire’s effects has glossed over the emotional side of satire. Satire research has focused primarily on cognitive processes, often unpacking satire’s influence through the lens of dual-processing theories like the elaboration likelihood model (e.g., Holbert, Hmielowski, Jain, Lather, & Morey, 2011). In one of the few studies to examine emotional reactions to satire, Lee and Kwak (2014) found that negative affect (anger and worry) mediated the effect of watching a clip from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on political participation intentions, and this indirect effect was especially strong among individuals of greater educational attainment. Lee and Jang (2017) later replicated this indirect effect on intentions to engage in interpersonal conversation.

Based on the idea that satire requires the integration of humor with indignation, we sought to understand whether it would be possible to “make” satire by combining these two elements. A humor appeal cannot be considered satire if it lacks the aggressive bite of judgment. Similarly, a hostility appeal cannot be considered satire unless it has a comedic spin (Test, 1991). This logic begs the question: Is it possible to independently manipulate humor and hostility in a climate change message in order to produce a hybrid, satirical appeal? Because previous work has not untangled these emotional ingredients of satire, we aimed to test this notion, predicting an interaction effect between the incorporation of humor and indignation in a late-night segment about climate change. To be specific, we hypothesized that a humorous portrayal would have stronger effects on perceived risk (Hypothesis 2a), activism intentions (Hypothesis 2b), and mitigation behavior intentions if the host also expressed indignation (Hypothesis 2c).

Along these lines, we investigated whether a segment that utilizes humor as well as hostility emotion (hence, a satirical segment) could minimize the tradeoffs documented for humor appeals (Skurka et al., 2018). Whereas a humor-only message about climate change should evidence negative indirect effects on persuasion through perceived indignation, fear, and perceived message informativeness, an equivalent humorous message that also includes expressions of hostility emotion could offset these limitations of humor-only appeals and evidence positive indirect effects through these mechanisms. Thus, we expected that a segment of a late-night comedian incorporating both humor and indignation about climate change (compared with a climate change segment without humor or indignation) would indirectly promote perceived risk (Hypothesis 3a), activism intentions (Hypothesis 3b), and mitigation behavior intentions (Hypothesis 3c) through increased humorousness, perceived indignation, fear, and perceived informativeness.

Political Ideology as a Moderator

Satire theorists have long recognized that satire is not a magic bullet insofar as satirical portrayals can have polarizing effects (Knight, 2004). Zillman and Cantor’s (1976) disposition theory of humor helps explain this phenomenon. The theory posits that one’s appreciation of humor depends on one’s attitude toward the target of the humor. Specifically, audiences are more likely to find a humorous attempt funny if the audience dislikes the humor target. This is because the audience feels a sense of superiority toward the target (LaFave, 1972; Meyer, 2000). Conversely, audiences that are warm toward the target of the humor will be disinclined to appreciate the humor. A series of studies from Zillmann and colleagues (Cantor & Zillman, 1973; Zillmann & Bryant, 1974; Zillmann, Bryant, & Cantor, 1974; Zillmann & Cantor, 1972) generally supported these propositions but suggested that there are limits on how aggressive the humorist’s attacks can be. More recently, Becker (2014) applied disposition theory of humor to political satire and found partial support for its predictions. Participants favorable toward President Obama tended to appreciate Republican-targeted humor but were less appreciative of Democrat-targeted humor. Related theories of humor identify group affiliation (rather than attitude toward the target of the humor) as the key moderator of humor appreciation (Priest, 1966; Priest & Abrahams, 1970; Wolff, Smith, & Murray, 1934), such that we tend to be more amused by humor that disparages social out-groups (e.g., members of an opposing political party) than by humor than disparages social in-groups (see Boukes, Boomgaarden, Moorman, & de Vreese, 2015; Ferguson & Ford, 2008).

Pundits have raised analogous concerns that late-night comedians may divide audiences by political orientation when they cover social and political issues. Polling data are consistent with this possibility (Frankovic, 2017). About 60% of Republicans viewed Kimmel favorably in 2014, but as of late 2017 (in the midst of Kimmel’s outspoken political commentary), that number had dropped to 24%. Conversely, Democrats’ attitudes toward Kimmel remained favorable in that time frame (68%-74%).

