The following is an excerpt of the intervention methodology. For more information, please see the full text of the article on the publisher's website or through your institution's library.

Study 1

Participants (N = 150) were approached during the day in public places (e.g., outside of shopping areas) in several small communities throughout the North Central Kansas region and participated voluntarily for no compensation. The majority were non-students (61%), male (53%), White (95%), and had an average age of 31.10 (SD = 12.55, ages ranged from 18 to 75). None of the participants selfreported that they were Black.

Individual participants who appeared White were approached by one of five White undergraduate researchers. [...] participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. In the Confrontational Humor condition (n = 50), participants heard a riddle intended to challenge the appropriateness of thinking about or expressing negative stereotypes about Blacks [...] In the Disparagement Humor condition (n = 50), participants heard a riddle intended to reinforce negative stereotypes about Blacks [...] In the Neutral Humor condition (n = 50), participants heard a riddle making no reference to stereotypes about Blacks [...] Participants then completed items to assess their demographic information and the measures described below. [...] Participants rated how funny, offensive, enjoyable, and prejudiced they found the joke to be using scales from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely). Participants were also asked, “Who (if anyone) was being made fun of in the joke you were just told? In other words, who (if anyone) was the “butt” of the joke?” [...] Participants reported the extent to which affective descriptors applied to how they felt at that moment on scales from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much). [...] Participants indicated how accurate ten stereotypic descriptors were in describing Blacks by on scales from 1 (not at all accurate) to 7 (extremely accurate). [...]

Study 2

Participants (N = 123) were approached during the day in public places on the Kansas State University campus as well as in several small communities throughout the North Central Kansas region and participated voluntarily for no compensation. The majority were students (79%), male (58%), White (96%), and had an average age of 22.74 (SD= 6.43, ages ranged from 18 to 57). None of the participants self-reported that they were Black.

As in Study 1, individual participants who appeared White were approached by one of six White undergraduate researchers, and asked to participate in a research study regarding their perceptions of a joke. After providing consent, participants were told the “Black pilot” riddle used in the Confrontational Humor condition in Study 1. Additionally participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the Instruction condition (n = 62), participants were told to think carefully about the joke for a minute before responding to the subsequent measures. In the No Instruction condition (n = 61), participants proceeded to respond to the measures just as the participants did in Study 1. Participant then completed questionnaires consisting of the same measures used in Study 1.

Study 3

Participants (N = 158) were White undergraduate students at Kansas State University [...] The majority were first-year students (69%), female (68%), and had an average age of 18.86 (SD = 1.38).

Participants signed up for a study described to be investigating social attitudes on an online research management system. They reported to scheduled research sessions where they provided informed consent, completed measures of social dominance orientation and racism toward Blacks, were randomly assigned to conditions in which they read the confrontational joke used in Studies 1 and 2 with or without the profanity, and finally reported their perceptions, reactions, and understanding of the joke. [...] To assess participants’ preexisting racial attitudes as potential predictors of their perceptions of the confrontational humor, our participants completed a measure of social dominance orientation and three measures of racism toward Blacks. [...] Participants reported their agreement to items on each measure using scales from 1 (not at all) to 9 (very much). [...] As in Studies 1 and 2, participants reported who they thought the target or “butt” of the joke was. Participants also reported their perceptions, again using scales from 1 (not at all) to 9 (very much), of how funny the joke was, how racist the joke was against Blacks and against Whites, and how much the joke conveyed a pro-racist and an anti-racist message.