To bring this back to the original topic of the thread, I do think Austen is emphasizing and sometimes exaggerating these characteristics for humor by the words she chooses, as Tom pointed out. Sometimes she uses sharp satire to ridicule, and sometimes it's more gentle towards her heroes and heroines.

To briefly quote Elizabeth Bennet I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can. But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without."