Humor comprehension and appreciation: an analysis of Italian jokes

Sonja Heintz; Giovannantonio Forabosco; Alberto Dionigi; Filippo Cioni

doi:10.1515/humor-2023-0020

Enjoy 40% off

academic books on De Gruyter Brill *

Article

Humor comprehension and appreciation: an analysis of Italian jokes

Sonja Heintz
Sonja Heintz is a lecturer in Psychology at the University of Plymouth. Her main research interests are personality and measurement, humour (individual differences and measurement) and positive psychology (character strengths and well-being). She is a member of the Advisory Board of the International Humour Summer School.
, Giovannantonio Forabosco
Giovannantonio Forabosco is a psychologist and psychotherapist. He directs the Humor Research Center (CRU). Associate to the International Society for Humor Studies. RISU Book Review Editor. He has published several articles and essays on humor, including “Il settimo senso” / “The seventh sense. Psychology of the sense of humor” (Muzzio 1994; Tarka 2020).
, Alberto Dionigi
Alberto Dionigi is a Cognitive-Behavioural psychotherapist and clown doctor. His main research interests are about humor psychology, the use of humor in psychotherapy and healthcare clowning. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of RISU – Rivista Italiana di Studi sull’Umorismo.
and Filippo Cioni
Filippo Cioni graduated in Political Economy of Financial Intermediaries, and works as an analyst and financial consultant. He held the position of National Secretary of Mensa Italia and is now Secretary of the local Mensa group Emilia-Romagna.

Published/Copyright: March 17, 2023

Published by

Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Submit Manuscript Author Information Explore this Subject

From the journal HUMOR Volume 36 Issue 2

Abstract

Humor comprehension and appreciation are two basic domains of humor research and central stages in humor processing. In the present study, 238 Italian adults rated 20 jokes to investigate how a humor comprehension task influences subsequent funniness ratings. Additionally, the relationships between humor comprehension and funniness were investigated for the total set of jokes, for individual jokes, and for jokes with different contents (neutral or tendentious) and difficulty (elementary or advanced). Comparing participants who performed only the funniness ratings with participants who first performed a humor comprehension task showed that funniness scores were reduced in the humor comprehension condition. Humor comprehension and funniness were positively related at the level of individual jokes, while these effects were less pronounced in the analyses across jokes. Overall, advanced-neutral jokes showed the most pronounced differences. The study thus showed that the level of analysis (individual jokes vs. aggregating across jokes), content and difficulty of jokes should be taken into account when relating humor comprehension and appreciation. Additionally, it should be considered that humor comprehension tasks can bias humor appreciation ratings. Hence, the measurement and interplay between these humor domains deserves more attention in research.

Keywords: humor appreciation; humor comprehension; humor processing; jokes; measurement

Corresponding author: Sonja Heintz, Faculty of Health, School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, PL4 8AA, Plymouth, UK, E-mail: sonja.heintz@plymouth.ac.uk

About the authors

Sonja Heintz

Sonja Heintz is a lecturer in Psychology at the University of Plymouth. Her main research interests are personality and measurement, humour (individual differences and measurement) and positive psychology (character strengths and well-being). She is a member of the Advisory Board of the International Humour Summer School.

Giovannantonio Forabosco

Giovannantonio Forabosco is a psychologist and psychotherapist. He directs the Humor Research Center (CRU). Associate to the International Society for Humor Studies. RISU Book Review Editor. He has published several articles and essays on humor, including “Il settimo senso” / “The seventh sense. Psychology of the sense of humor” (Muzzio 1994; Tarka 2020).

Alberto Dionigi

Alberto Dionigi is a Cognitive-Behavioural psychotherapist and clown doctor. His main research interests are about humor psychology, the use of humor in psychotherapy and healthcare clowning. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of RISU – Rivista Italiana di Studi sull’Umorismo.

Filippo Cioni

Filippo Cioni graduated in Political Economy of Financial Intermediaries, and works as an analyst and financial consultant. He held the position of National Secretary of Mensa Italia and is now Secretary of the local Mensa group Emilia-Romagna.

Appendix: 20 jokes (ad-hoc translations from the original Italian jokes)

Joke 1:

Two thieves are getting out of prison. One asks to the other: “Shall we take something?” “From whom?”

