Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 2020 DOI: 10.1111/sjop.

12629

Personality and Social Psychology

Who shows which kind of humor? Exploring sociodemographic
differences in eight comic styles in a large Chilean sample

MENDIBURO-SEGUEL1
ANDRES and SONJA HEINTZ2
1
Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, Andres Bello University, Santiago, Chile
2
Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Mendiburo-Seguel, A. & Heintz, S. (2020). Who shows which kind of humor? Exploring sociodemographic differences in eight comic styles in a large
Chilean sample. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology.

The present study investigates mean-level differences in eight comic styles (fun, benevolent humor, nonsense, wit, irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism)
depending on the sociodemographic variables gender, age, education, political spectrum, and religious affiliation. A large and varied Chilean adult sample
(N = 1,272, 60.1% women; age M = 39.94, SD = 17.33) was recruited in face-to-face interviews and online testing. They completed self-reports of the
comic styles (the Comic Style Markers) and sociodemographic variables. Overall, small, but meaningful, differences in comic styles were found for the
different sociodemographic groups. Men scored higher than women in all comic styles except for benevolent humor, and six styles decreased with age.
Having lower education was associated with more cynicism, while the reverse pattern was found for satire and wit. Religious people showed lower scores
in four styles than non-religious people, and cynicism was higher in those identifying with left wing rather than right-wing attitudes. The present study thus
provides insights into who is more likely to engage in different kinds of humor in their everyday lives.
Key words: Humor, comic styles, individual differences, sociodemographics.
Andres Mendiburo-Seguel, Andres Bello University, Fernandez Concha 700, Las Condes, Metropolitan Region, Santiago, Chile. Tel: +56999497069;
e-mail: andres.mendiburo@unab.cl

INTRODUCTION Comic styles and comic style markers development

Humor is a ubiquitous phenomenon in our everyday life, and we
frequently experience how people differ in the kind of humor they
prefer and show. Consequently, research on individual differences
in humor comprises approaches from different points of view, for
example, related to its creation, its understanding, its psychological,
physical, or social effects, and its manifestations (Martin & Ford,
2018; Ruch, 2007). The study of styles is one of the main
approaches when investigating humor as a trait (Craik, Lampert &
Nelson, 1996; Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray & Weir, 2003;
Ruch & Heintz, 2016; Ruch, Heintz, Platt, Wagner & Proyer,
2018a). The most recent approach, the Comic Style Markers (Ruch
et al., 2018a), provides a promising approach to investigate
everyday humorous conduct in more detail by distinguishing eight
comic styles (fun, benevolent humor, nonsense, wit, irony, satire,
sarcasm, and cynicism). They also provided initial
sociodemographic analyses in terms of gender, age, education,
nation, family status, and housing status. The present study extends
these analyses by: (1) providing a more varied sample regarding
sociodemographic background; (2) investigating a new culture and
language (Spanish-speaking Chileans); and (3) adding differences
in the political spectrum and religious denomination.
Styles are understood as features that predispose people to
habitually behave in a certain way (Buss & Finn, 1987; Ruch &
Heintz, 2016), which makes humor styles typical ways in which a
person shows humor. The most comprehensive approach to
humor-related styles was proposed by Craik et al. (1996), who
distinguished five bipolar styles of everyday humorous conduct,
while the most widely used approach is based on Martin et al.
(2003), who distinguish four styles that capture well-being related
functions of humor.
The Comic Style Markers (CSM; Ruch et al., 2018a) attempt to
complement further humor-related styles. The eight comic styles
can be differentiated by being either “darker” or “lighter.” Darker
styles gather around the mockery family, and include sarcasm
(hurting others), cynicism (depreciating commonly acknowledged
values, using mockery to highlight the weaknesses in the world
and disdaining any moral concept, which are considered
ridiculous), satire (similar to sarcasm and cynicism in being
aggressive as well, but combined with attempts of kindness and
correcting others), and irony (which aims to create a mutual
sense of superiority by stating things in ways that are different to
their meaning, thus confusing those that are not “part of the
group”).
Lighter styles comprise a family that does not imply aggressive
elements and instead relates to benign and affiliative affect,
behaviors, cognitions, and goals. They include fun (promoting
good mood and camaraderie through joviality and lively and
harmless jokes), humor (showing understanding for the defects of
the world and human mistakes, with a realistic, yet benevolent
look), nonsense (presenting the ridiculous aspects of things that
do not make sense, enjoying contradictions, and considering
absurdities the funniest), and wit (enlightening through quick and
appropriate remarks and being able to establish links between
ideas or thoughts).
Humor, sociodemographics, and attitudes
Many studies report gender and age differences in humor, while
only a few studies focused on other relevant variables, such as
education and political and religious attitudes. Regarding gender

