Gender and Personality Differences in the Appreciation of Cartoon Humor

This study focused on the influences of gender, profeminist attitude toward sex roles, self-esteem, and dominance on the appreciation of sexist and absurd cartoons. We developed a humor instrument consisting of two identical sets of sexist sexual cartoons and two identical sets of sexist aggressive cartoons (with only the genders of cartoon aggressors/victors and objects reversed) along with a single set of absurd cartoons. Undergraduate students (N = 120) rated the humor of six sexual, six aggressive, and six absurd cartoons. Each subject saw only one form of each of the sexist cartoons. As predicted, in the absence of biasing factors, no difference in humor appreciation was found between men and women. Contrary to predictions derived from reference group theory, there was no difference between men's and women's appreciation of male- and female-oriented humor. Profeminist subjects of both sexes showed a lack of appreciation for all sexist cartoons.