Verbal Irony and Gossip Appreciation Among Children and Adults in Poland and Canada

We offer methodological considerations for this empirical study of irony appreciation development. We examined Polish and Canadian children’s and adults’ attention to two potential cues to ironic intent: (a) interpretive perspective (addressee vs. bystander) and (b) parties present (speaker, addressee, and bystander). Polish participants were 36 nine- to ten-year-old children and 36 adults living in Poland. Canadian participants were 36 children and 36 adults living in Canada, matched to the Polish sample by age and gender from a secondary dataset. Participants watched nine videos containing ironic criticisms, literal criticisms, and literal compliments narrated in their native language. Video characters criticized or complimented a present or absent addressee either with or without a bystander in three conditions: private evaluation, public evaluation, and gossip. Participants judged the speaker’s intent and humor from the addressee’s perspective and/or the bystander’s perspective. Interpretative perspective served as a cue to verbal irony only among Canadian adults, who rated ironic criticisms as more mean and more serious when interpreting these statements from the addressee’s perspective compared to the bystander’s perspective. The number of parties present influenced the interpretation of irony’s seriousness for Polish adults but not Canadian adults. Polish adults rated public ironic criticisms as more serious compared to private ironic criticisms, while Canadian adults rated the conditions similarly. All participants rated public ironic criticisms and literal criticisms as more mean than private ironic criticisms. Both culture and age influence how people consider the relevance of cues in interpreting ironic criticisms and gossip.