1. LEARNING SELF-CONTROL∗
S. NAGEEB ALI
This article examines how a decision maker who is only
partially aware of
his temptations learns about them over time. In facing
temptations, individuals
use their experience to forecast future self-control problems and
choose the
appropriate level of commitment. I demonstrate that rational
learning can be
perpetually partial and need not result in full sophistication.
The main result
of this article characterizes necessary and sufficient conditions
for learning to
converge to full sophistication. I apply this result to a
consumption-savings
environment in which a decision maker is tempted by present
bias and establish
a learning-theoretic justification for assuming sophistication in
this setting.
JEL Codes: D03, D83.
“An individual who finds himself continuously repudiating his
past plans may
learn to distrust his future behavior, and may do something
about it.”
— Strotz (1955)
I. INTRODUCTION
2. Questions of temptation and self-control are at the forefront
of psychology and economics. When studying self-control, a
mod-
eler must decide just how much individuals can be assumed to
know about their temptations because different assumptions of
self-awareness translate intodifferent behavioral predictions.
The
assumption most commonly made, referred to as sophistication,
is that the decision maker perfectly anticipates future self-
control
problems. Yet sophistication is often seen as an inaccurate
model
of a decision maker’s awareness, especially when the decision
maker may lack experience. An alternative assumption is that of
naivete, whereby a decision maker anticipates having perfect
self-
control in the future. Bridging the gap between these two
extreme
∗ This article is a revised version of Chapter 3 of my
dissertation. I am grateful
to my advisers, Susan Athey and Doug Bernheim, for their
support and encour-
agement and to Drew Fudenberg and Paul Niehaus for numerous
suggestions that
greatly improved the article. I thank Ricardo Alonso, Manuel
Amador, Dan Ben-
jamin, Aislinn Bohren, Juan Carrillo, Chris Chambers, Vince
Crawford, Stefano
DellaVigna, Ben Ho, Shachar Kariv, Navin Kartik, Botond
Köszegi, Troy Kravitz,
Jon Levin, Charles Lin, Ulrike Malmendier, Andres Santos, Josh
Schwartzstein,
Shamim Sinnar, Joel Sobel, Joel Watson, Tom Wiseman, the
editor (Robert Barro),
4. of partial naivete in which a decision maker with(β,δ)
preferences
assigns probability 1 to a particular level of present bias (β̂)
less
than his true present bias (β̂ > β).
With few exceptions, most models of imperfect self-control
make one of the above assumptions. That derived behavior is
sen-
sitive to the specification of beliefs has been widely recognized,
including by those that first modeled self-control (Strotz 1955;
Pollak 1968). Nevertheless, the practice has been to treat a
decision maker’s belief about his self-control as exogenous and
model choice given that exogenous belief. While this practice
makes analysis tractable, it raises two conceptual issues. First,
in models of partial sophistication, a decision maker’s beliefs
may
be incompatible with what is observed over time, and so
ancillary
assumptions are necessary for analysis.1 Second, given the
many
different awareness assumptions that could be made, it has been
difficult to assess which assumption is appropriate for a
particular
environment and why. Fudenberg (2006), in his recent
discussion
of behavioral economics, voices this concern:
I think that behavioral economics would be well served by
concerted
attempts to provide learning-theoretic (or any other)
foundations for its equi-
librium concepts. At the least, this process might provide a
better under-
5. standing of when the currently used concepts apply.
This article proposes a simple framework to address these
concerns. In this approach, beliefs and choices are derived en-
dogenously and jointly evolve based on the decision maker’s
ex-
perience. Endogenizing beliefs in this way allows one to pose
and
answer the question of whether and when sophistication closely
approximates the decision maker’s self-awareness once he has
had
many opportunities to learn. Although one may be tempted to
conclude that Bayesian learning should always engender
sophisti-
cation, I demonstrate that tradeoffs between commitment and
flex-
ibility inherent in self-control environments may actually
impede
learning. The main result of this article is to offer a necessary
and
1. For example, a partially naive decision maker might see
behavior that con-
tradicts his view of the world in each and every period. The
literature typically
addresses this issue by assuming that his beliefs are not revised,
which implicitly
assumes that he receives no feedback about payoffs or the past
history.
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LEARNING SELF-CONTROL 859
sufficient condition—across self-control environments—under
which learning is not impeded and inexorably leads to sophisti-
cation; this condition can be checked in applications to assess
the
appropriateness of assuming sophistication.
As the main application of this approach, I analyze a standard
consumption-savings environment in which a decision maker is
tempted by immediate consumption and purchases illiquid
assets
to commit toward future consumption. This setting has been the
focus of many papers in the quasi-hyperbolic literature (e.g.,
Laibson 1997; Barro 1999), almost all of which assume
sophisti-
cation. I demonstrate that this canonical setting satisfies the
con-
dition for adequate learning: thus, a decision maker who learns
about his tendency to overconsume from his past choices even-
tually chooses commitment as if he could perfectly forecast his
temptation tooverconsume. This result therefore offers a
learning-
theoretic foundation for sophistication in consumption and
savings decisions.
7. The general framework that I develop builds on the Planner–
Doer approach to self-control: decisions are made by a single
long-run Planner with dynamically consistent preferences and a
myopic Doer. Prior research using such models, particularly
Fudenberg and Levine (2006), has demonstrated that such
models
offer analytically simple and tractable frameworks to
understand
self-control in a variety of settings,2 and this article illustrates
how this approach is useful for studying questions of self-
awareness. The Planner represents the forward-looking rational
individual who chooses how much to commit by investing in
illiq-
uid assets, signing contracts, making promises that are costly to
betray, and so on. In contrast, the Doer represents the instinc-
tive response of the individual who makes the daily choices and
is presented with stimuli, situations, and commitments; the Doer
is best thought of as a short-run player or behavioral type. The
Planner is uncertain about the extent to which the Doer resists
temptation and uses the Doer’s behavior to learn over time.
To fix ideas, I describe the example studied in Section II: sup-
pose that an individual faces a consumption choice between fish
2. Thaler and Shefrin (1981) were the first to propose a dual-
self approach
to imperfect self-control. The recent literature also includes
Benabou and Pycia
(2002), Benhabib and Bisin (2005), Bernheim and Rangel
(2004), Brocas and
Carrillo (2008), Chatterjee and Krishna (2009), Dekel and
Lipman (2010), and
Loewenstein and O’Donoghue (2007).
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860 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
and steak in each period. In the beginning of the period, the
Plan-
ner makes a reservation at either a restaurant that serves only
fish or one that serves both fish and steak. The payoff from
eating
fish is constant over time and across the two restaurants, but
that
from eating steak depends on an i.i.d. taste shock that is
realized
after the Planner selects the menu. Eating fish is ex ante optimal
given its long-term health benefits, but there are contingencies
in which steak may be preferred. As in Kreps (1979), the Plan-
ner strictly prefers the flexibility associated with the larger
menu
were self-control not an issue; however, once at the restaurant,
the Doer chooses what to eat (if there is a choice to make). The
Doer’s preferences are partially aligned with that of the
Planner,
and partially reflect a temptation to eat steak in contingencies in
9. which the Planner prefers fish. The Planner is uncertain about
the strength of this temptation and would benefit from knowing
it because that helps him plan. Were the Planner to know that in
the restaurant, temptation is resisted, he may strictly prefer the
larger menu for the sake of flexibility. In contrast, if he
believes
that the Doer would too easily succumb to the temptation to eat
steak, the Planner may find it ex ante optimal to select the
smaller
menu, which offers commitment value.