There are (at least) two explanations for this polarization. First, late-night comedy programs often promote issues that are associated with the political left, so simply by expressing support for these left-leaning issues, late-night hosts risk alienating audiences whose predispositions run counter to the perspectives being advanced. Jimmy Kimmel, for instance, has advocated for liberal-leaning policies like universal health care (after his son was born with a congenital heart defect and required surgery), gun control (in the wake of the Las Vegas mass shooting in October 2017), and climate change (in response to former Governor-of-Alaska Sarah Palin promoting an anti-climate change documentary).

Second, in line with the disposition theory of humor and reference group theories of humor, satirical coverage of climate change may be politically divisive because conservatives and climate change deniers are often targets of the jokes (Feldman, 2017). Feldman (2013) content-analyzed episodes of The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart that addressed climate change and found that the most common target of Stewart’s global warming humor was Republicans/conservatives (44.4%) and the most common target of Colbert’s humor was climate skepticism (65.7%) (see also Brewer, 2013). Kimmel took a similar approach in his May 2016 segment on climate change by ridiculing Sarah Palin and by criticizing politicians who deny that climate change is occurring yet accept donations from corporations who contribute to environmental pollution.

Regardless of the explanation, it is not hard to imagine that Republicans would be less likely to appreciate conservative-targeted humor than Democrats. Thus, based on the aforementioned polling data as well as disposition and reference-group theories of humor, we anticipated that when Kimmel incorporates humor, Democrats would find the segment to be more humorous than Republicans (Hypothesis 4). Furthermore, we were interested in whether political orientation would moderate the effects of Kimmel’s humor on climate change–related beliefs and intentions. Although it seems intuitive to expect that Kimmel’s use of humor would have a stronger effect among Democrats than Republicans (or that Republicans might exhibit boomerang effects) (Feldman, 2017), surprisingly little research has examined whether political predispositions moderate the effect of satire on persuasive outcomes like beliefs and intentions. In one study that did (Brewer & McKnight, 2015), watching a climate change segment from The Colbert Report or The Daily Show with Jon Stewart increased participants’ certainty that climate change is happening regardless of their political orientation. Because of the uncertainty of whether persuasive success will vary as a function of political orientation, we ask: Will party affiliation moderate the effect of Kimmel’s use of humor on perceived risk (Research Question 1a), activism intentions (Research Question 1b), or personal mitigation behavior intentions (Research Question 1c)?

With these hypotheses and research questions in mind, we conducted an online experiment where participants watched one version of a segment in which Jimmy Kimmel satirically talks about climate change—edited so that some versions included humor and others included Kimmel expressing hostility about the issue but all versions containing the exact same factual information about climate change from the original monologue. Because we drew heavily on Skurka et al.’s (2018) experiment on a humorous climate change appeal, we recruited a sample of young adults to permit comparisons between our findings and theirs. Nielsen data indicate that younger viewers are increasingly tuning into Jimmy Kimmel Live!—more so than they are tuning into The Late Show with Stephen Colbert or The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (Concha, 2017). Furthermore, young adults are more likely to watch satirical news programs than older generations (Hmielowski, Holbert, & Lee, 2011) and tend to be more trusting of satirical news content than older generations (Mitchell, Gottfried, & Matsa, 2015).

Method

Participants

Using the Survey Research Institute at Cornell University, we recruited N = 1,755 young adults in the United States between the ages of 18 and 30 years by contracting with MSG to recruit from their established panel of survey respondents. MSG, like many other web panels (e.g., Qualtrics and Nielsen), offers panelists the opportunity to participate in periodic surveys for monetary compensation (the amount differs by respondent based on survey-taking history and timing). Although we only invited panelists who were thought to be between 18 and 30 years old, a few people outside of this age range answered the survey. We excluded data from participants who reported being over 30 years of age (n = 58) and from individuals who indicated that they were unable to see or hear the video (n = 144). Next, we examined the distribution for time spent on the pages with the video stimuli to assess whether participants may have skipped through the video. Generally, the median lengths of time spent on the video pages (range of medians = 144-249 seconds) were similar to the run times for each of the video stimuli (range = 136-291 seconds). However, across all conditions, there were notable clusters of participants who spent fewer than 20 seconds on their respective stimuli pages, so we removed data from these participants (n = 302) under the assumption that these participants were not reasonably exposed to the messages. This left N = 1,264 cases for the inferential analyses we present later.