© 2020 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
2 A. Mendiburo-Seguel and S. Heintz
differences in humor, men were found to appreciate humor with
sexual contents more than women did (for a review, see Lampert
& Ervin-Tripp, 2007). Furthermore, men described themselves to
exhibit more aggressive humor (Martin et al., 2003) as well as
darker comic styles (i.e., irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism;
Ruch et al., 2018a). These differences are in line with findings on
gender differences in general traits (see Eagly & Wood, 2013;
Hyde, 2014) that consistently pointed to men having higher
scores in traits related to agency (e.g., aggression, risk-taking) and
women having higher scores in traits related to prosociality (e.g.,
empathy, tender-mindedness). Furthermore, men were found to
have higher scores than women in fun, nonsense, and wit (Ruch
et al., 2018a). In this study, we expect that men score higher than
women in all comic styles except for benevolent humor, and that
these effects are small in line with previous studies.
Regarding age differences in humor, studies tended to focus on
changes and correlations between age and behaviorally assessed
humor appreciation, comprehension, and creation (using joke and
cartoon tests), and less on how people describe their typical
everyday humorous activities (Martin & Ford, 2018). In general
terms, it has been observed that humor production decreases,
perceived funniness increases, and humor comprehension does
not change with age (for a review, see Greengross, 2013).
Regarding the eight comic styles, Ruch et al. (2018a) observed in
their samples of mostly young to middle-aged adults that irony,
sarcasm, and cynicism tended to decrease with age, while
benevolent humor, nonsense and wit tended to increase (all small
effects). These findings fit to the typically observed patterns of
increases of socially desirable traits (such as agreeableness,
extraversion, and conscientiousness) in young adulthood followed
by a plateau in middle adulthood (Costa, McCrae & L€ ockenhoff,
2019). The variance in traits was found to increase in older age,
which was linked to declines in physical and cognitive states for
some participants (e.g., M~ottus, Johnson & Deary, 2012). As our
sample is more varied in terms of age and also includes older
adults, we investigate non-linear trends in the comic styles. We
expect increases in benevolent humor, nonsense and wit and
decreases in irony, sarcasm, and cynicism from young to middle
adulthood. Changes from middle to older adulthood are
investigated exploratorily as the comic styles might show
complex patterns in these age groups.
In terms of education, it can be expected that the
sophistication of the comic styles will influence differences in
education level. Two prominent hypotheses have been put
forward: The cognitive congruency principle states that humor is
best comprehended and enjoyed if it matches one’s cognitive
level (e.g., McGhee, 1976); that is, it should neither be too
challenging nor too simple. The “expert skill hypothesis” states
that a higher difficulty of comprehension is negatively related to
humor appreciation (Cunningham & Derks, 2005). These
approaches would imply that more sophisticated comic styles
(i.e., benevolent humor, nonsense, wit, irony, and satire) would
be more often shown by participants with higher in comparison
to lower education. The simpler comic styles (fun, sarcasm, and
cynicism) would either show no education differences or would
be more enjoyed by participants with lower education levels.
Along these lines, Ruch et al. (2018a) found that wit was higher
in participants with a doctoral degree in comparison to
© 2020 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Scand J Psychol (2020)
participants with an apprenticeship (with a large effect). We thus
expect differences in the education level mainly for wit, while
the differences in the other comic styles are investigated
exploratorily.
While not much research has been conducted regarding the
political spectrum and humor, there have been a few studies that
focused on the liberal-conservative continuum. For example,
according to Ruch and Hehl (1988), the enjoyment of
incongruity-resolution humor (i.e., humor with a clear punchline
that can be understood to solve the incongruity) is characterized
by conservative attitudes and conventional values, while nonsense
and incongruity are more likely to be enjoyed by people high in
openness to experience and liberal attitudes. Also, the capacity to
enjoy humor has been observed to correlate negatively with right-
wing authoritarism and a conservative orientation (Bonanno &
Jost, 2006). We thus expect that people that position themselves
on the right side of the left-right political spectrum would score
lower in nonsense, which entails playing with diverse and
conflicting ideas and appreciating them.
In terms of religiosity, Schweizer and Ott (2016) observed only
few correlations between Christian faith and humor appreciation.
When practicing Christians were compared to atheists, the latter
appreciated blasphemous and disparaging humor more and good-
natured religious jokes less. Similarly, Ott and Schweizer (2018)
found that Christians were the least amused by jokes when
compared to Muslims, Hindus, Atheists and Agnostics. Agnostics
were also the least likely to be offended. Regarding the eight
comic styles, Ruch et al. (2018a) observed that the character
strength religiousness/spirituality was positively related to fun and
benevolent humor, but correlated negatively with sarcasm and
cynicism. Overall, people with no religious affiliation are
expected to score higher in the mockery-related styles of sarcasm
and cynicism than people with a religious denomination, as they
might be more likely to openly voice criticism.
Aims of the present study
Most studies are limited by employing convenience and non-
representative samples. Specifically, women, younger participants,
and participants with a good education are usually
overrepresented (as was the case in the study by Ruch et al.,
2018a), which limits the power and generalizability with which
sociodemographic differences in comic styles can be determined.
The present study thus extends the initial findings on the CSM by
investigating it in a more representative Chilean sample that
varied in terms of demographic variables (gender, age, and
education) as well as the political spectrum and religious
affiliation.
METHODOLOGY
Participants
In total, 1,272 people from Santiago de Chile took part on the study, all of
whom were selected through online and face-to-face sampling. Two
subsamples of these participants were included by Mendiburo-Seguel and
Heintz (2019) and Mendiburo-Seguel and Ford (2019); however, none of
the analyses presented here have been published before, and the studies
had different aims (Table 1).
Scand J Psychol (2020) Sociodemographics and comic styles 3