[“take” in Italian may refer to, say, having a coffee and also to stealing]

Joke 2:

What is the city spiders love most? Moscow

[Mosca=fly]

Joke 3:

Cos’è una banana? Una badonna babassa babassa.

[it plays on repeating “ba” before donna – woman, nana – dwarf, and before bassa – short]

Joke 4:

Cartesio is sitting in a bar. The bartender asks him whether he would like another drink. Cartesio replies: “I don’t think … ,” and suddenly he disappears.

Joke 5:

“Dad, mum is bad!” “Don’t say so, it is not nice!” “But dad, mum is really bad!” “Fine, she is bad, but you are going to eat her all the same!”

Joke 6:

“Your Honor, the defendant is a poor orphan. Please, don’t be too severe judging him for the murder of his parents.”

Joke 7:

A guy speaks to a Chinese couple on their honeymoon. “The situation in China is peculiar. When did you have your last elections?” “Just befole bleakfast!”

Joke 8:

Mum to her child: “Eat the meat!” “I don’t like the meat. I want a hamburger.”

Joke 9:

“Come inside, it is raining!” “No, it is raining also outside.”

Joke 10:

Se russi ti picchio, se ucraini ti falco.

[Russi = Russian/snore, picchio=beat, ucraini = ukrainian falco = hawk]

Joke 11:

I can’t stand people who leave a sentence in

Joke 12:

“Little child, why are you crying?” “My mum took the kittens to be drowned!” “Such a horrible thing!” “Yeah, she said that I could have drowned them!”

Joke 13:

The baby kept crying. But the mother wouldn’t have changed him for all the gold in the world. Maybe if she had changed him he would have stopped crying.

Joke 14:

Husband to the cold wife while making love: “Dear, did I hurt you?” “No, why?” “You moved for a moment.”

Joke 15:

One. How many clairvoyants does it take to change a light bulb?

Joke 16:

“Mum, there is a hair in my soup!” “That’s impossible, I made it with peeled tomatoes!”

[peeled tomatoes = pelati = bold men]

Joke 17:

How many horns has a bull? It depends on the cow.

[Having horns=being cheated at]

Joke 18:

The wife of a professor of Logic has just delivered a baby. She asks her husband: “Is a she or a he?” The husband replies: “Yes.”

Joke 19:

Wife to her husband: “Go to the market and take 5 apples. If they have eggs, take 10 of them.” The husband goes to the market and asks: “Have you got any eggs?” “Yes.” “Well, then 10 apples.”

Joke 20:

An expecting mother to the doctor who is doing an echography: “Well?” “First the good news. He won’t have parking problems!”

References

Adamczyk, Przemysław, Miroslaw Wyczesany, Aleksandra Domagalik, Artur Daren, Kamil Cepuch, Piotr Błądziński, Andrzej Cechnicki & Tadeusz Marek. 2017. Neural circuit of verbal humor comprehension in schizophrenia-an fMRI study. NeuroImage: Clinical 15. 525–540. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2017.06.005.Search in Google Scholar

Bartolo, Angela, Francesca Benuzzi, Luca Nocetti, Patrizia Baraldi & Paolo Nichelli. 2006. Humor comprehension and appreciation: An FMRwI study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 18(11). 1789–1798. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2006.18.11.1789.Search in Google Scholar

Beermann, Ursula & Willibald Ruch. 2011. Can people really “laugh at themselves?”—experimental and correlational evidence. Emotion 11(3). 492–501. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023444.Search in Google Scholar

Bender, Ralf & Stefan Lange. 2001. Adjusting for multiple testing—when and how? Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 54(4). 343–349. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0895-4356(00)00314-0.Search in Google Scholar

Bergen, Doris. 2009. Gifted children’s humor preferences, sense of humor, and comprehension of riddles. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 22(4). 419–436. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.2009.024.Search in Google Scholar

Bower, Alexander H. & Mark Steyvers. 2020. An Aha! Walks into a bar: Joke completion as a form of insight problem solving. In Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2020), 3034–3040.Search in Google Scholar

Brownell, Hiram H., Dee Michel, John Powelson & Howard Gardner. 1983. Surprise but not coherence: Sensitivity to verbal humor in right-hemisphere patients. Brain and Language 18(1). 20–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/0093-934x(83)90002-0.Search in Google Scholar

