Humor comprehension and appreciation: an analysis of Italian jokes

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.