Table 1. Sample description and cynicism (e.g., “I tend not to trust the sincerity of some intentions and
values, and often unmask them by cynical remarks”). People are asked to
Demographic variables n % Age (M) Age (SD) apply each statement to the way they experience and express humor and
answer them on a seven-point scale in which 1 means “strongly disagree,”
Mode of data collection 4 means “neither disagree nor agree,” and 7 means “strongly agree.”
Online 304 23.9 36.08 12.99 The CSM was translated from English to Spanish following the
Face-to-face 968 76.1 41.17 18.34 recommendations by Van de Vijver and Hambleton (1996) considering
Gender translation and back-translation. Two linguists helped with the adaptation
Women 757 60.1 39.41 17.03 of items to the Chilean culture. As shown in Table 2, the internal
Men 503 39.9 40.74 17.80 consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) for the Spanish version of the markers was
Educational level satisfactory. Mendiburo-Seguel and Heintz (2019) provided evidence of
Incomplete primary education 22 1.8 69.19 11.04 the construct validity of the Chilean version of the CSM, as similar
Complete primary education 29 2.3 53.33 19.45 correlations to other constructs (such as happiness) were found as in
Incomplete secondary education 62 5.0 49.07 21.53 previous studies using the original German version of the CSM (Ruch,
Complete secondary education 221 17.7 41.23 18.57 Wagner & Heintz, 2018b).
Incomplete technical education 52 4.2 38.64 14.68
Complete technical education 184 14.7 43.01 14.29
Incomplete university education 291 23.3 27.47 11.60 Procedure
Complete university education 332 26.6 42.70 15.45
Master, Doctorate, or equivalent 56 4.5 43.51 14.03 The face-to-face sample consisted of 968 people, all of which were
Religion (Yes/No) interviewed by trained pollsters at their houses through a multi-staged
Yes 683 54.4 43.72 17.59 sampling method considering cluster sampling (randomly selected blocks
No 573 45.6 35.46 15.95 from Santiago) to assure the representation of different profiles regarding
Political positioning socioeconomic status and a systematic sampling of houses on each of the
Extreme left 142 16.5 41.69 18.19 selected squares. The online sample consisted of 304 people who were
Left 181 21.0 34.77 15.30 contacted through an online panel provider and were paid for their
Center 388 45.1 40.47 18.83 participation.
Right 101 11.7 44.22 17.56 The study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of
Extreme right 49 5.7 49.76 19.80 the ethics committee of the Faculty of the first author’s University. People
Total 1,272 100.0 39.94 17.33 in the face-to-face sample were read an informed consent by the pollster,
containing the main aims of the study and asked to sign a sheet with their
Note: Sums within the sociodemographic variables can be <1,272 due to name in which it was stated that they read and understood the information.
missing values. People in the online sample were presented with the same information at
the beginning of the study and were asked to select “Yes” after the
question “After reading this information, do you agree to participate?” if
they agreed to participate in the study.
Instruments
Political spectrum. We used the following item from the Latin American
Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) “Americas Barometer” survey (Latin Data analysis