Of these 1,264 individuals, the average participant was 24.8 years (SD = 3.6, Mdn = 25.0). The majority of the sample identified as female (82.4%) and non-Hispanic (83.0%). With respect to race, 75.6% identified as White, 14.3% identified as Black, 2.9% identified as American Indian/Alaska Native, 1.3% identified as Asian Indian, and the remainder selected another race. About 30% reported that their highest level of education completed was a high school degree, and 18.3% reported having a bachelor’s degree. The household income distribution was bimodal with peaks in the $20,000 to $29,999 category (17.5%) and the $50,000 to $74,999 category (17.6%). Regarding political orientation, the average participant leaned liberal (M = 3.65, SD = 1.58) on a scale of 1 = extremely liberal to 7 = extremely conservative. Approximately, 35.1% of the sample identified as Democrats, 20.6% identified as Republicans, 23.1% identified as Independents, 2.1% identified with another political party, and 19.1% indicated no party preference. Following the technique used in the General Social Survey, we asked that participants who did not identify as Democrats or Republicans indicate which of the two parties they most closely align with if they had to choose. This allowed us to categorize all participants as Democrat-leaning (61%) or Republican-leaning (39%) for our tests of Hypothesis 4 and Research Question 1.

Procedure

We randomly assigned participants to one of five conditions in a 2 (humor: present or absent) × 2 (indignation: present or absent) + 1 (offset control group) between-subjects design. Participants in the four treatment conditions watched a clip of Jimmy Kimmel discussing climate change. We edited the original clip to produce four versions that varied in the amount of humorous content and the amount of indignation expressed: an informational version (humor absent/indignation absent), a humor-only version (humor present/indignation absent), an indignation-only version (humor absent/indignation present), and a satirical, hybrid version (humor present/indignation present). We removed passages from the original clip that contained satirical humor and indignation but kept the same core information about climate change constant across the treatment groups. As a result, the four treatment videos were necessarily of different lengths (range = 136-290 seconds). The hybrid version was the closest to the original segment (with some content removed for time). Control group participants watched a clip of Jimmy Kimmel discussing silly names for baby products (157 seconds). After video exposure, participants answered a survey on their responses to the video, perceived risk of climate change, intentions to engage in personal and political actions to mitigate climate risk, and demographics.

Treatment Videos

All the treatment videos began with Kimmel introducing a clip that featured former Governor-of-Alaska Sarah Palin casting doubt on the trustworthiness of scientific consensus on climate change. In all four treatment videos, Kimmel discussed how climate change has become a politicized issue with most politicians on the right questioning the science and existence of climate change. Kimmel underscored scientific consensus on the matter (despite political disagreements) and pointed out that global temperatures are increasing each year. Kimmel then asked viewers to put their political leanings aside while watching testimonials from various climate-related scientists. After introducing themselves, the scientists emphasized that climate change is happening, is human caused, and will have catastrophic effects. A scientist with a young boy on her lap concluded, “If not for our generation, then for his.”

For the humor induction, half of the climate change videos retained the segment’s original jokes. This included a range of humor types such as sarcasm (e.g., Kimmel: “ . . . maybe Sarah Palin wants global warming; it’s cold in Alaska!”), humor unrelated to climate change (e.g., a climate scientist: “Once when I was younger, I locked one of my buddies in a port-a-potty then pushed it over. Now that’s a prank!”), and ridiculing humor (e.g., Kimmel directly in response to Palin questioning scientific consensus: “Exactly. Who are you to question that?”). For the nonhumor versions, we removed these jokes and subsequent applause and laughter.

For the indignation induction, half of the climate change videos retained Kimmel’s expressions of anger and contempt toward climate change deniers (including politicians) and big corporations. For example, at one point Kimmel remarked, “Climate change is not a liberal versus conservative thing, but the people who profit from it want you to believe it is.” Another example was Kimmel criticizing politicians and their ethically questionable funding sources: “ . . . ’cause members of Congress (who we don’t even like by the way) because people who take money from companies that make pollution for a living told us not to worry about it.”

Measures

Humorousness

On a 7-point scale of 1 = not at all to 7 = very much, participants indicated how amused and entertained the video made them feel. They also used a 7-point scale of 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree to respond to two statements: The video was funny and The video was humorous (Nabi et al., 2007). We averaged responses to these four items to create a scale of humorousness (M = 3.86, SD = 1.77, α = .90).

Perceived Indignation

Participants used a 7-point scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree to respond to four statements about their perception of Kimmel’s expressed emotions: Jimmy Kimmel seemed . . . irritated, angry, disgusted, contemptuous. We averaged participants’ responses to create a perceived indignation scale (M = 3.78, SD = 1.40, α = .83).