Learning about one’s self-control involves costly experimenta-
tion (and, in this case, a two-armed bandit): the Planner
observes
the Doer’s self-control only when the Planner chooses the larger
menu and exposes himself to temptation. Accordingly, once the
Planner becomes sufficiently pessimistic about the Doer’s type,
he chooses the smaller menu because the value of flexibility and
learning no longer outweigh the expected cost of the Doer suc-
cumbing to temptation. Notably, the Planner may make this
deci-
sion with positive probability even when the Doer is a “good
type”
who resists temptation. Despite the infinite possibilities to
learn,
the Planner may decide it not worthwhile to do so and therefore
make forever inferior commitment choices.
The direction of the skewness in these beliefs merits discus-
sion. The Planner cannot perpetually overestimate the Doer’s
self-
control and undercommit relative to how he would choose in the
full information benchmark. To see why, notice that any belief
that rationalizes flexibility will allow the Planner to continue to
passively learn and therefore update his beliefs. Thus, if the
Doer
10. is unable to resist temptation, the Planner almost-surely learns
this over time, and eventually he makes the same commitment
choice that he would in the full information benchmark.
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LEARNING SELF-CONTROL 861
On the other hand, the Planner may perpetually underesti-
mate the Doer’s self-control even if he began with an overopti-
mistic prior: once the Planner has observed the Doer choose
steak
too often, flexibility appears costly, and so a Planner will
choose to
actively learn as long as the future value of learning outweighs
its
cost. If the Planner is not perfectly patient, he is willing to
under-
take a finite number of trials, after which he might commit to
the
singleton menu and never revise his belief thereafter. Thus, par-
tial awareness and learning can endogenously lead to perpetual
11. overregulation, whereby individuals choose rigid commitments
or
lifestyles that they would not were they more self-aware. This
pos-
sibility resonates with the perspective that obsessions, compul-
sions, and rigidity emerge from erroneous beliefs that one lacks
control otherwise (Baumeister, Heatherton, and Tice 1994).3
A feature of the setting described above is that the Planner
chooses between full flexibility or full commitment but has no
abil-
ity to partially commit. In contrast, many settings feature par-
tial commitments that retain some flexibility for the decision
maker while offering a measure of commitment. For example, in
a
savings environment, an individual can purchase illiquid assets
to ensure some minimal savings without relinquishing flexibil-
ity altogether. Contractual mechanisms, such as recent innova-
tions like stickK.com,4 can penalize certain choices and provide
incentives to counteract temptation while retaining some flexi-
bility. Social mechanisms—through promises, shame, and peer
groups—also provide partial commitment insofar as they change
the benefits and costs of particular actions but are not
completely
binding. Apart from external commitments, a decision maker
may
also rely on internal commitments, such as costly self-control
(Gul
and Pesendorfer 2001; Fudenberg and Levine 2006), which
influ-
ence the choice from a menu without relinquishing flexibility
al-
together. To capture possibilities for partial commitment, I
allow
the Planner to affect the Doer’s choice through menus and
nudges
12. that restrict and influence the Doer’s choice. The framework
here
demonstrates that these partial commitments play an important
role in the decision maker’s long-run behavior and beliefs.
3. A complementary channel for overregulation is explored by
Benabou and
Tirole (2004), who study a self-signaling mechanism in which
temptation is miti-
gated by the adverse reputation effect it induces in future
incarnations.
4. StickK.com is designed to “help people achieve their goals
and objec-
tives by enabling them to form Commitment Contracts.”
(http://www.stickk.
com/about.php).
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862 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
13. The main result of this article identifies when partial com-
mitments induce efficient learning regardless of the Planner’s
pa-
tience. I identify a condition, full commitment
distinguishability
(FCD), that is sufficient for learning to engender sophistication
and may also be necessary. FCD is a condition on how fully in-
formed Planners behave and relates to the richness of the set of
partial commitments. The necessity and sufficiency of FCD
offers
a simple criterion to understand whether learning leads to
sophis-
tication in applications: instead of solving a more intricate
model
in which the Planner is uncertain and updates beliefs over time,
a modeler needs to solve only the full information model in
which
the Planner knows the Doer’s type and check whether that sat-
isfies FCD. Using this characterization, I study two applications
that have been examined in prior work assuming sophistication:
consumption-savings with illiquid assets and a costly self-
control
environment. Within these settings, I illustrate how to check the
validity of FCD and derive its implications for learning.
The results herein underscore the insights that emerge from
deriving the decision maker’s perception of his temptations
from
his environment. In contrast to prior research that divorces a
decision maker’s self-awareness from the fundamentals of the
set-
ting, whether incorrect beliefs persist is determined
endogenously
within this framework. Based on these results, one may expect
that in those settings in which an individual has access to a
wide
14. range of partial commitments, he may know more about his
temp-
tations than in settings in which partial commitments are inef-
fectual or lacking.5 From a normative perspective, the role that
partial commitments play in learning has new implications for
the
design of commitment and suggests when interventions enhance
learning. Endogenizing beliefs also makes it possible to connect
a decision maker’s perceptions of his temptation to other
aspects
of his preference; for example, in Section III.D., I highlight
how
patience fosters learning and sophistication.
Some readers may be troubled by the disappearance of
overoptimism at the limits of Bayesian learning. Although I use
the approach developed here to study asymptotic behavior, the
framework is sufficiently flexible and tractable to model a
5. Just as the nature and severity of an individual’s temptations
varies across
decision problems, it is likely that his perception and awareness
of his temptations
also differs across these settings. Thus someone could be
sophisticated about his
tendency to procrastinate and yet still have erroneous beliefs
about the extent to
which he may become addicted to particular substances.
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LEARNING SELF-CONTROL 863
decision maker’s initial response, and these initial responses
may
reflect initial optimism. Indeed, there are numerous reasons to
be-
lieve that decision makers may begin with optimistic priors and
learn slowly,6 and so findings in the field are consistent with
the
short-run behavior predicted by this theory. Moreover, when a
decision maker makes choices in an environment in which he
has
had little prior experience, he has to simultaneously learn about
how tempted he is by different choices in that setting and the
pay-
offs of different actions. I show by example that such
multidimen-
sional learning can be impeded by challenges of identification
that
slow down the rate of learning. Thus, there are natural reasons
to
expect decision makers to appear to undercommit in the short
run
as they simultaneously learn about self-control and the benefits
and costs of actions.
Section II presents a simple example of the impediment to
16. learning introduced by imperfect self-control. Section III
studies
a general framework with partial commitments, in which experi-
mentation takes a rich form. That section contains the main
results of this article and describes the implications of patience,
of-
fers some suggestions on how a modeler might make
partial inferences about a decision maker’s awareness, and
describes the connection of the results here with the steady-state
solution concept of self-confirming equilibrium. Section IV
applies
the framework to savings behavior and costly self-control.
Section V discusses the results of this article in light of the
related
literature and illustrates the identification challenged induced
by
multidimensional learning. The proofs for all results are
collected
in an Online Appendix.
II. A SIMPLE EXAMPLE
I begin with a simple example to illustrate the mechanism
for incomplete learning in the most transparent way. Consider
an
infinitely-lived individual who chooses between undertaking an
activity (at = 1) or not (at = −1) in period t = 0, 1, 2, . . . .
Under-
taking the activity in period t generates a deterministic reward
b ∈
(
1
2 , 1
)
17. but involves a stochastic cost st uniformly drawn from
6. Optimism could emanate from a number of different sources,
if a positive
belief about one’s attributes has some intrinsic value
(Brunnermeier and Parker
2005; Kőszegi 2006) or induces motivation (Carrillo and
Mariotti 2000; Benabou
and Tirole 2002; Compte and Postlewaite 2004).
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864 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
[0, 1]. This activity can represent, for example, the choice to
con-
sume fish from the example described in the introduction or to
exercise, in which case b captures the discounted long-run gain
from the activity.
