Intolerance of ambiguity as a factor in the appreciation of humour

The relevance of the concept ‘Intolerance of Ambiguity’ within the field of humour has been investigated. It is predicted that intolerant people prefer jokes whose incongruity is solvable whilst rejecting the non-solvable nonsense jokes. Subjects were 134 male students who were asked to complete questionnaires and to rate 120 jokes according to the criteria ‘Funniness’ and ‘Rejection’. Both hypotheses were confirmed by comparison of extreme groups as well as in correlations using the whole sample. Additionally, the predictive value of related variables such as Rigidity, Dogmatism and Conservatism was assessed. DOI: 10.1016/0191-8869(83)90073-9 Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: http://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-77525 Originally published at: Ruch, Willibald; Hehl, Franz-Josef (1983). Intolerance of ambiguity as a factor in the appreciation of humour. Personality and Individual Differences, 4(5):443-449. DOI: 10.1016/0191-8869(83)90073-9 This manuscript was published as: Ruch, W. & Hehl, F.-J. (1983). Intolerance of ambiguity as a factor in the appreciation of humour. Personality and Individual Differences, 4, 443-449. INTOLERANCE OF AMBIGUITY AS A FACTOR IN THE APPRECIATION OF HUMOUR WILLIBALD RUCH AND FRANZ-JOSEF HEHL Psychologisches Institut der Universität Düsseldorf, Lehrstuhl für Psychologie II (Experimentelle Biologische Psychologie), Universitätstraße 1, D-4000 Düsseldorf. F.R.G. (Received 25 January 1983) Summary The relevance of the concept 'Intolerance of Ambiguity' within the field of humour has been investigated. It is predicted that intolerant people prefer jokes whose incongruity is solvable whilst rejecting the non-solvable nonsense jokes. Subjects were 134 male students who were asked to complete questionnaires and to rate 120 jokes according to the criteria 'Funniness' and 'Rejection'. Both hypotheses were confirmed by comparison of extreme groups as well as in correlations using the whole sample. Additionally, the predictive value of related variables such as Rigidity, Dogmatism and Conservatism was assessed. I N T R O D U C T I O N In the literature of general psychology within the field of humour the importance of one variable becomes more and more obvious: nearly all stimuli we consider (potentially) funny possess an element of incongruity. Keith-Spiegel (1972) gives a summary of the early theories of humour and demonstrates that the origins of this point of view can be found in the eighteenth century already, although name and exact definition changed frequently. In recent years (Jones, 1970; Shultz, 1970.1972; Suls, 1972) an additional aspect was taken into consideration, that of the importance of the resolution of incongruity. Incongruity is defined as "... a conflict between what is expected and what actually occurs in the joke." (Shultz, 1976)