Fear

Participants used a 7-point scale of 1 = not at all to 7 = very much to indicate how fearful, afraid, and anxious they felt in response to the video. We took the mean of these three items as a fear scale (M = 3.19, SD = 1.92, α = .92).

Perceived Informativeness

Using a 7-point scale of 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree, participants responded to two statements: This video was informative and I learned something from the video (Cho & Boster, 2008). We averaged these two responses for a perceived informativeness scale (M = 5.01, SD = 1.58, r = .75).

Perceived Risk

Participants read the question Assuming it’s happening, how much risk do you think climate change poses to human health, safety, or prosperity? (Kahan, Jenkins-Smith, Tarantola, Silva, & Braman, 2015). Participants responded on a 7-point scale of 1 = no risk at all to 7 = extreme risk (M = 5.74, SD = 1.39).

Activism Intentions

We asked the participants how likely they would be to engage in 10 behaviors over the next few months using a 7-point scale of 1 = very unlikely to 7 = very likely. Sample behaviors (modified from Feldman & Hart, 2016) included Join or volunteer with an organization working to reduce climate change, Sign a petition in support of taking action to reduce climate change, and Post about the harmful effects of climate change on social media. We averaged these items to create an activism intention scale (M = 3.75, SD = 1.68, α = .94).

Mitigation Behavior Intentions

Participants used a similar 7-point scale of 1= very unlikely to 7 = very likely to report how likely they would be to perform 10 different actions over the next few months to reduce their carbon footprint (e.g., Hart, 2010). Sample actions included Avoid meat consumption, Use energy efficient light bulbs, and Avoid buying products that have potentially harmful environmental effects. We created a scale of intentions to perform personal mitigation behaviors by averaging responses to these items (M = 4.83, SD = 1.36, α = .88).

Results

Induction Checks

A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated a successful humor induction, F(1, 990) = 263.86, p < .001, η² = .21, with participants in the humor conditions reporting greater perceived humor (M = 4.32, SD = 1.49, above the midpoint) than participants in the no-humor conditions (M = 2.77, SD = 1.50, below the midpoint). There was no main effect of the indignation induction on humorousness, F(1, 990) = 0.01, p = .94, nor was there a two-way interaction between the two inductions on humorousness, F(1, 990) = 0.27, p = .60.

The indignation induction was significant, but its magnitude was smaller than the humor induction, F(1, 990) = 9.84, p = .002, η² = .01. Participants exposed to the indignation clips perceived Kimmel to show greater levels of indignation (M = 4.17, SD = 1.34; above the midpoint) than individuals exposed to the no-indignation clips (M = 3.91, SD = 1.23, below the midpoint). There was no two-way interaction between the humor and indignation manipulations F(1, 990) = 1.10, p = .29, but there was a main effect of the humor manipulation on perceived indignation, F(1, 990) = 6.51, p = .011, η² = .006. That is, perceived indignation was lower in the humor conditions (M = 3.93, SD = 1.23) than in the no-humor conditions (M = 4.14, SD = 1.34). The humor manipulation’s negative effect on perceived indignation was equivalent in magnitude to the effect of the indignation manipulation on perceived indignation.

Hypothesis Tests

Main Effects on Persuasion

Hypothesis 1 predicted that exposure to a clip of Kimmel discussing climate change would increase perceived risk, activism intentions, and mitigation behavior intentions relative to the control video (non-climate). To test these predictions, we ran three linear regression models to compare the effects of each climate change video (dummy coded) relative to control. Means and 95% confidence intervals for the conditions are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Condition means with 95% confidence intervals.

There was a small but significant effect of the climate change videos on risk perception compared with control, F(4, 1213) = 2.42, p = .047, R² = .01. Both the informational version (unstandardized beta = 0.32, p = .010) and the humor-only version (b = 0.26, p = .037) enhanced risk perception. There were no effects of the indignation-only version (b = 0.12, p = .36) or the hybrid version (b = 0.05, p = .69) on perceptions of climate change risk. These results partially supported Hypothesis 1a.

Regarding activism intentions, there was significant variation across the conditions, F(4, 1263) = 5.85, p < .001, R² = .02. Compared with control, the informational version (b = 0.54, p < .001), the humor-only version (b = 0.58, p < .001), and the indignation-only version (b = 0.54, p < .001) increased activism intentions. The hybrid version had a marginally significant effect on activism intentions (b = 0.27, p = .067). These results largely supported Hypothesis 1b.