The decision in each period is made through the conjunction
of two systems, the Planner and the Doer, who act sequentially
18. in
each period. The Planner is a long-run agent with an
exponential
discount factor δ ∈ (0, 1), and in period t, he obtains a payoff
of
(b − st) if at = 1 and 0 otherwise. In the first subperiod of each
period t, the Planner chooses a menu prior to the realization of
st,
after which the Doer selects an alternative from the menu. The
Planner chooses between full commitment to undertaking the
ac-
tivity by selecting the singleton menu{1}; full commitment to
not
undertaking the activity by selecting the singleton menu {−1};
and flexibility by selecting the menu {−1, 1}, thereby
permitting
the Doer tochoose either action. When the Planner chooses
tocom-
mit to an action, that action is undertaken regardless of the
Doer’s
type or the realized cost.
The Doer in each period is not a strategic actor but can be
thought of as a behavioral type or short-run player. Nature se-
lects the type, θ, of the Doer from
{
θ, θ̄
}
where 0 ≤ θ < θ̄ ≤ 1,
and this type persists through time. When the Planner is flexi-
ble, the Doer of type θ observes st and chooses at = 1 if and
only
if θb exceeds st. Thus, the Doer is tempted toward inactivity
and
19. undertakes the activity in fewer contingencies than the Planner
would wish to do so. This temptation might emerge from a
mani-
festation of a present bias when costs and rewards are
temporally
separated. The perspective here is that the Doer’s being myopic
(representing the individual’s instincts) does not account for
how
his actions influence the Planner’s future commitment choices.
The Planner faces a tradeoff between commitment and
flexibility: while he would like to exploit the Doer’s
informational
advantage, flexibility allows temptations to guide that choice.
Since the payoff from flexibility depends on the Doer’s
suscepti-
bility to temptation, it is valuable for the Planner to try to learn
about θ to optimally choose commitment in the future. I assume
that the Planner would prefer to commit to undertaking the ac-
tivity if he were perfectly confident that θ = θ and would prefer
to
remain flexible if he were confident that θ = θ̄.7
7. The relevant condition is b ∈
(
1
2 −θ
, 1
2 −θ̄
)
; when this does not hold, the
Planner’s optimal commitment choice is independent of his
20. belief about the Doer’s
type.
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LEARNING SELF-CONTROL 865
He begins with a prior μ0 ≡ Pr
(
θ = θ̄
)
that ascribes positive
probability to both types. For simplicity, suppose that all that he
observes over time is behavior and not past realizations of costs
(I consider more general informational structures in Section
III).
Because full commitments override the Doer, the Planner learns
about θ only when he chooses to be flexible. I use ht to
summarize
the relevant history for the Planner when acting at time t and μt
21. to denote the Planner’s posterior belief that the Doer’s type is
θ̄.
Given a prior belief μ, the Planner updates his beliefs to μ+ and
μ− when he is flexible and observes the Doer choose at = 1 and
at =−1 respectively. The dynamic decision problem of the
Planner
is described by the value function
V (μ) = max
b − E [s] + δV(μ) ,
∑
θ∈{θ,θ̄}Pr
μ (θ)
(
θb(b − E [s|s ≤ θb] + δV (μ+))
+(1 −θb)δV (μ−)
)
,
where the first term is the value of committing to undertake the
action and the second term is the value of flexibility. The
Planner
22. never commits to a =−1 since on expectation this is dominated
by
committing to a = 1. Standard arguments ensure that the value
function exists and is unique, continuous, and nondecreasing
inμ,
and thus the optimal decision takes the form of a simple
threshold
rule.
PROPOSITION 1. There exists μ∗ ∈ (0, 1) such that for all μ <
μ∗ ,
the Planner’s optimal choice is to commit to the activity and
for μ≥μ∗ , the Planner’s optimal choice is flexibility.
When the Planner is more optimistic about the Doer’s abil-
ity to resist temptation or values the option to learn, he is more
willing to remain flexible. Because of the option-value
associated
with flexibility and learning, a forward-looking Planner is will-
ing to choose flexibility even if he expects that committing
yields
greater short-run payoffs. For less optimistic beliefs,
whenμ<μ∗ ,
the benefits of flexibility and learning do not offset the
expected
costs of temptation, and therefore the Planner chooses to
commit.
Because the choice of commitment shuts down the channel for
learning, once he chooses to commit in one period, he finds it
opti-
mal to commit in every subsequent period. Because the choice
to
commit is endogenous, eventual beliefs are endogenous and
there-
fore evolve differently for each type of the Doer (assuming that
the
23. prior μ0 exceeds μ
∗ ).
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866 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
Consider the case in which the Doer is of typeθ. The Planner’s
beliefs will fluctuate as long as he remains flexible and his
beliefs
remain bounded away from putting probability 1 on θ̄. The Mar-
tingale Convergence Theorem ensures that the Planner’s beliefs
eventually settle but do not converge to the completely incorrect
belief ofμ = 1. Therefore, the Planner eventually commits,
making
the same choice that he would in the full information
benchmark;
initial partial awareness does not forge any long-lasting differ-
ences from the standard benchmark.
Now suppose that the Doer is of type θ̄. The Martingale
24. Convergence Theorem again implies eventual convergence of
the
Planner’s beliefs, which obtains in two distinct ways: either the
Planner’s beliefs converge to the truth (μt → 1) or the Planner’s
belief μt falls below μ
∗ , leading him to commit. Both events oc-
cur with positive probability. Recall that in the full information
environment, a Planner who knew that his self-control problem
corresponds to θ̄ would never choose to commit. Relative to this
benchmark, partial awareness and learning introduce a possibil-
ity for long-run inefficiency and overcommitment. The
preceding
ideas are summarized below.
THEOREM 1. For any typeθ ∈
{
θ, θ̄
}
, a Planner eventually chooses
to commit with strictly positive probability.
1. If the Doer is of type θ, then almost-surely, the Planner
eventually chooses to commit.
2. If the Doer is of type θ̄, then the Planner either chooses
to commit or he learns the Doer’s type. Both events occur
with strictly positive probability if μ0 ≥μ
∗ .
This result illustrates how beliefs that induce excessive flex-
ibility eventually dissipate: if the Doer is of type θ, any belief
of
the Planner that rationalizes flexibility is refined over time as
25. the
Planner infers the Doer’s type from its choices. Almost-surely,
this
information leads the Planner to conclude that the Doer’s type
does not warrant flexibility, and therefore the Planner
eventually
chooses to commit.8
What is the source of the friction that leads to perpetual over-
commitment? The principal challenge that the Planner faces is
that when he optimally chooses to commit (believing that he
faces
a Doer of typeθ), his commitment choice leaves no opportunity
for
8. While such optimism disappears eventually, it might emerge
in the
short run, especially if individuals begin with priors that
overestimate self-control.
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26. LEARNING SELF-CONTROL 867
him to retain flexibility in case the Doer proves to be type θ̄.
Thus
the Planner faces an experimentation challenge that traps learn-
ing with positive probability. Augmenting this environment
with
partial commitments offer an escape from this experimentation
trap.
Consider the inclusion of a simple bond commitment contract.
For simplicity, suppose that the individual has risk-neutral and
additive preferences and consider a one-period bond contract in
which the Planner pays a lump-sum amount L and a prize x is
returned to the decision maker if the Doer chooses a = 1. There
are various ways to model how such a contract affects the Doer;
for simplicity, suppose that a Doer of type θ chooses a = 1 if θb
+ x
exceeds the cost s. In this case, a fully informed Planner,
regard-
less of the Doer’s type, implements the first-best by setting x to
equal (1 −θ)b and paying a prior lump-sum amount of (1 −θ)b2.