American Public Opinion Project, 2017): “Nowadays, when we speak of To establish the factorial validity of the Chilean CSM, confirmatory
political leanings, we talk of those leftists and those rightists. In other factorial analysis (CFA) was run considering recommendations of fit by
words, some people sympathize more with the left and others with the Schermelleh-Engel, Moosbrugger and M€ uller (2003) using the R package
right. According to the meaning that the terms “left” and “right” have for (R Core Team, 2019); lavaan (Rosseel, 2012). To correct for multiple
you, and thinking of your own political leanings, where would you place comparisons across the eight comic styles, a more conservative alpha level
yourself on this scale?” Response options varied from 1 (left) to 10 (right). of p < 0.006 (0.05/8) was chosen for all results. Gender differences and
As the cell sizes for each of the 10-point scale was heterogeneous, we differences in religious affiliation were investigated using independent
followed the same procedure as in the LAPOP (Zechmeister & Corral, t-tests, using Cohen’s d as the effect size (small |0.20|–|0.49|, medium
2010) and collapsed them into five categories of political positioning |0.50|–|0.79|, large>|0.80|) Differences in education and the political
(extreme left, left, center, right, extreme right). spectrum were investigated using MANOVAs and each of the comic
styles as criterion variables. Effect sizes for the MANOVAs were g2p
Religious affiliation. People were asked if they were part of a religion,
with options being “Catholicism,” “Orthodoxy,” “Protestantism,”
“Jehovah’s Witnesses,” “Islam,” “Judaism,” “Mormonism,” or “None/ Table 2. Means, standard deviations, reliability and confirmatory factor
Agnosticism/Atheism.” As most participants with a religious affiliation analysis results
indicated “Catholicism” (71.0%), a comparison among the different
denominations was not considered meaningful. We thus collapsed all Comic FL FL CITC CITC
participants who indicated a religious denomination into the religious styles M SD (Min) (Max) (Min) (Max) a
group, and all participants who indicated “None/Agnosticism/Atheism”
into the non-religious group. Fun 4.53 1.46 0.63 0.81 0.58 0.75 0.87
The Comic Style Markers (Ruch et al., 2018a) is a set of 48 items that Humor 5.05 1.09 0.36 0.65 0.30 0.54 0.72
measure eight different comic styles: Fun (e.g., “I am a funny joker”), Nonsense 4.61 1.54 0.52 0.83 0.47 0.76 0.87
benevolent humor (e.g., “I am a realistic observer of human weaknesses, Wit 4.54 1.34 0.66 0.77 0.61 0.70 0.87
and my good-natured humor treats them benevolently”), nonsense (e.g., Irony 4.24 1.35 0.52 0.77 0.46 0.65 0.80
“I like nonsensical humor”), wit (e.g., “I have the ability to tell something Satire 3.89 1.44 0.55 0.77 0.52 0.67 0.83
witty and to the point”), irony (e.g., “I can talk with close friends in a way Sarcasm 3.51 1.46 0.50 0.83 0.46 0.72 0.81
that only we would know what is the meaning of what we’re saying, while Cynicism 3.12 1.43 0.50 0.78 0.43 0.68 0.83
outsiders won’t sense it is merely irony”), satire (e.g., “I have a critical
attitude toward arrogant and unfair people, and my mockery serves to Note: FL = factor loadings, CITC = corrected item-total correlations,
establish equality and justice”), sarcasm (e.g., “Biting mockery suits me”), a = Cronbach’s alpha.

