Different jokes, different folks.

• Author: Mayer, Elizabeth
• Position: International

Ever wonder what makes a joke funny? And how a joke can be bad or good, depending on whom you talk to? New research sponsored by the British Association for the Advancement of Science may have uncovered some dues.

The Laugh Lab at the University of Hertfordshire (www.laughlab.co.uk) asked people to submit their favorite joke, and rate jokes others sent in. More than 40,000 jokes from 70 countries poured in, and close to 2 million people rated their funniness.

The study found that not everyone rates the same jokes as funny---especially across different nationalities and cultures. "Socialization has a lot to do with it," says psychology professor Richard Wiseman, Laugh Lab's creator. "People are brought up to laugh about certain things."

It also turns out that nations full of generally happy people tend to find jokes less funny, and vice-versa. Germans, for example, gave themselves low marks for happiness, but they got the most laughs out of the jokes.

The study also found that males tend to like jokes that involve putting women down, sexual innuendo, and aggression. Females, on the other hand, prefer jokes involving wordplay.

Belgians liked surreal jokes such as:

Why do ducks have webbed feet?

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