This bond contract leads to …
CIS 3100 - Database Design and Implementation
Products on Sale Database for Kahdea Inc.
1. Project Overview
The activities in this project are designed to provide a better
understanding of how data is organized into a relational
database. A relational database enables management
information systems to support inventory, transactions and
27. business intelligence capabilities.
Using Microsoft Access 2016, you will create and manage
tables, perform data imports, link tables via relationships,
create queries and finally create reports for executive summary.
A general overview of relational database fundamentals and
Microsoft Access training via Lynda.com is provided in section
11 to enable your success in this project. Please allow enough
time to expose yourself to this material before starting the
project.
2. Company Background
Kahdea Inc. is a small startup company that sells sports
merchandise online. The mission of the company is to
successfully sell and deliver sports products for all. The
company sells products for a wide variety of sports including
football, basketball, baseball, soccer, hockey, and volleyball.
Kahdea is composed of twenty-eight (28) employees who work
in different departments (production, operations, automation,
accounting, human resources, finance, marketing, etc.). During
their probation period, all employees are trained before being
assigned into their positions.
Kahdea is planning to have their annual sale next month. This
sale is an important event for the company because it can
typically generate 31% of Kahdea’s annual revenue. The
company has been planning this sale for some time now, and
wants to make sure all transactions are supported without issue.
Your specific role in the project
You are a new hire at Kahdea. During your training, you are
expected to learn about building and maintaining relational
28. databases using Microsoft Access. The database you will
support is being used to keep track of Kahdea’s sales during this
period. Although the database has been constructed, the team
needs your assistance inserting data, using forms, creating
queries and reports.
Your first training task requires you to watch the Microsoft
Access training videos on Lynda.com. A series of hyperlinks
for reference information are provided for you at the end of this
project document.
After you become familiar with Microsoft Access, open the
Kahdea.accdb file.
3. Create a Table
Before you begin, the team wants to ensure you understand
table structure. They would like you to create a table for
Employees and populate a few records. The table should include
the field names: EmployeeID(PK), Last Name, First Name,
Phone and Attachments.
· Step 1: Click the “Create” tab on the top ribbon and select
“Table Design”.
· Step 2: Enter the Field Names and Data Type. Include a
Primary Key (EmployeeID) for
the table. Select attachment as the data type for the
Attachments field.
· Step 3: Save the table as “Employee”.
· Step 4: Enter the following records into the table. Create a
personal record by substituting the red text with your
information (enter a fictitious phone number). This record will
be used later in section 9 of this assignment.
EmployeeID
Last Name
First Name
Phone
30. 4. Importing Data
In preparation for the sale, the team has gathered information
regarding products’ supplier, and customers that need to be
entered into the system. Since there is a lot of information to
upload, using the forms will not be effective. Microsoft Access
allows for a bulk insert of data.
Populate Customer table with data
For this task you will need the Customer.xlsx file.
· Step 1: Right click on the Customer table (Under All Access
Objects panel) and select
“Import”, choose “Excel”.
· Step 2: In the pop-up window click “Browse” and navigate to
the Customer.xlsx file.
Select the file.
· Step 3: Click “Append copy of the records to the table” and in
the drop-down menu
choose “Customer”, click “OK”.
· Step 4: Click “Next” until the final window. Click “Finish”.
31. 4. Importing Data (continued)
Populate ProductSupplier table with Data
For this task you will need the ProductSupplier.txt file.
· Step 1: Right click on the ProductSupplier table (under All
Access Objects panel) and
select “Import”. Choose “Text File”.
· Step 2: In the pop-up window click “Browse” and navigate to
the ProductSupplier.txt
file, choose the file.
· Step 3: Click “Append copy of the records to the table” and in
the drop-down menu
· choose “ProductSupplier”, click “OK”.
· Step 4: Click “Next” until the final window. Click “Finish”.
Note: For best results, right-mouse click on the
ProductSupplier.txt file then save the file to your desktop to
enable this data import.
5. Create Forms
32. As a new hire at Kahdea Inc. you are tasked to create forms.
Database administrators can enter the data directly into the
tables. However, your boss feels it would be more efficient to
create a form that coaches users to enter information in the best
order. Create a user entry form to capture suppliers and product
category data.
Create the Supplier Form
Apply the following steps using the Form Wizard to create a
data entry form with tabular layout. Include all fields except
Webpage and Notes.
· Step 1: Click the “Create” tab on the top ribbon and select
“Form Wizard”
· Step 2: In the popup window select the Supplier Table from
the drop-down menu
(Tables/Queries).Select the fields you wish to use and move
them to the
Selected Fields box by clicking the “>” button. Click
“Next”.
· Step 3: Click and select “Tabular”, and click “Next”.
· Step 4: Name the form Populate Supplier, and click “Finish”.
· Step 5: Click the New Record icon.
· Step 6: Populate the form with new entries using the table
given below, once all entries
are entered, save the form. Once finished, close the form.
Field
Input
CompanyName
Iamz Co
Address1
153 9th Street
City
33. Brea
State
CA
Zip
92821
Country
USA
Phone
7148884565
FaxNumber
6523937595
Create the ProductCategory Form
Apply the following steps using the Form Wizard to create a
data entry form with a columnar layout, to add data into the
ProductCategory table. Include all fields except
ProductCategoryID and Active.
· Step 1: Click the “Create” tab on the top ribbon and select
“Form Wizard”.
· Step 2: In the popup window select the ProductCategory table
from the drop-down
menu (Tables/Queries).Select the fields you wish to use and
move them to the
Selected Fields box by clicking the “>” button. Click “Next”
· Step 3: Click and select “Columnar”, and click “Next”.
· Step 4: Name the form Populate ProductCategory, and click
“Finish”.
· Step 5: Click the New Record icon.
· Step 6: Populate the form with new entries using the table
given below, once all entries
are entered save the form. Once finished close the form.
Field
Input
ProductCategory
34. Bodybuilding
6. Creating Relationships
Although the tables have been created, some of them are
missing relationships. Without table relationships, inserts,
updates, or deletions in one table, data will not propagate to the
other tables. You will need to create the relationships for all
tables in the database.
Note: All tables have at least one relationship while some have
two.
· Step 1: Click the “Database Tools” tab on the top ribbon and
select “Relationships”.
· Step 2: If a table is not displaying on the screen, click the
“Database Tools” tab on the
top ribbon and select “Show Table”, on the popup
window and click “Add”. After
selecting any missing Tables, click “Close”.
· Step 3: Drag the Primary Key from the first table to the
Foreign Key on the second table.
A new window will appear displaying the joint keys. Check
“Enforce Referential
Integrity”. Click “Create” to create the relationship.
· Step 4: Continue creating relationships for tables that do not
have relationships.
· Step 5: Save all changes and the close the workspace.
7. Create Queries
Kahdea Inc. wants to gather information from the database.
35. Create the following queries to enable decision making for
inventory and logistics.
MostProductsSold Query
Create a query that displays the Product Code, Product
Description, and number of times the Product was sold. Limit to
the results to products that were sold at least 10 times. Save the
query as MostProductsSold.
CustomerOrders Query
Create a query that displays CustomerID, ShipName, Order ID,
Order Date, Product Code, Product Description, Quantity Sold,
Price, and Total. Limit the results to Orders between 07/06/2017
and 09/07/2017. Save the query as CustomerOrders.
Note: In order to accomplish the Customer Orders query, you
will need to create the “Total” field in your query results by
using the “’Builder” tab. The following reference provides the
method used to create a calculation query in Microsoft Access.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKHyv1GhdDY
7. Create Queries (continued)
CustomerOrders Query
36. ProductPrices Query
Create a query that displays the Company Name, Products Code,
Product Description, Purchase Price, and Sale Price. Limit the
query to products where purchase price is greater than sale
price. Save the query as ProductPrices.