Carretero-Dios, Hugo, Cristino Pérez & Gualberto Buela-Casal. 2010. Assessing the appreciation of the content and structure of humor: Construction of a new scale. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 23. 307–325. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.2010.014.Search in Google Scholar

Chan, Yu-Chen. 2016. Neural correlates of sex/gender differences in humor processing for different joke types. Frontiers in Psychology 7. 536. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00536.Search in Google Scholar

Chan, Yu-Chen, Tai-Li Chou, Hsueh-Chih Chen, Yu-Chu Yeh, Joseph P. Lavalle, Keng-Chen Liang & Kuo-En Chang. 2013. Towards a neural circuit model of verbal humor processing: An fMRI study of the neural substrates of incongruity detection and resolution. NeuroImage 66. 169–176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.10.019.Search in Google Scholar

Cohen, Jacob. 1992. A power primer. Psychological Bulletin 112. 155–159. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.112.1.155.Search in Google Scholar

Cunningham, William A. & Peter Derks. 2005. Humor appreciation and latency of comprehension. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 18, 389–403, https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.2005.18.4.389.Search in Google Scholar

Derks, Peter, Rosemary E. Staley & Martie G. Haselton. 2007. “Sense” of humor: Perception, intelligence, or expertise? In Willibald Ruch (ed.), The Sense of Humor: Explorations of a Personality Characteristic, 2nd edn., 143–158. Berlin: De Gruyter.10.1515/9783110804607-008Search in Google Scholar

Eysenck, Hans Jürgen. 1942. The appreciation of humour: An experimental and theoretical study. British Journal of Psychology 32. 295–309. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1942.tb01027.x.Search in Google Scholar

Eysenck, Hans Jürgen. 1944. National differences in “sense of humor”: Three experimental and statistical studies. Journal of Personality 13. 37–54. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1944.tb01971.x.Search in Google Scholar

Feingold, Alan. 1983. Measuring humor ability: Revision and construct validation of the humor perceptiveness test. Perceptual & Motor Skills 56(1). 159–166. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1983.56.1.159.Search in Google Scholar

Ferguson, Mark A. & Thomas E. Ford. 2008. Disparagement humor: a theoretical and empirical review of psychoanalytic, superiority, and social identity theories. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21, 283–312. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor.2008.014.Search in Google Scholar

Freud, Sigmund. 1905. Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten. [The joke and its relation to the unconscious]. Vienna: Deutike.Search in Google Scholar

Forabosco, Giovannantonio, Alberto, Dionigi, Filippo Cioni and Sonja Heintz. 2019. Barzellette: Comprensione e divertimento. Uno studio preliminare [Jokes: Comprehension and funniness. A preliminary study]. Rivista Italiana di Studi sull’Umorismo 2(2). 90–100.Search in Google Scholar

Forabosco, Giovannantonio, Dionigi Alberto, Filippo Cioni & Sonja Heintz. 2020. Umorismo e intelligenza: Uno studio sperimentale. [Humor and intelligence. An experimental study. Rivista Italiana di Studi sull’Umorismo 3(1). 24–35.Search in Google Scholar

Ford, Thomas E., Christie F. Boxer, Jacob Armstrong & Jessica R. Edel. 2008. More than “just a joke”: The prejudice-releasing function of sexist humor. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34(2). 159–170. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167207310022.Search in Google Scholar

Goldstein, Jeffrey H. 1970. Humor appreciation and time to respond. Psychological Reports 27(2). 445–446. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1970.27.2.445.Search in Google Scholar

Greengross, Gil. 2020. Sex and gender differences in humor: Introduction and overview. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 33(2). 175–178. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2020-0005.Search in Google Scholar

Heintz, Sonja. 2020. Separating content and structure in humor appreciation: A bimodal structural equation modeling approach. Journal of Individual Differences 41. 37–44. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000301.Search in Google Scholar

Hofmann, Jennifer. 2018. Putting “Laughing at yourself” to the test. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 31(2). 273–286. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2016-0075.Search in Google Scholar