© 2020 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
4 A. Mendiburo-Seguel and S. Heintz
(small 0.010–0.059, medium 0.60–0.139, large >0.140). To determine the
location of the effect, we first computed contrasts of each individual group
with the mean of all other groups. Significant groups were then dummy
coded (group = 1, all other groups = 2) and compared using independent
t-tests. As the relationships between age and the different comic styles
might not be linear, we tested linear, quadratic, and cubic functions using
the SPSS curvefit function, which were sequentially added in multiple
regression models. Effect sizes for the regressions were R2 (small 0.020–
0.129, medium 0.130–0.259, large >0.260). Finally, to determine which
sociodemographic variables explain unique variance in the comic styles,
we added all significant variables as predictors in standard multiple
regression analyses. All effect size guidelines are based on Cohen (1992).
RESULTS
Internal consistency and factorial validity of the comic style
markers in Spanish
The CFA showed an acceptable fit, v2(1052) = 3850.80
(p < 0.001), CFI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.047 (90% confidence
interval [0.045–0.048]), and SRMR = 0.046. Factor loadings for
each factor ranged between 0.36 and 0.83 (see Table 2), and
factor correlations ranged from 0.30 (between humor and
cynicism) to 0.79 (irony and sarcasm).
Intercorrelations of the scales
Table 3 shows the intercorrelations among the comic styles in the
Spanish version. All of the correlations were statistically
significant at the 0.006 level, and all of them were positive. As in
the construction article (Ruch et al., 2018a), the highest
correlation was found between sarcasm and cynicism and satire
(0.67 each), and the lowest correlations were found between
humor and sarcasm (0.31) and cynicism (0.23).
Comic style markers and demographic variables
Gender. Gender comparisons revealed that men had significantly
higher scores than women in nonsense, satire, sarcasm, and
cynicism. Thus, five of the eight comic styles showed gender
differences, of which three were small and two were negligible.
Age. No significant age effects were found for benevolent humor
(all ps > 0.012). Significant linear trends were found for fun
(R = 0.22, R2 = 0.049), nonsense (R = 0.21, R2 = 0.044),
irony (R = 0.26, R2 = 0.066), satire (R = 0.21, R2 = 0.043),
sarcasm (R = 0.31, R2 = 0.098), and cynicism (R = 0.20,
R2 = 0.040). This showed that fun, nonsense, satire, sarcasm, and
Table 3. Intercorrelations of the Spanish version of the comic style markers
Comic styles Fun Humor Nonsense
Humor 0.50*
Nonsense 0.44* 0.45*
Wit 0.61* 0.55* 0.39*
Irony 0.49* 0.43* 0.46*
Satire 0.44* 0.44* 0.38*
Sarcasm 0.42* 0.31* 0.39*
Cynicism 0.30* 0.23* 0.36*
Notes: N = 1,225–1,228. *p < 0.006.
© 2020 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Scand J Psychol (2020)
cynicism declined with age (all small effects). Sarcasm
(DR2 = 0.009, total effect R = 0.33, R2 = 0.107) and cynicism
(DR2 = 0.012, total effect R = 0.23, R2 = 0.052) also had a
significant quadratic trend in addition to the linear trend. These
trends indicated that sarcasm decreased from 18 until around
70 years and then tended to increase again, while cynicism
decreased until 60 years and then increased again; however, the
effect sizes of the quadratic trends were negligible. Finally, wit
only had a significant cubic trend (R = 0.11, R2 = 0.012). This
trend indicated that wit increased from 18 to 40 years, then
decreased until 70 years, and then increased again; however, the
effect size of this cubic trend was negligible.
Education. Comparisons between the nine educational groups
were made using MANOVAs, with the comic styles as criteria.
There were significant differences regarding education for irony,
satire, sarcasm, and cynicism. The education trends for all comic
styles are shown in Table 4. Planned contrasts were used to
compare each education level with the mean of all other levels
to determine the location of the effect. This contrast revealed
significant differences between participants with incomplete
primary education those with incomplete university education in
comparison to all other groups for the four comic styles. Follow-
up independent t-tests comparing these groups to all other
groups showed that participants with incomplete primary
education had lower scores in irony (d = 0.18), satire
(d = 0.25), sarcasm (d = 0.19), and cynicism (d = 0.20),
while those with incomplete university education had higher
scores in these four comic styles (d = 0.13, 0.17, 0.26, 0.32,
respectively). These education effects were thus negligible to
small.
Religion. Participants without religious affiliation had higher
scores than those with an affiliation in nonsense (d = 0.27;
Mnoaffiliation = 4.79, DT = 1.49; Mwithaffiliation = 4.43, DT = 1.57),
irony (d = 0.20; Mnoaffiliation = 4.32, DT = 1.27; Mwithaffiliation =
4.12, DT = 1.40), satire (d = 0.25; Mnoaffiliation = 4.04, DT = 1.39;
Mwithaffiliation = 3.70, DT = 1.45), sarcasm (d = 0.39; Mnoaffiliation =
3.75, DT = 1.35; Mwithaffiliation = 3.26, DT = 1.51), and cynicism
(d = 0.49; Mnoaffiliation = 3.43, DT = 1.44; Mwithaffiliation = 2.81, DT
= 1.34). These differences in religious denominations were small.
Political orientation. Comparisons between different political
positions were made using MANOVAs with the comic styles as
criteria. There was one significant difference regarding cynicism.
Planned contrasts compared each political group with the mean of
all the other groups to determine the location of the effect. This
Wit Irony Satire Sarcasm
0.55*
0.49* 0.59*
0.41* 0.64* 0.67*
0.33* 0.53* 0.60* 0.67*
Scand J Psychol (2020) Sociodemographics and comic styles 5