· Step 1: Click the “Create” tab on the top ribbon and select
“Query Design”.
· Step 2: In the popup window, select the table you need for the
query and click “Add”.
Once all tables are selected, click the “Close” button.
· Step 3: Select the fields required for the query.
· Step 4: Enter criteria for the query.
· Step 5: Click the “Run” button. Verify the query displays the
correct data.
37. 8. Reports
Your manager is impressed with your database skills and would
like you to prepare the following information for reporting to
the executive team. Your manager is a has high expectations on
the reporting format, so you will need to display this
information in a presentable format.
Create a report to display CustomerOrders. Include CustomerID,
ShipName, Order ID, Order Date, Product Code, Product
Description, Quantity Sold, Price, and Total. Include the title
“Customer Report” in the page header. Include the run date,
page number and total pages in the page footer. Save the report.
· Step 1: Click the “Create” tab on the top ribbon and select
“Report Wizard” on the far
right.
· Step 2: In the popup window, select the query from the drop-
down menu
(Tables/Queries).Select the fields you wish to use and move
them to the
Selected Fields box by clicking the “>” button. Click
“Next”.
· Step 3: Select the fields to group by. This is optional and is
not always required. Click
“Next”.
· Step 4: Select the “sort order” of the report. Click “Next”.
· Step 5: Select the Format of the report and landscape
orientation. Click “Next”.
· Step 6: Enter the name for the report. Click “Finish” and the
report will display as a print
preview.
Note: In order to accomplish the Customer Report, you will
need to use custom configuration via Design View. The
following reference provides the method used to create this
report.
https://youtu.be/T-HgfywQ2Y4 Runtime: 28:14
38. 9. Project Assessment
Your manager is impressed with your performance supporting
this information system and wants to measure your competency
in the scope of your assignment. She has asked for your
assessment of the following.
· What are the major advantages of DBMS software applications
such as Microsoft Access?
· What are the components of a relational database table
(entity)?
· What are the benefits of using queries (views) in management
information systems?
· Describe one lesson learned in your efforts to complete this
project assignment
· Step 1: Provide a comprehensive summary statement in
paragraph form using Microsoft Word and name the file CIS
3100 Response <First Name Last Name> (Enter your first name
and last name).
· Step 2: Upload your Microsoft Word file to the Employee
table, attachment field of your personal record created in
section 3 of this assignment.
39. 10. Project Deliverables
Upload your Microsoft Access file to Blackboard, including
your project assessment uploaded to your personal record
(created in section 3 of this assignment) according to the
specific instructions provided by your instructor.
11. Microsoft Access Training Videos
Use the following references to brief yourself on Microsoft
Access and supporting activities to succeed in this project and
any future work with relational databases. It is not necessary to
navigate completely through each course for this assignment.
The additional three learning series are provided to further
enable your success in this project. You should be able to find
a section within this reference to support any questions you may
have.
Learning Relational Databases
https://www.lynda.com/Access-tutorials/Learning-Relational-
Databases/604214-
2.html?srchtrk=index%3a33%0alinktypeid%3a2%0aq%3aMicros
oft+Access+training%0apage%3a1%0as%3arelevance%0asa%3a
true%0aproducttypeid%3a2
· Relational Structures
· Breaking Data Down Into Its Components
· Understanding Entities and Table
· Develop Relationships
· Develop Subtypes and Supertypes
40. · Following a Naming Convention
· Creating Tables in Access
· Establish Relationships in Access
· Write Queries in Access
Access 2016 Essential Training
https://www.lynda.com/Access-tutorials/Access-2016-Essential-
Training/367064-
2.html?srchtrk=index%3a8%0alinktypeid%3a2%0aq%3aMicroso
ft+Access+training%0apage%3a1%0as%3arelevance%0asa%3atr
ue%0aproducttypeid%3a2
Access 2016 Queries
https://www.lynda.com/Access-tutorials/Access-2016-
Queries/455726-
2.html?srchtrk=index%3a18%0alinktypeid%3a2%0aq%3aMicros
oft+Access+training%0apage%3a1%0as%3arelevance%0asa%3a
true%0aproducttypeid%3a2
Access 2016 Forms and Reports
https://www.lynda.com/Access-tutorials/Access-2016-Forms-
Reports/455727-
2.html?srchtrk=index%3a17%0alinktypeid%3a2%0aq%3aMicros
oft+Access+training%0apage%3a1%0as%3arelevance%0asa%3a
true%0aproducttypeid%3a2
CIS 3100 - Database Design and Implementation
7
41. CIS 3100 - Database Design and Implementation
Scoring Rubric
Criteria
Points Possible
Points Earned
A. Employee Table
1. Table & data types created correctly
2. Records / attributes populated correctly
(5)
(5)
10
B. Import Data
1. Customer data imported correctly
2. Product Supplier data imported correctly
(5)
(5)
10
C. Forms
1. Supplier form is functional
2. Product Category form is functional
(5)
(5)
10
42. D. Relationships
1. Relationships are properly configured
(20)
20
E. Queries
1. MostProductsSold query is functional
2. CustomerOrders query is functional
3. ProductPrices query is functional
(10)
(10)
(10)
30
F. Report
1. Report meets management expectations
(10)
10
G. Assessment
1. Assessment meets management expectations
2. Assessment embedded in personal record
(5)
(5)
10
Total
100
44. excite and inspire are goals that are qualitative.
Nobody gets excited or inspired about raising
the share priceor making more money or getting
a raise. But we do get inspired and excited
about bringing a product or service to people
who need it, and about being the best, and
about
winning greatsuccess in a competitive field.
Strive to Be the Best
As a leader, the most important vision you can
have for yourself is to be the best. And that
same vision must apply to your business or your
organization. You will accept nothing less for
yourself or your company than to be the best at
what you do. In business, that means asking:
What quality about your product or service
is most relevant or important to your
customers?
Onceyou’ve identified that quality, focus all the
energies and creativity of your employees
and managers on achieving superior performance in
that area.
We need to be the best. You won’t feel greator as
good as you could feel, or capable of
extraordinary performance, unless you are aligned
with the best people in your field and doing
the very best job that people are capable of.
Instill Meaning and Purpose
Being dedicated to a mission gives work
meaning and purpose. As human beings, we
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feel more valuable and will be more motivated to justify
your faith in them.
The second way to make people feel more
important and valuable is by showing approval.
Praise people at every opportunity, for any
accomplishment, largeor small. Praise them
also
47. for their suggestions and insight—for their thinking.
People will take praise emotionally. Their
self-esteem and self-worthrises. But it’s important to
praise immediately and specifically, so
that people know that it is genuine.
The third way you can build a sense of
importance and value in a person is
through
admiration. Continually compliment people,
whether it’s on their traits, such as persistence,
on
their possessions, such as clothes, or on their
accomplishments.
Perhaps the most important way for people to feel
important and valued is through attention.
People aren’t going to be dedicated to the
goals of the organization if they are
continuously
ignored. They are not going to feel like key
players in the mission if they just receive
commands without having any opportunity for
inputor feedback. Attention means listening to
people, without interrupting. You don’t necessarily
have to take their suggestions or agree to
what they are saying. But give them a chance to
say it.
A Common Cause
A good goal or a good mission gives a clear
sense of direction not only to the
organization, but
to every person in the organization.
A good goal unifies everyone in a common cause.