Hofmann, Jennifer & Willibald Ruch. 2017. Humorous TV ads and the 3WD: Evidence for generalizability of humour appreciation across media? The European Journal of Humour Research 5(4). 194–215. https://doi.org/10.7592/ejhr2017.5.4.hofmann.Search in Google Scholar

Hofmann, Jennifer, Tracey Platt, Chloe Lau and Jorge Torres-Marín. 2020. Gender differences in humor traits, appreciation, production, comprehension, (neural) responses, use, and correlates: A systematic review. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-00724-1.Search in Google Scholar

Köhler, Gabriele & Willibald, Ruch. 1993. The cartoon punch line production test. Düsseldorf, Germany: University of Düsseldorf, Department of Psychology, Unpublished manuscript.Search in Google Scholar

Kozbelt, Aaron and Kana Nishioka. 2010. Humor comprehension, humor production, and insight: An exploratory study. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 23(3). 375–401. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.2010.017.Search in Google Scholar

Martin, Rod A. & Thomas E. Ford. 2018. The psychology of humor: An integrative approach, 2nd edn. Oxford: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar

Masten, Ann S. 1986. Humor and competence in school-aged children. Child Development 57(2). 461–473. https://doi.org/10.2307/1130601.Search in Google Scholar

McGhee, Paul E. 1971. The role of operational thinking in children’s comprehension and appreciation of humor. Child Development 42(3). 733–744. https://doi.org/10.2307/1127444.Search in Google Scholar

McGhee, Paul E. 1976. Children’s appreciation of humor: A test of the cognitive congruency principle. Child Development 47(2). 420–442. https://doi.org/10.2307/1128797.Search in Google Scholar

Perchtold-Stefan, Corinna M., Ilona Papousek, Christian Rominger, Magdalena Schertler, Elisabeth M. Weiss & Andreas Fink. 2020. Humor comprehension and creative cognition: Shared and distinct neurocognitive mechanisms as indicated by EEG alpha activity. NeuroImage. 116695. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116695.Search in Google Scholar

R Core Team. 2020. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Available at: https://www.R-project.org/.Search in Google Scholar

Raskin, Victor, Christian F. Hempelmann & Julia M. Taylor. 2009. How to understand and assess a theory: The evolution of the SSTH into the GTVH and now into the OSTH. Journal of Literary Theory 3. 285–311. https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt.2009.016.Search in Google Scholar

Revelle, William. 2020. Psych: Procedures for personality and psychological research. Evanston, Illinois, USA: Northwestern University. Available at: https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=psych.Version=1.9.12.31.Search in Google Scholar

Riquelme, Andrés R., Hugo Carretero-Dios, Jesús L. Megías & Mónica Romero-Sánchez. 2021. Joking for gender equality: Subversive humor against sexism motivates collective action in men and women with weaker feminist identity. Sex Roles 84(1-2). 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-020-01154-w.Search in Google Scholar

Rodden, Frank A. 2018a. The neurology and psychiatry of humor, smiling and laughter: A tribute to Paul McGhee. Part I. Introduction and clinical studies. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 31(2). 339–371. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2018-0022.Search in Google Scholar

Rodden, Frank A. 2018b. The neurology and psychiatry of humor, smiling, and laughter: A tribute to Paul McGhee Part II. Neurological studies and brain imaging. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 31(2). 373–399. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2016-0098.Search in Google Scholar

Ruch, Willibald. 1992. Assessment of appreciation of humor: Studies with the 3 WD humor test. In Charles D. Spielberger & James N. Butcher (eds.), Advances in personality, 27–75. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Search in Google Scholar

Ruch, Willibald. 2012. Towards a new structural model of the sense of humor: Preliminary findings. In Victor Raskin & Julia M. Taylor (Chairs), Artificial Intelligence of Humor: Papers from the 2012 AAAI fall Symposium (AAAI Technical report FS-12-02, 68–75).Search in Google Scholar

Ruch, Willibald & Franz-Josef Hehl. 2007. A two-mode model of humor appreciation: Its relation to aesthetic appreciation and simplicity-complexity of personality. In Willibald Ruch (ed.), The sense of humor: Explorations of a personality characteristic, 2nd edn., 109–142. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110804607-007Search in Google Scholar