With respect to mitigation behavior intentions, there was significant variation across the conditions, F(4, 1263) = 3.14, p = .014, R² = .01. There were significant effects of the informational video (b = 0.40, p = .001) and indignation-only video (b = 0.30, p = .012) and a marginally significant effect of the humor-only video (b = 0.23, p = .052) on mitigation behavior intentions. The hybrid version did not significantly affect mitigation behavior intentions (b = 0.19, p = .11). These results partially supported Hypothesis 1c. Overlapping confidence intervals between the four treatment conditions (shown in Figure 1) suggest no differences among the climate change clips for any of these three dependent variables.

Interaction Effects Between Humor and Indignation

Hypothesis 2 predicted interaction effects between expressed humor and indignation on the three dependent variables. With respect to perceived risk, a two-way ANOVA provided no evidence for a two-way interaction between the humor and indignation inductions on perceived risk, F(1, 954) = 0.001, p = .97. There was no main effect of including humor, F(1, 954) = 0.48, p = .49, but there was a main effect of Kimmel expressing indignation, though in the opposite direction as would be desired, F(1, 954) = 5.45, p = .02, η² = .01. Participants perceived climate change risk to be lower when Kimmel expressed indignation (M = 5.67, SD = 1.49) than when he did not (M = 5.88, SD = 1.28). Regarding activism intentions, there was no main effect of expressed humor, F(1, 990) = 1.27, p = .26, no main effect of expressed indignation, F(1, 990) = 2.15, p = .14, and no interaction effect, F(1, 990) = 2.29, p = .13. With respect to mitigation behavior intentions, there was no main effect of expressed humor, F(1, 990) = 2.64, p = .10, no main effect of expressed indignation, F(1, 990) = 0.71, p = .40, and no two-way interaction effect, F(1, 990) = 0.12, p = .73. Together, these results failed to support Hypotheses 2a, 2b, and 2c.

It is possible that these null effects were attributable to the weak induction for perceived indignation. To investigate this possibility, we conducted three post hoc, hierarchical linear regressions with perceived humorousness and perceived Kimmel indignation (regardless of condition) as predictors in the first block and their interaction term in the second block. These analyses indicated that humorousness was positively associated with perceived risk (b = 0.07, p = .004), activism intentions (b = 0.24, p < .001), and mitigation intentions (b = 0.16, p < .001). Similarly, perceived indignation positively predicted risk perception (b = 0.12, p < .001), activism intentions (b = 0.28, p < .001), and mitigation behavior intentions (b = 0.21, p < .001).

The interaction term was significant for activism intentions (b = 0.06, p < .001) but not for perceived risk (b = −0.02, p = .15) or mitigation intentions (b = −0.01, p = .64). Consistent with the prediction that humor should evidence the strongest relationship with the dependent variables at higher levels of perceived indignation, the relationship between humorousness and activism intentions was stronger at greater levels of perceived indignation (see Figure 2). The Johnson-Neyman technique indicated that the relationship between humorousness and activism intentions was significant (and positive) at virtually every level of perceived indignation but was gradually stronger at higher perceptions of Kimmel indignation.

Figure 2.

Interaction between humorousness and perceived indignation on activism intentions.

Can Satire Minimize Emotional Tradeoffs?

The third hypothesis predicted that a climate change clip that includes humor and indignation (i.e., the hybrid version) would indirectly promote the three dependent variables (compared with an informational version) by way of heightened humor, perceived indignation, fear, and perceived informativeness. To test Hypothesis 3, we ran a series of parallel mediation models using Hayes’s (2013) PROCESS macro for SPSS. For these models, we set the humor, indignation, and hybrid conditions as independent variables (vs. informational, excluding the control group); humorousness, perceived indignation, fear, and perceived informativeness as mediators; and perceived risk, activism intentions, and sustainability intentions as dependent variables. We generated 5,000 bootstrapped estimates and interpreted an effect estimate as significant if its 95% confidence interval did not cross zero.

Path models are shown in Figure 3, and indirect-effect estimates for the hybrid video are visualized in Figure 4. Generally, these results failed to support Hypothesis 3. Although the hybrid version had positive indirect effects on activism intentions and mitigation behavior intentions through increased humorousness, most of the indirect effects of the hybrid video were negative or nonsignificant. Perceived indignation did not mediate the effects of the hybrid video on the three dependent variables. Furthermore, the hybrid video indirectly decreased both intention variables by reducing feelings of fear (a pattern that also emerged for the humor-only video). The hybrid video had no indirect effects through perceived informativeness because participants rated the hybrid video equally as informative as the informational version. By contrast, the humor-only video indirectly decreased all three dependent variables via reduced perceived informativeness.