For example, IBM is one of the great
48. industrial leaders of business history. One of its
goals is to give the very best customer service
of any company in the entire world. One of its
missions is to be known as the company
that
cares for its customers. This mission, which
involves a qualitative not a quantitative goal,
excites and inspires people throughout the
company because they thinkabout it and talk
about it
all the time.They believe they’re the best and that
nobody takescare of customers like they do
at IBM. Everyone in the company knows that
his job, one way or another, is related to
taking
care of customers, and this knowledge unifies
everybody in a common cause.
The mission of a company will oftenbe encapsulated
in a mission statement.A mission
statement is a clear statement of why the
company exists in the first place and what
its
overarching goal or purpose is. Mission statements
usually involve the customer in someway
—for example, how your product or service is
going to help make the customer’s life
better.
YouTube founder ChadHurley wanted people to be
able to send homemade videos over the
Internet. Charles Schwab’s mission was to be the
“most useful and ethical financial services
company.” Google founders Larry Page and Sergey
Brin wanted to make navigating the Internet
easier.
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Nordstrom, whose leaders think incessantly
and continuously about their customers. IBM
thinks and talks about only its customers. More
and more companies are becoming obsessed
with the customer. You see, once everybody agrees on
who the customer is and agrees that the
purpose of the company is to satisfy that
customer the very best way possible, then it’s easy to
get everybody pulling together.
As a matter of fact, I believe that you can
tell how well led an organization is by
applying a
very simple test. When you’re in that
organization, look at and listen to how people
refer to the
customer. In a good organization, the customers are
always referred to with respect. They are
51. always referred to with pride, as though they
are really important. When a customer
calls, it is
an important occasion. And when a customer has a
problem and is helped, it is a cause
for
celebration. When a customer calls and is
happy or satisfied with a product or service,
everybody takeson a tremendous feeling of
prideand accomplishment.
In your organization, how do people talk about
the customer?
Let’ssay you run a department that services another
department within the organization. That
other department is your customer. Whoever
has to use what you produce in your area of
responsibility is your customer. And leaders have to be
very much focused on satisfying that
customer.
If you are going to be a business leader or
a leader of a department or any
organization, you
have to sit down and thinkthrough what the mission
or the overarching purpose or goal is
going to be for that business or department. It
is the determination of a mission to be
the best,
that does somethingto help others, that is the starting
pointof your ascension and rise to the top
of leadership.
Tracy, B. (2014). Leadership. Retrieved from
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Created from asulib-ebooks on 2020-02-27 15:54:30.
53. .
Chapter 1
Introduction: Jokes, humor, and taste
The importance of a shared sense of humor is made obvious by
its absence.
It is almost impossible to build a relationship with someone
who never
makes you laugh, who never laughs at jokes you make or even
worse: who
tries really hard to be funny but insists on telling the wrong
jokes. Very few
things are more painful than an attempt at humor that is not
appreciated by
those listening.
To tell the right joke at the right time requires considerable
cultural
knowledge. Someone who doesn't laugh when others do or who
laughs
when the rest are silent, exposes himself as an outsider: he
reveals his lack
of awareness of codes, habits, and rules. He doesn't belong. In
social rela-
tionships, humor has the role of measuring mutual
understanding and sig-
naling good intentions. When a joke fails, listeners usually feel
like reject-
ing the joke teller, and often do.
What counts as "good" humor differs from group to group, from
54. person
to person, and from moment to moment. The extent to which
people differ
in their opinions of what is funny is sharply illustrated in a form
of humor
prominent in day-to-day interactions: in joke telling. The joke is
a humor-
ous genre about which opinions are extremely mixed. There are
true joke
lovers - proverbial uncles at parties producing enough jokes,
one after the
other, to last the whole evening - but also self-declared
adversaries. Certain
groups welcome jokes with great enthusiasm while others reject
the telling
of a joke with demonstrative silence; the latter group sees joke
telling as
tasteless and vulgar.
Judging jokes goes further than expressing personal style or
taste. Sense
of humor is connected to social milieu and background. Not
only are there
individual differences in how humor is appreciated but there are
also dif-
ferences between men and women, between people with
different educa-
tional advantages, between old and young, and of course
differences be-
tween people from different cultures and countries. What people
think is
funny - or not funny - is strongly determined by how they were
brought up
and the company they keep.
This book has to do with the relationship between sense of
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2 Introduction: Jokes, humor, and taste
think about one specific humorous genre: the joke. More
precisely: I will
be looking at the standardized or "canned" joke: a short
humorous story,
ending in a punch line, which the teller usually does not claim
to have in-
vented himself. Dutch, the language in which most of this
research was
originally carried out, has a specific word for this genre: mop.
In English,
57. "joke" can refer both to this specific genre and more generally
to something
said or done to amuse people. However, even though there is no
separate
word in English for the specific genre, the joke was clearly
recognized as
being separate by the Americans I interviewed.
It may perhaps surprise the reader that I chose this, of all
genres. The
subject "humor" is capable of suggesting something profound
and of
prompting people to contemplate human nature, the importance
of creativ-
ity, or the connection between suffering, humor, and
detachment, but the
joke evokes many fewer grandiloquent associations. Jokes are
amusement
more than anything else, without many pretensions or profound
purposes:
they are meant to make people laugh and no more.
The joke is perhaps not a particularly chic genre but it does
evoke em-
phatic reactions. As I did my research, I interviewed people
who consid-
ered telling jokes to be "the acme of humor", "just part of any
good night's
fun", and even: "the essence of togetherness and pleasure, a
reason to laugh
till you cry". But I also talked to people who denigrated jokes
as "a form of
spiritual poverty", "tiresome things, enormously disrupting to
conversa-
tion". One of my informants stated very decidedly: "Jokes that's
not hu-
58. mor". In saying these things, people are also stating implicitly
what humor
means to them: what they consider funny, hilarious, corny, far-
fetched,
vulgar, or banal. They are verbalizing a decision about good and
bad hu-
mor. But just behind the scenes, ideas are lurking about what a
good con-
versation entails, what an enjoyable evening looks like, what
being sociable
means, and more generally: how people are supposed to interact
with each
other. Judgments about humor are directly connected with ideas
about what
constitutes pleasant and unpleasant communication.
Researching jokes
This variance of opinion itself makes the genre of the joke a
suitable start-
ing point for research into differences in how humor is
appreciated. Re-
search into preference for and aversion to jokes leads to more
general ques-
tions about humor: why do some people love certain forms of
humor while
others can't stand them? Which subjects are preferred joke
material and
Kuipers, G. (2006). Good humor, bad taste : A sociology of the
joke. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Created from asulib-ebooks on 2020-02-27 15:44:40.
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Researching jokes 3
which are not? Why do people consider something funny,
amusing, hilari-
ous or, rather, corny, feeble, or vulgar? What do people mean
by "sense of
humor"? How do people differ in their opinions on this? And
what are the
consequences of such differences in humor style?
In order to answer these questions I conducted interviews, I did
a survey
of humor styles, and I collected a large number of jokes. The
research on
which this book is based was carried out mostly in the
Netherlands. How-
ever, the final chapter presents the results of a similar, though
smaller,
study in the United States. In the Netherlands, I spoke
extensively to sev-
enty Dutch people about jokes and humor. First, I talked to
thirty-four joke
lovers, people who knew and told a lot of jokes. These were
acquired
through newspaper advertisements and through the grapevine,
61. but primarily
gleaned from people participating in the selection for the Dutch
television
program Moppentoppers, a program aired by RTL4, a large
commercial TV
channel. Moppentoppers (the name is a contamination of
toppers, which
means approximately the same in English, and moppentapper, a
rather
jocular word for joke teller) was a highly popular joke-telling
contest for
amateur joke tellers.
