An Empirical Foundation for a Taxonomy of Humor

The reliability of a taxonomy of humor was tested in two studies. The first study involved rater identification of nine categories for humorous incidents excerpted from television comedy programs (wordplay, exaggeration/understatement, contrast, audience knowledge, aggression, emotion, taboo, pratfall/slapstick, and repetition). The second study, undertaken to remedy shortcomings of the first, involved refinement of the following categories resulting from the first study (exaggeration/understatement, contrast, audience knowledge, emotion, taboo, aggression, and repetition). These categories were tested for interrater agreement using undergraduate participants trained to recognize the categories. Definitions of the categories were developed. Further refinement of the typology should result in subsuming repetition under exaggeration/understatement. A test will be developed to provide a profile of an individual's sense of humor based on their preference for humor of particular categories. (TJH)