Celebrity study reveals satire harms reputation more than criticism

By Stephen Beech

Satire is more damaging to reputations than direct criticism, according to a study involving Jose Mourinho and Gwyneth Paltrow.

NFL legend Tom Brady and Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg also featured alongside the iconic football coach and Hollywood actress in a series of experiments by American psychologists.

The findings suggest that seemingly innocuous satire may be more harmful than direct criticism because it can "dehumanize" people and reduce them to caricatures.

Lead researcher Dr. Hooria Jazaieri, an assistant professor of management at Santa Clara University in California, said: “Most people think satire is just humorous and playful, but dehumanization exists on a spectrum and can include things like forgetting that others have complex emotions and feelings.

“We can take a small piece of humorous criticism and make generalizations about other aspects of a person, which may or may not be true.”

In one experiment, 1,311 participants viewed YouTube videos that were either satirical or critical of famous athletes, musicians, TV personalities, or business figures.

For example, some videos featured former NFL quarterback Brady’s suspension over the “Deflategate” scandal or Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the Cambridge Analytica personal data sharing scandal.

Participants who viewed either the satirical or critical videos viewed them as equally critical of the targets.

However, viewers of the satirical videos had more negative perceptions about the target's reputation, according to the findings published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

A similar experiment with 373 participants using memes about Gwyneth Paltrow's skiing accident and lawsuit had similar findings.

In another experiment, 299 participants viewed a satirical meme, a critical meme, or just a photo of former Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur manager Mourinho, who had been sacked several times by different clubs.

Both the satirical and critical memes were more damaging than the photo, but participants who viewed the satirical meme had the most negative perceptions of the self-styled "Special One".

While satire is often aimed at celebrities, it can be just as damaging to the reputations of lesser-known or even fictitious people, according to the study.

Another experiment that replaced the current Fenerbahçe manager Mourinho’s name and photo with the fictitious “Steve Randall” in the same memes had similar findings, with the satirical meme wielding the most reputational damage.

A final experiment found that imagining a brief positive interaction with the targets of satire or criticism can lessen negative perceptions of their reputations by humanizing them.

Dr. Jazaieri added: “Humour, laughter and even criticism have positive benefits and serve important functions in society.

“Hopefully, when someone is a target of satire, we will notice if we are engaging in some kind of dehumanization or assumptions about the person that may not be true.”

The research team opted to focus on non-political figures to extend the field of research on satire.

Previous research on satire has primarily focused on political figures and shown mixed results, with some studies finding satire harmless while others finding it to be harmful to politicians’ reputations.

As the new study focused on videos and memes, the research team said their findings may not extend to satire expressed only in text or audio, such as articles or podcasts.