I also interviewed four editors of joke books. After that, I
interviewed
thirty-two "ordinary people" about their sense of humor: men
and women,
young and old, of different educational and professional
backgrounds, joke
lovers and joke haters. All these interviewees, under fictitious
names, will
be cited frequently in this book. The group of thirty-two was a
sample
taken from a group of 340 Dutch people who had filled in a
questionnaire
about jokes and humor in 1997/1998. In addition to this, I
collected many
thousands of jokes: I found them on the Internet, in joke books
and maga-
zines, in archives, and they were told to me by friends,
acquaintances, and
people whom I interviewed.
Differences in the appreciation of jokes touch upon three of the
most
important social distinctions in the Netherlands: gender, age,
64. 4 Introduction: Jokes, humor, and taste
Five years after I did these interviews in the Netherlands, I
carried out a
similar, though much smaller, study in the United States: I
interviewed
twenty-eight people and 143 people filled in a questionnaire
similar to the
one used in the Netherlands. Not only did this enable me to
compare Dutch
patterns of humor styles and social background with American
humor
styles, it also gave me an opportunity to include national
differences in the
comparison. Moreover, the American study functioned as a
cross-cultural
validation of the approach to humor and social background I had
developed
in the Dutch study: it turned out that, in a different cultural
context, the
approach and the concepts still worked, even though actual
social distinc-
tions in the US were markedly different.
Jokes and humor
Jokes are - as all humor is - meant to amuse, to make people
laugh. Ever
since antiquity, many superior and inferior thinkers have
reflected on hu-
mor, and there is but one thing upon which they all agree:
humor is a pleas-
ant experience, often (but by no means always) accompanied by
laughter.
65. Humor is not solely amusement; it can bring people closer to
each other,
embarrass, ridicule, cause to reflect, relieve tension, or put into
perspective
serious affairs. However, if people do not like the joke, humor
cannot fulfill
these other functions competently. Humor can fulfill a great
number of
functions, but the first goal of the joke is to provoke mirth,
amusement, and
preferable laughter.
The joke is but one form of humor. In addition to jokes, many
other
humorous genres and styles exist, varying from slapstick to
doggerel to
cabaret critical of society. To investigate social differences in
sense of hu-
mor, it seemed most sensible to me to focus on one genre. It is
simply not
possible to allow all styles and genres sufficient space in a
single book. It is
also questionable whether one can make meaningful
generalizations about
such divergent genres as jokes, cabaret, revue, stand-up
comedy, clowns,
TV satire, sitcoms, humorous talk shows, let alone cartoons,
regular col-
umns, trick cigars, fake turds, clowns' noses, or the humor in
advertise-
ments, on signboards, or carved into toilet doors. And then
these represent
only standardized humor: spontaneous jokes like those made
every day fall
outside these categories. Therefore, I sought to limit my scope.
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Jokes and humor 5
unexpected turn or denouement, the punch line. Usually j o k e s
have the
form o f a story, but riddles are also considered to be jokes.
These have, as
j o k e s do, a clear punch line and are based frequently on the
same themes.
What happens in a j o k e generally follows a standard pattern:
things often
take place three times. There are standard formulas for the
68. telling too: " A
man walks into a bar..."; " A Dutchman, a German and a
Belgian..." or their
American counterparts, " A Polack, an Irishman and a . . . "
Themes, set-
tings, and personages are largely standard as well: a dumb
blonde, a woman
at the doctor's, a man in a bar, a f l y in the soup, three persons
on the Eiffel
Tower, in an airplane, or on a desert island - all personages and
situations
the good listener immediately associates with jokes. Some o f
these charac-
ters have a more national flavor: in the Netherlands the dumb
character is
usually Belgian, the little boy outwitting adults is called Jantje
(Johnnie),
and Jewish stock characters Sam and Moos (short for Samuel
and Moses)
will be out walking in the Kalverstraat, Amsterdam's main
shopping street.
However, the same jokes, featuring different characters, can be
found in
other countries around the world, from America to India or
Chile.
The strong standardizing o f j o k e s has to do with the fact that
jokes are
orally transmitted. Jokes are written down, for instance in j o k
e books, but
the majority of the jokes contained in these derives from the
oral culture o f
storytelling. Such oral genres often have standard formulas and
themes: this
makes them easy to remember and repeat to others. In addition,
new punch
69. lines can be built into an existing pattern. Everyone w h o tells
a j o k e is dip-
ping into an enormous, pre-existing, repertoire of jokes. A j o k
e teller will
then never - at least almost never, and then very seldom
rightfully - claim
that he thought up the joke himself. Not only the j o k e itself is
at issue in
joke telling, but also the art of telling it: whether or not
someone knows
how to "present" it.
This verbal transmission means that jokes grant researchers a v
i e w of
the role, so difficult o f access, that humor plays in normal,
day-to-day in-
teractions. Jokes are not the domain o f professional humor
producers, but
are mainly told in everyday situations by "ordinary people".
Jokes differ in
this from other standardized humor usually taking place on
paper or on a
podium. Comedy often is a rather one-sided form of
communication: the
role o f the audience is limited to laughing or not, laughing
right out loud or
less enthusiastically - where in humor on paper, radio, or
television the
humorist does not even get to hear whether this happens.
However, the
teller makes direct contact with his audience in telling jokes. A
l s o , the divi-
sion of roles is not standardized: different people gathered
together can tell
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6 Introduction: Jokes, humor, and taste
jokes in turn. Jokes thus provide the opportunity to look at
humor as a
mode of communication.
The joke is a preeminently social phenomenon. Jokes belong to
every-
one: they are not thought up by any one person, but are told
again and again
and continuously redesigned in the interaction. A joke is a joke
only if it is
repeated: only at the moment of repetition does a joke become a
joke, a
"social event" instead of an individual creation. This too is one
of the rea-
sons why I chose the joke: research into cabaret or other humor
whose au-
thor can be clearly indicated would quickly have become a
72. history of im-
portant names and conflicting artistic movements. In research of
this na-
ture, I would also have run the risk of placing the emphasis on
creation
instead of communication. Jokes are what Emile Dürkheim
([1895] 1964)
has referred to as social facts: phenomena that cannot be
reduced to the
level of individual decisions and motivations.
The consideration that finally determined my choice for the joke
is how
people think about jokes. As I have already mentioned: the joke
has very
definite advocates and opponents. In general, however, the
joke's status is
low. This means that the joke forms a good basis for this
research: it is
precisely the "low" and controversial genres that evoke explicit
reactions
and thus make visible social distinctions. Explicit judgments
about the joke
have a lot to do with the fact that joke appreciation is often
couched in
terms of good and bad taste. "Taste" does not usually point to
matters of
life and death but rather to mundane things like preferences for
interior
decoration, clothing, or television series. And yet, in judgments
having to
do with taste, preference or aversion is often highly present and
deeply felt.
Social boundaries are sharply delineated by what seem to be
trivial matters,
in which "tastes differ".
75. .
Humor as a social phenomenon 7
Humor as a social phenomenon
Thinking about humor has always been predominantly the
domain of phi-
losophers and psychologists, and more recently of linguists.
While humor is
preeminently a social phenomenon, social scientists have only
dealt with
humor research sporadically. The scientific background of the
majority of
humor researchers has influenced the questions they have asked
about hu-
mor. Philosophers see humor to a large extent as something
intrinsically
present in a text or an event. The question then quickly is
focused on what
"the substance" or "the essence" of humor is: what are the
distinguishing
characteristics of "humor", "the laugh", or "the comic"?
