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.