Citation

Endo Y. Jpn. Psychol. Res. 2007; 49(2): 111-120.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Japanese Psychological Association, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1468-5884.2007.00338.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Teasing constitutes ambiguous interpersonal behavior that some people perceive to be fun and other people view as hostile. These perspectives might reflect the views of teasers and targets, as well as those of individuals with high levels of social skill and those with low levels of social skill. A group of 182 university students retrieved an incident from their memories in which they had been teased by someone or had teased someone else, and described it. Teasers and targets systematically differed in their perceptions of teasing. Furthermore, targets with high social skills perceived the event as humorous and as relatively less damaging, as did teasers, whereas targets with low social skills tended to report the event as relatively less humorous and to read some indication of the teaser's devaluation of them from statements made during the teasing incident. These results suggest that individual differences with respect to social skills and roles in teasing situations result in different subjective constructions of teasing.