(Morreall 1983,
1987). Within psychological research, the emphasis is strongly
placed on
humor as an individual matter: the confrontation between an
individual,
with specific moods, distinguishing personal characteristics,
aspects of
character and interests, and a joke (e.g. Martin 1998; Ruch
1998). Lin-
guists, finally, have tended to focus on the formal
characteristics of the
76. humorous text: what distinguishes jokes and other funny texts
from serious
ones? (Raskin 1985; Attardo 1994, 2001)
In this book, I want to look at humor primarily as a social
phenomenon:
a form of communication that is embedded in social
relationships. For this
reason I have also chosen a working definition of humor in
which the social
aspect is prominent: I see humor as "the successful exchange of
joking and
laughter". Humor in this definition is viewed as an exchange
involving a
number of people. This communication can be more or less
successful;
there is only question of humor if the joke "succeeds". An
unsuccessful
exchange does still contain an aspiring joke - an attempt to
make people
laugh - but this is not successful humor: no one laughs, smiles,
or other-
wise acknowledges the joke.
While humor also can be unintentional, I will be looking
primarily at
conscious attempts to make people laugh: jokes, performances
of comedi-
ans, television comedy - all of these socially stylized invitations
to laugh-
ter. The ideal reaction to such a joke is always a laugh.
Everyone who tells
a joke hopes that it will be laughed at. The joke tellers I spoke
to said with-
out exception that the attractiveness of telling jokes lies in the
fact that
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8 Introduction: Jokes, humor, and taste
The explicit mention of laughter in this definition may be
something of
a provocation in current humor research, where humor and
laughter are
generally considered separate and partly unconnected
phenomena. Not
79. everyone who appreciates a joke expresses that by laughing, and
there are
many forms of laughter that are not responses to humor
(Douglas 1975;
Pro vine 2000). Still, everyone who makes a joke hopes for
laughter as the
result; and everyone who hears a laugh assumes that something
funny has
happened (and will also want to know "what's so funny?").
As the sociologist Rose Coser wrote: "To laugh, or to occasion
laughter
through humor and wit, is to invite those present to come
close." (Coser
1959:172) Laughter signals the acceptance of this invitation. As
so often
happens with invitations, acceptance of the invitation is often
interpreted as
an acceptance of the inviter at the same time. Thus, humor and
its counter-
part and reward, laughter, are among the strongest signals of
social solidar-
ity and togetherness.1
Therefore the laugh is a fundamental part of the way people
perceive
humorous communication. It is the expected, intended, and
coveted reac-
tion of any joke teller. Laughter is the idealtypical expression
of the emo-
tion of amusement. As such, it cannot be ignored as a social
phenomenon
and a form of communication in any study of humor. But there
are of
course other possible reactions: these range from smiling and
grinning to
80. complicated (but culturally coded) reactions such as half-
exhausted sighing
at a corny joke, or verbal expressions of appreciation. When I
was living in
the United States, I was rather puzzled at the prevalence of
verbal acknowl-
edgements of jokes: "That's so funny" in addition to, or even
instead of,
laughing.
The description employed bypasses the crucial question about
humor:
what is it that makes people laugh? If people try to get other
people to
laugh by using a joke, how do they do that? Ever since Plato
and Aristotle,
people have asked themselves these questions but it is very
difficult, if not
impossible, to answer them conclusively and definitively. From
the per-
spective chosen here, this is not necessary either. Here we are
concerned
not with the essence of humor, but with its social functions and
meanings.
Thus, even though the question how humor works, and what
mechanisms
are central to it, will emerge several times in the course of this
book, most
extensively in Chapters 7 and 8, this book is not an attempt to
construct a
theory of the workings and mechanisms of humor.
Humor has peculiar contradictory meanings: a joke can be an
invitation,
as Coser states, but it can also put people off and exclude them
(Bergson
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Humor as a social phenomenon 9
emphasize and augment differences in status. Humor can shock,
insult,
hurt, and consecutively be used as an excuse ("it was just a
joke") but nev-
ertheless a sense of humor counts as a positive feature. This
multiplicity of
contradictory functions has a lot to do with the fact that humor
is "not seri-
ous". Something that is said in the guise of a joke should not be
taken liter-
ally (Bateson 1972; Mulkay 1988). Because of this, the same
joke can have
different functions and meanings at one and the same time.
83. Signals like
laughter and smiling, as well as verbal cues of humorous intent
("Have you
heard the one about...") separate humor from ordinary, serious
communi-
cation. This so-called framing separates playing behavior from
serious be-
havior; it separates what actors do on stage from what is done in
the "real
world"; and it separates humor from seriousness.
The different functions of humor often intersect and can hardly
be sepa-
rated in concrete situations (Palmer 1994; Ziv 1984). A
regularly occurring
event such as telling an ethnic joke - for instance about the
Turkish minor-
ity in the Netherlands - can be an attempt simply to amuse, as
well as an
expression of a shared negative attitude regarding a specific
ethnic group.
Perhaps a joke of this type is also an attempt to acquire status
or to bring up
in conversation the sensitive subject of migrants. If there are
Turks present,
it may be an attempt to shock, insult, or exclude them. Among
Turks and
Dutch people who know each other well it can, instead, be a
way of show-
ing that they are above such sentiments. One and the same
phenomenon
can therefore have a diversity of functions for different persons
or in differ-
ent situations; for separate persons it can, moreover, have
another function
than for the group or society as a whole.
84. The polysemy of a joke makes it impossible to say with
certainty which
function it fulfills or what the joke teller meant: humor is by
definition an
ambivalent form of communication. "The" function of the joke
or humor-
ous genre can thus not be firmly established. What's more: even
"the"
function of a single joke about Turks in one, specific, social
setting gener-
ally cannot be established firmly. Quite probably even the
person telling a
joke does not know for sure why he's doing it, let alone why he
chose that
joke. The only thing he will probably know for sure is that he
wants to
make people laugh.
If humor is seen as a social phenomenon, in addition to that
communica-
tive aspect two other aspects are of special importance. Firstly:
differences
in appreciation of humor are for a large part socially and
culturally deter-
mined. What people think is funny varies from culture to culture
and from
group to group: even within one culture there are differences in
taste. Even
Kuipers, G. (2006). Good humor, bad taste : A sociology of the
joke. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
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10 Introduction: Jokes, humor, and taste
though many scholars have commented on the cultural
variability of hu-
mor, comparative research on humor is almost absent.2
Secondly, humor often touches upon social and moral
boundaries. Jokes
often deal with taboos or "painful subjects"; this means that
social and
moral boundaries are often transgressed to some extent
(Douglas 1966,
1975). Humor, however, also marks social boundaries: it is a
powerful
means of pulling people together and, in doing this,
automatically shutting
other people out. Sometimes this takes place directly, by
laughing at peo-
ple, but it can also be indirect: taking place through shared
standards of
what is funny and what is not, or because the joke includes a
reference that
not everyone understands. The laugh makes group boundaries
clearly visi-
87. ble and palpable: he who laughs belongs, he who does not laugh
is ex-
cluded.
Humor is a form of communication, a question of taste, a
marking of
social boundaries. These three aspects determine the social
functions and
meanings of humor, and these aspects will serve here as
guidelines for an
exploration of the sociology of the joke. These subjects lie at
the cutting-
edge of humor research and sociology: within social theory,
taste, commu-
nication, and social boundaries are important themes. Two of
these, the
connection between humor and social boundaries, and the role
of humor as
a form of communication, are important themes in the existing
research in
the social sciences into humor. The third - the connection
between humor
and taste - has hardly been investigated; thus in this book I have
tried to
establish a connection between humor research and theories
about taste and
taste difference in the social sciences.
Humor and taste
Anthropological research into humor also shows a clear
connection be-
tween humor and culture: the documented humor from cultures
far distant
from our own in time and place often seems coarse, strange,
absurd, or
88. simply unintelligible to us (Apte 1985). The impossibility of
understanding
someone else's humor has much to do with cultural knowledge:
people do
not understand each other's jokes because they fail to
understand crucial
references. Additionally, cultural …
