ABSTRACT
The 40 cartoons were selected from a larger group of 250, all of which had originally appeared in The New Yorker magazine. Three judges placed each cartoon into one of five categories. The categories are humorous effect based on aggression, either explicit or deliberately understated; humorous effect obtained by a parody on sex; and humor based on the exaggeration or paradoxical use of social sterotypes. These also include inhumorous effect based on obvious and striking logical incongruity; and no category was applicable or two or more categories were equally applicable. The significant results indicated that subjects high in Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) aggression prefer aggressive humor while those low in TAT aggression prefer social commentary humor. In more general terms a preference for orectic humor, as opposed to cognitive humor, seems to be characterized by more fantasy aggression, more extraversion or outgoingness, less preoccupation with intellectual values, and less psychological subtlety or complexity.
