Sensitivity and specificity Puns

Research published in the British Psychological Society's journal, The Psychologist recently used r/DadJokes among other sources:

"How, for one thing, are we to make sense of the apparent popularity of dad jokes given that they are explicitly said to be ‘unfunny’? Even those definitions of the genre that do not specifically use the word ‘unfunny’ include similar slights, calling them ‘lame’ (Dictionary.com), ‘hackneyed’ (OED), or ‘embarrassingly bad’ (Urban Dictionary). Yet many people clearly find dad jokes funny in some sense. On the popular social network Reddit, the community r/DadJokes, which is specifically dedicated to sharing dad jokes, has a staggering 8.8 million members."

and found that:

"By continually telling their children jokes that are so bad that they’re embarrassing, fathers may push their children’s limits for how much embarrassment they can handle. They show their children that embarrassment isn’t fatal. For a child who is approaching or has entered adolescence, which appears to be a sensitive period for sociocultural processing (Blakemore & Mills, 2014), this is an immensely valuable lesson. In this sense, dad jokes may have a positive pedagogical effect, toughening up the kids who are begrudgingly exposed to them."

M. Hye-Knudsen, The Psychologist, March 14, 2023.

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/dad-jokes-thats-way-eye-roll