“Yo mama so fat we had to run TWO studies”

Two studies examine factors associated with reactions to the popular mother joke format (i.e., jokes denigrating or disrespecting the audience’s mother), both in general (Study 1, n = 167 undergraduates, predominantly White) and for specific jokes (Study 2, n = 215 undergraduates, predominantly White). Study 1, a correlational design, found higher endorsement of masculine honour beliefs was associated with greater willingness to share and perceived funniness of mother jokes in general; all but one honour subscale (family) shared these relationships. Content analysis of participants’ qualitative responses indicate that participants primarily think about mother jokes in terms of their content and performance, and participant-provided examples of mother jokes typically fit a scalar format and primarily target four domains (weight, intelligence, appearance, sexuality). Study 2, an experimental design, examined the relationships between masculine honour beliefs and responses to specific jokes from each of these four domains, using a between-groups experimental design to further examine the effects of joke type (ugly, fat, stupid, sexual) and the relationship of the joke teller (friend, stranger). Results also showed participants perceived mother jokes more negatively when they were told by a stranger than a friend, and that fat mother jokes and sexual mother jokes were perceived more negatively than ugly mother jokes and stupid mother jokes. Overall masculine honour beliefs were unrelated with perceptions of specific mother jokes, but two subscales (virtue, family) showed opposing relationships with these evaluations. The diverging relationships of masculine honour subscales and mother joke perceptions between these two studies are discussed.