Figure 3.

Indirect effects of climate change videos (vs. informational version).

Figure 4.

Plot of indirect effects of the hybrid video (vs. informational video).

Political Party as a Moderator

Based on disposition and reference-group theories of humor, we predicted with Hypothesis 4 that Democrats would rate Kimmel’s use of humor as funnier than Republicans. Results from a three-way ANOVA (humor induction × indignation induction × political party, excluding the control group) indicated a significant two-way interaction between humor condition and party, F(1, 977) = 6.14, p = .013, η² = .004.¹ In the no-humor conditions, Republicans (M = 2.85, SD = 1.67) and Democrats (M = 2.71, SD = 1.38) reported similarly low levels of humorousness, t(497) = 1.02, p = .31. However, in the humor conditions, humor ratings were higher among Democrats (M = 4.46, SD = 1.44) than Republicans (M = 4.12, SD = 1.53), t(484) = −2.52, p = .012, d = 0.23. This finding supports Hypothesis 4.

Our research questions (Research Questions 1a-1c) asked whether political party affiliation would moderate the effects of the humor manipulation on our dependent variables (perceived risk, activism intentions, and sustainability intentions). We ran three-way ANOVAs analogous to the one just described on the dependent variables. The two-way interaction between humor condition and party was significant for perceived risk, F(1, 943) = 6.24, p = .013, η² = .01 (Figure 5). The humor condition × party interactions were not significant for activism intentions, F(1, 977) = 0.01, p = .91, or mitigation behavior intentions, F(1, 977) = 0.33, p = .57.²

Figure 5.

Interaction between humor condition and political party on perceived risk.

We probed the interaction for risk perception with independent samples t tests. In the no-humor conditions, risk perception was lower among Republicans (M = 5.64, SD = 1.37) than Democrats (M = 5.92, SD = 1.34), t(478) = −2.16, p = .031, d = 0.21. In the humor conditions, this difference in risk perception was wider between Republicans (M = 5.31, SD = 1.62) and Democrats (M = 6.03, SD = 1.21), t(469) = −5.52, p < .001, d = 0.50. Further t tests indicated that Democrats’ risk perception did not differ significantly between the humor and the no-humor conditions, t(582) = −1.09, p = .27, but Republicans’ risk perception was significantly different between the humor and no-humor conditions, t(365) = 2.11, p = .035, d = 0.22. We plotted means for Republicans and Democrats in the control condition in Figure 4. These means indicate that the humorous segments maintained the risk perception gap between Republicans and Democrats but the nonhumor segments reduced it.³

Discussion

Satire is an emotional concoction of laughter, play, aggression, and judgment (Highet, 1972; Test, 1991), which means that, theoretically, satire could minimize emotional tradeoffs that researchers have documented for humorous climate change appeals (Skurka et al., 2018). This study experimentally explored this idea. This study also investigated how political predispositions might moderate the effects of comedic climate change coverage on humor appreciation and climate change–related outcomes. In short, we found that a late-night host (in this study, Jimmy Kimmel) can be a persuasive science communicator under certain conditions. However, the use of humor maintained the partisan divide in perceptions of climate change risk. Below, we elaborate on these findings and discuss directions for future research in this space.

We found no interaction effects on our outcomes by experimental condition, but we did find that humorousness and perceived indignation (irrespective of condition) interact as one might expect. Humorousness was positively associated with intentions to perform climate change advocacy behaviors, but this relationship was especially robust when participants perceived Kimmel to express high levels of indignation. We hesitate to interpret these relationships in causal terms given that these post hoc analyses examined measured humorousness and indignation (rather than experimentally induced humorousness and indignation), so future research should investigate this interaction pattern in greater depth with stronger experimental manipulations than we were able to achieve here. We do note that perceptions of Kimmel’s indignation were reasonably high in all conditions (near the scale midpoint), suggesting that other sources with lower levels of baseline perceived indignation might be susceptible to stronger inductions when they convey more hostility.

Our data for the humor-only version of the Kimmel segment generally replicated Skurka et al.’s (2018) previous findings. That is, the humor-only version exhibited positive indirect effects on intentions through greater humorousness but exhibited negative indirect effects through reduced fear and perceived informativeness. It is interesting that participants rated the humor-only version as less informative than the informational version because in terms of content, the humor-only version included the same content as the informational version but with additional humorous material (though it is possible that these humorous additions dampened informativeness perceptions). It could be that the incorporation of humor serves as a heuristic that the content being presented is of limited informational value—consistent with the argument that audiences may have a tendency to discount humorous content as just a joke (Nabi et al., 2007). Additionally, participants exposed to the humor versions reported lower perceptions of Kimmel indignation than participants exposed to the nonhumor versions, which mirrors Skurka et al.’s finding that a humor appeal reduces anger about climate change.