Table 4. Comic style means and standard deviations in different demographic groups

Fun Humor Nonsense Wit Irony Satire Sarcasm Cynicism

Variable No M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD

Gender 1 4.45 1.50 5.04 1.12 4.47 1.58 4.44 1.40 4.15 1.37 3.80 1.49 3.40 1.49 2.95 1.42
2 4.66 1.40 5.09 1.06 4.81 1.47 4.70 1.23 4.36 1.31 4.03 1.36 3.68 1.40 3.37 1.41
t (df) 2.45 (1214) 0.83 (1214) 3.74 (1214) 3.49 (1112) 2.65 (1214) 2.85 (1083) 3.33 (1214) 5.03 (1213)
d 0.14 0.05 0.21* 0.21* 0.16 0.17* 0.19* 0.29*
Education 3 4.49 2.12 5.08 1.45 4.46 2.02 4.54 2.15 3.28 1.39 2.46 1.33 2.42 1.53 1.96 1.16
4 4.70 1.56 4.70 1.53 4.08 1.69 4.49 1.57 3.69 1.27 3.34 1.35 2.77 1.20 2.64 1.06
5 4.46 1.77 5.30 1.13 4.91 1.50 4.37 1.60 4.10 1.79 3.94 1.68 3.40 1.60 3.46 1.68
6 4.61 1.54 4.98 1.15 4.45 1.56 4.40 1.47 4.06 1.40 3.78 1.46 3.50 1.48 2.91 1.42
7 4.71 1.44 5.26 1.06 4.70 1.29 4.75 1.01 4.61 1.18 4.17 1.19 3.50 1.38 3.27 1.24
8 4.59 1.53 5.08 1.06 4.63 1.63 4.60 1.31 4.20 1.38 3.86 1.49 3.31 1.55 2.97 1.40
9 4.76 1.25 5.14 0.94 4.90 1.44 4.46 1.17 4.39 1.16 4.12 1.34 3.85 1.40 3.52 1.43
10 4.31 1.41 4.99 1.13 4.43 1.51 4.63 1.31 4.26 1.36 3.87 1.43 3.53 1.41 2.98 1.36
11 4.31 1.40 5.09 1.04 4.67 1.66 5.06 1.31 4.54 1.24 3.98 1.50 3.34 1.35 3.22 1.50
F (df) 2.17 (8, 1193) 1.44 (8, 1193) 2.88 (8, 1193) 1.97 (8, 1193) 3.67 (8, 1193) 4.33 (8,1193) 4.95 (8,1193) 6.85 (8,1193)
g2p 0.014 0.010 0.019* 0.013 0.024* 0.028* 0.032* 0.044*
Politics 12 4.48 1.55 5.00 1.05 4.67 1.68 4.57 1.38 4.24 1.30 4.02 1.45 3.70 1.37 3.49 1.56
13 4.55 1.41 5.12 0.96 4.79 1.48 4.40 1.33 4.29 1.22 4.06 1.31 3.79 1.22 3.66 1.39
14 4.57 1.52 4.98 1.11 4.49 1.57 4.45 1.33 4.20 1.38 3.78 1.47 3.57 1.45 3.17 1.37
15 4.59 1.47 4.98 1.06 4.59 1.44 4.61 1.24 4.26 1.33 3.84 1.29 3.53 1.47 3.12 1.33
16 4.18 1.62 4.60 1.13 4.21 1.69 4.33 1.53 4.00 1.58 3.48 1.49 3.21 1.50 2.86 1.56
F (df) 0.87 (4, 855) 2.32 (4, 855) 1.86 (4, 855) 0.75 (4, 855) 0.49 (4, 855) 2.63 (4, 855) 2.04 (4, 855) 5.83 (4, 855)
g2p 0.004 0.011 0.009 0.003 0.002 0.012 0.009 0.027*