Ruch, Willibald, Jennifer Hofmann, Tracey Platt, and René Proyer. 2014. The state-of-the art in gelotophobia research: A review and some theoretical extensions. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 27(1). 23–45. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2013-0046.Search in Google Scholar

Ruch, Willibald, Gabriele Köhler & Christoph Van Thriel. 1996. Assessing the “humorous temperament”: Construction of the facet and standard trait forms of the State-Trait-Cheerfulness-Inventory—STCI. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 9(3-4). 303–340. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1996.9.3-4.303.Search in Google Scholar

Ruch, Willibald, Gabriele Köhler & Christoph Van Thriel. 1997. To be in good or bad humour: Construction of the state form of the State-Trait-Cheerfulness-Inventory—STCI. Personality and Individual Differences 22(4). 477–491. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0191-8869(96)00231-0.Search in Google Scholar

Ruch, Willibald, Paul E. McGhee & Franz-Josef Hehl. 1990. Age differences in the enjoyment of incongruity-resolution and nonsense humor during adulthood. Psychology and Aging 5(3). 348–355. https://doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.5.3.348.Search in Google Scholar

Ruch, Willibald & Sigrid Rath. 1993. The nature of humor appreciation: Toward an integration of perception of stimulus properties and affective experience. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 6. 363–384. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1993.6.4.363.Search in Google Scholar

Ruch, Willibald & Tracey Platt. 2012. Separating content and structure in humor appreciation: The need for a bimodal model and support from research into aesthetics. In Anton Nijhold (ed.), 3rd International workshop on computational humor, 23–27. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam.Search in Google Scholar

Ruch, Willibald & Sonja Heintz. 2019. Humor production and creativity: Overview and recommendations. In Sarah R. Luria, John Baer & James C. Kaufman (eds.), Creativity and humor, 1–42. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Vereinigte Staaten: Academic Press.10.1016/B978-0-12-813802-1.00001-6Search in Google Scholar

Ruch, Willibald, Sonja Heintz, Tracey Platt, Lisa Wagner & Rene T. Proyer. 2018. Broadening humor: Comic styles differentially tap into temperament, character, and ability. Frontiers in Psychology 9. 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00006.Search in Google Scholar

Samson, Andrea C., Stefan Zysset & Oswald Huber. 2008. Cognitive humor processing: Different logical mechanisms in nonverbal cartoons—an fMRI study. Social Neuroscience 3(2). 125–140. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470910701745858.Search in Google Scholar

Semrud-Clikeman, Margaret & Kimberly Glass. 2008. Comprehension of humor in children with nonverbal learning disabilities, reading disabilities, and without learning disabilities. Annals of Dyslexia 58(2). 163–180. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-008-0016-3.Search in Google Scholar

Suls, Jerry. 1983. Cognitive processes in humor appreciation. In Paul E. McGhee & Jeffrey H. Goldstein (eds.), Handbook of humor research, 39–57. New York: Springer.10.1007/978-1-4612-5572-7_3Search in Google Scholar

Uekermann, Jennifer, Irene Daum & Shelley Channon. 2007. Toward a cognitive and social neuroscience of humor processing. Social Cognition 25(4). 553–572. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2007.25.4.553.Search in Google Scholar

Wu, Ching-Lin, Lei-Pin Tseng, An Chih-Pei, Hsueh-Chih Chen, Yu-Chen Chan, Chen-I Shih & Shu-Ling Zhuo. 2014. Do individuals with autism lack a sense of humor? A study of humor comprehension, appreciation, and styles among high school students with autism. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 8(10). 1386–1393. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2014.07.006.Search in Google Scholar

Zigler, Edward, Jacob Levine & Laurence Gould. 1966. Cognitive processes in the development of children’s appreciation of humor. Child Development 37. 507–518. https://doi.org/10.2307/1126675.Search in Google Scholar

Zigler, Edward, Jacob Levine & Laurence Gould. 1967. Cognitive challenge as a factor in children’s humor appreciation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 6. 332–336. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0024729.Search in Google Scholar

Received: 2020-05-14

Accepted: 2023-02-06

Published Online: 2023-03-17

Published in Print: 2023-05-25

You are currently not able to access this content.

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2023-0020

Keywords for this article

humor appreciation; humor comprehension; humor processing; jokes; measurement