The fact that our findings replicate Skurka et al.’s (2018) work underscores the importance of designing emotionally evocative messages that harness the persuasive potential of humor alongside the persuasive potential of other emotions like fear or anger. Researchers have begun to explore emotional flow—the notion that certain emotional shifts in response to a single persuasive message might be most effective at motivating appropriate action (Carrera, Muñoz, & Caballero, 2010; Nabi, 2015; Nabi, Gustafson, & Jensen, 2018). The segment used in this study alternated between indignation and humor, but one could envision an appeal that begins with a lighthearted tone (to induce humor and capture audience attention) then transitions to a more sober tone (to evoke fear about the threat of global warming or anger about the carbon-emitting actions of the fossil fuel industry). We look forward to future investigations that explore whether such emotional shifts could promote engagement with climate change and minimize the emotional tradeoffs for humor appeals.

We sought to isolate the independent and/or synergistic effects of humor and indignation under the assumption that it is possible to disentangle these ingredients. However, one might argue that satire is so elemental that it cannot be broken down into smaller parts. If this is the case, satire is truly a blend of different emotional expressions rather than a combination. Another explanation for our results is that the audience may perceive the style of humor to be different when the humor is integrated with aggressive commentary. The humor-only version of the segment (which increased perceived risk and activism intentions) may have come off as mirthful but perhaps the humor/indignation, “satirical” version of the segment (which had minimal persuasive impact) came off as abrasive. Early evidence on disposition theory of humor suggests that even when the audience dislikes the target of the humor, there is a threshold at which humor can be too aggressive for audiences to appreciate (Zillmann et al., 1974), which could explain the present findings. Along these lines, it is worth noting that the segment we used to create our stimuli employed a host of humorous techniques including sarcasm, unrelated humor, and ridiculing humor. Previous work has shown that audiences process different kinds of humor in different ways (e.g., Holbert et al., 2011; LaMarre, Landreville, Young, & Gilkerson, 2014), and it could be the case that even though these humor techniques are in service of the larger goal of satirizing the target, they exert opposing effects that work against each other rather than in synchrony. These questions are beyond the scope of the current study but warrant further empirical investigation.

The Moderating Role of Political Partisanship

Democrats were more likely to appreciate the segment’s humor than were Republicans—a finding that comports well with disposition theory of humor (Zillmann & Cantor, 1972, 1976) and reference-group theories of humor (Priest, 1966; Priest & Abrahams, 1970; Wolff et al., 1934). Furthermore, political partisans’ perceptions of risk differed depending on Kimmel’s use of humor. In our literature review, we advanced two potential explanations for such heterogeneous effects: (1) late-night hosts are covering (and advocating) liberal-leaning issues toward which conservative audiences tend to be less supportive and/or (2) satirists frequently make conservatives and climate deniers the butt of their jokes, which results in conservatives feeling attacked and consequently being less receptive to the advocacy (Brewer, 2013; Feldman, 2013, 2017). Our findings provide support for the latter explanation. Kimmel’s use of humor sustained existing gaps between political partisans in terms of their perceptions of climate change risk, but interestingly, this disparity shrunk (almost to nonsignificance) when participants watched versions of the segment that did not include humor. Recent experimental work suggests that simply mentioning climate change may lower public support for environmental policies among Republicans (Feldman & Hart, 2018; Hart & Feldman, 2018), but our data suggest that it is possible for late-night comedians to talk about climate change and even promote Republicans’ perception of climate change risk—so long as they skip jokes targeting climate deniers and/or big corporations along the way.

Perhaps audiences are more likely to take arguments seriously when the hosts adopt a serious tone and avoid humor. In other words, viewers likely expect hosts like Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert to joke about the topics they cover, so when these hosts do not incorporate humor, viewers may be inclined to focus intently on the content because the host’s serious tone (positively) deviates from their expectations. This positive expectancy violation, in turn, could have favorable consequences for downstream outcomes like beliefs and behaviors (Burgoon, 2016). This line of thought underscores the importance of understanding the broader communication context within which a humor appeal is embedded (Becker, 2012). Although humor is likely to cut through noisy media environments because humor draws attention (Eisend, 2009; Nabi, 2016), in a humor-rich program like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, a comedic tone may be less likely to stand out than a serious tone. We doubt the viability of this solution (to avoid humor) because viewers likely tune in to the program with some expectation of getting a laugh. Nonetheless, our data suggest that averting humor could be a powerful technique if used periodically.