Notes: 1 = women, 2 = men, 3 = incomplete primary, 4 = complete primary, 5 = incomplete secondary, 6 = complete secondary, 7 = incomplete
technical, 8 = complete technical, 9 = incomplete university, 10 = complete university, 11 = Master’s/doctoral degree, 12 = extreme left, 13 = left,
14 = center, 15 = right, 16 = extreme right. *p < 0.006.

contrast revealed significant differences between participants from
the left political spectrum in comparison to all other political
groups. A follow-up independent t-test showed that participants
from the left political spectrum had higher scores in cynicism
compared to all other groups (d = 0.32), revealing a small effect.
Demographic variables as predictors of comic styles
Standard multiple regression analyses were run with all significant
sociodemographic variables as predictors of each comic style.
Education and political spectrum were considered as dummy
variables based on the groups that had significant effects. No
analyses were conducted for benevolent humor, as no
sociodemographic differences were found for this comic style,
and for fun, as age was the only significant predictor. As can be
seen in Table 5, the overlap was small for all comic styles, with
the demographic variables explaining 1.2% (wit) to 11.1%
(sarcasm) of the variance. Gender (men scoring higher) and age
(comic styles declining with age) were the most relevant
sociodemographic aspects, which were significant for five of the
six comic styles. Satire was also predicted by having more than
incomplete primary education, sarcasm and cynicism were
predicted by not having a religious denomination, and cynicism
was predicted by being on the left political spectrum. Thus, each
comic style had a unique “sociodemographic signature.”
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Our results are consistent with those obtained by Ruch et al.
(2018a) regarding the validity and reliability of the CSM. Even
though factorial validity, specifically the model’s obtained CFI,
was slightly lower than the cut-off (0.90), this could be
interpreted as the result of the number of variables on each factor,
which could lead to a CFI below 0.95 even when having correct
models (Kenny & McCoach, 2003). It has also been proposed
that a CFI of 0.90 is the lower acceptable value (Hu & Bentler,
1999).
At a descriptive level, the markers for each style were very
similar to the German and English versions: Benevolent humor
had the highest score, while sarcasm and cynicism had the lowest
scores. In other words, people tended to score higher on the
lighter styles and lower on the darker styles. Also, the comic
styles correlations were similar as in previous studies, although
benevolent humor had positive correlations, instead of
correlations around zero, with cynicism and sarcasm. This
indicates that people involved in humorous patterns tended to
engage in a wide range of styles (at least eight, in this case) or
tended to not engage in these styles.
Comic styles and demographics
When referring to the relationship of the comic styles with
demographic variables, the most novel contribution of the present
research should be noted: The consideration of a large sample that
is able to represent different groups, with most of the data (76%)
obtained through face-to-face surveys at the participants’ houses.
This way, it was possible to enhance conclusions regarding
sociodemographic differences (such as the educational level) in
the comic styles–one of the limitations described by Ruch et al.
(2018a) in their study.