That said, the Kimmel segment we used identified multiple humor targets (climate deniers like Sarah Palin, big corporations), so it is unclear the extent to which deriding one (or more) of these targets was responsible for maintaining the partisan gap in climate change risk perception. In a similar vein, the Kimmel segment included biting humor targeting these groups as well as a few innocuous jokes not directly related to the issue. Research on the effects of entertainment narratives suggests that it is possible to effectively use humor so long as the humor does not belittle the severity of the issue discussed (Moyer-Gusé, Mahood, & Brookes, 2011). An important task for future research is to assess whether it is possible for science communicators to deploy humor so long as it does not ridicule entities liked by audiences most likely to be alienated by the advocacy—in the present context, political conservatives. In this vein, it is worth exploring whether other humor targets would be more palatable to conservative audiences in order to prevent members of the political right from feeling laughed at or scorned by the satirist’s commentary (Corner, 2015; Feldman, 2017).

Study Limitations

In this study, we used a segment from a “real-world” entertainment program to answer theoretical questions about satire’s effects. Though this decision enhances the ecological validity of our results, using realistic media content also introduces complications regarding internal validity. In other words, real-world stimuli contain an array of elements that are potentially confounded with the variables of interest. For example, the humorous versions of the segment also contained audience laughter, potentially activating perceptions of social approval that may have influenced participant reactions. Developing a holistic understanding of satire’s effects—particularly when communicating scientific issues—will require convergent findings from studies using authentic media messages as well as studies creating their own tightly controlled stimuli (Holbert, Tchernev, Walther, Esralew, & Benski, 2013; Iyengar, 2011). Along these lines, we looked only at one late-night host who used particular styles of humor to discuss global warming. This limits the generalizability of our findings to other forms of satire or humor and coverage from other late-night entertainers (Brashers & Jackson, 1999). Additionally, we focused on young adults in this study, so our results may not hold for older generations. However, young people are a key audience for late-night comedy programs, so our sample constitutes a primary demographic of these shows. Relatedly, our sample was drawn from a single national context, and the majority of our sample was female, which may have affected the results we report here—though it should be noted that a recent meta-analysis of humor appeals in persuasion found no evidence of a moderating role for gender (Walter, Cody, Xu, & Murphy, 2018). Last, we examined the moderating role of political partisanship, but more fine-grained moderators (namely, attitudes toward specific humor targets) would allow for more theoretically precise tests of satire’s polarizing effects (see, e.g., Becker, 2014).

Conclusion

As late-night comedians turn their attention to pressing issues like climate change, it behooves science communicators to better understand the extent to which this coverage can help or hinder climate advocacy efforts. To this end, the present investigation offers a nuanced view of how late-night humorous coverage of climate change impacts a key group of likely viewers (young adults), illuminating several directions for future work. We recommend that researchers investigate emotional appeal strategies that could minimize the emotional tradeoffs of humor appeals (e.g., messages that generate emotional shifts between humor and fear). Additionally, it is worth examining the role of expectations and the effects of different humor styles that are utilized contemporaneously. Finally, we encourage future studies to investigate whether other humor targets (other than political conservatives and climate change deniers) could allow comedians to continue to use humor without preserving existing partisan divides.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Chris Skurka

Notes

Author Biographies

Chris Skurka (PhD, Cornell University) will be starting as an assistant professor at the Bellisario College of Communications at the Pennsylvania State University in fall 2019. He studies the design and effects of messages that aim to promote individual behaviors and support for social policies. Much of his research examines the role of emotion in this process. His work has been published in the Journal of Communication, Health Communication, and Social Science & Medicine.

Jeff Niederdeppe (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University. His research examines the mechanisms and effects of mass media campaigns, strategic health messages, and news coverage in shaping health behavior, health disparities, and social policy.

Robin L. Nabi (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is a professor of communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests focus on discrete emotions’ influence on media message processing and effects. She has published over 70 articles and book chapters and coedited the SAGE Handbook of Media Processes and Effects. She has served as managing editor of the journal Media Psychology, has served as associate editor of the Journal of Communication, and is a fellow of the International Communication Association.

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