© 2020 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
6 A. Mendiburo-Seguel and S. Heintz
Table 5. Multiple regressions (standardized beta weights) predicting the comic styles with the sociodemographic variables
Demographics Nonsense
Gender (1 = women, 2 = men) 0.11*
Age 0.20*
Incomplete primary education (=1, others = 2) – –
Incomplete secondary education (=1, others = 2) – –
No religious denomination (=1, others = 2) 0.06
Left political spectrum (=1, others = 2) – –
R 0.25*
R2adj 0.059
Note: *p < 0.006.
Considering the above, the styles were related just as expected
to other variables such as gender and age, although some findings
must be pointed out. Consistent with Ruch et al.’s (2018a)
observations, men tended to score higher in all comic styles
(small effects), with the exception of benevolent humor.
Furthermore, the large age range in the present study allowed
fine-grained investigations of age differences in the comic styles
across the full adult life span. In line with previous findings, fun,
irony, satire, sarcasm and cynicism were negatively related to age
(small effects). In contrast to previous findings, age was not
related to benevolent humor and was negatively related to
nonsense, rather than the positive age correlations found by Ruch
et al. (2018a) . Thus, a downward trend could be observed
regarding the darker styles, but not an upward trend regarding the
lighter styles. Furthermore, sarcasm and cynicism showed
significant quadratic age trends, which indicated that the decrease
lasted until late adulthood (60–70 years), but that the two comic
styles increased afterwards. Wit also showed a complex age trend,
as it increased from 18 to 40 years (which is in line with Ruch,
Heintz et al.’s findings), but then decreased until 70 years, and
then increased again. This shows the importance of investigating
older adults, as linear patterns observed in young and middle
adulthood might not hold for older age groups (see M~ottus et al.,
2012).
Even though it could be tempting to relate these outcomes to
cultural differences (which can, nevertheless, be part of the
explanation), it is worth mentioning that our sample was more
heterogeneous in terms of age. Five of the comic styles
(especially the darker ones) tended to diminish with age, with the
largest effects observed for sarcasm. However, not only the less
socially desirable styles decreased, but also fun and nonsense, and
benevolent humor did not increase. In addition, the quadratic and
cubic age trends for wit, sarcasm, and cynicism indicate that age
differences in the comic styles might be more complex than
previously known. Thus, longitudinal studies are needed to track
the developmental pattern of comic styles changes throughout
adulthood. This would also allow testing to what extent the comic
styles are malleable by socialization processes (e.g., solving
important tasks in life such as work and family; for an overview,
see Specht et al., 2014).
When Ruch et al. (2018a) pointed out the limitations implied in
their samples, they specifically referred to the fact that they
worked with well-educated people. In their case, subjects that
held a doctoral degree scored significantly higher on wit than
those with an apprenticeship. Our design allows studying a wider
© 2020 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Scand J Psychol (2020)
Wit Irony Satire Sarcasm Cynicism
0.10* – 0.09* 0.09* 0.13*
0.07 0.26* 0.18* 0.29* 0.13*
0.04 0.10* 0.04 0.06
0.05 0.01 0.01 0.06
– 0.02 0.05 0.08* 0.14*
– – – 0.11*
0.12* 0.26* 0.25* 0.34* 0.33*
0.012 0.066 0.060 0.111 0.101
range of groups, even considering people that did not finish
primary school. Indeed, we found small differences between the
educational groups regarding irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism,
with the lowest educated group (incomplete primary education)
scoring lower than all other groups, and one of the best educated
groups (incomplete university education; i.e., current university
students) scored higher than all other groups. Thus, against our
expectations, wit did not show education differences, and the
division was rather between lighter and darker styles than more or
less sophisticated styles. These findings show the important
interaction between structure (sophistication) and content
(mockery), which seems to jointly influence not only humor
appreciation (Cunningham & Derks, 2005; Heintz, 2020), but also
everyday humorous conduct.
Sarcasm and cynicism are styles that are related to the criticism
of moral values and standards. In line with this conceptualization
and our expectations, the results showed that agnostics and
atheists tended to show these two styles more frequently that
participants with a religious denomination, which is probably
related to a critical approach towards moral positions that derive
from religion. Similar results were previously found with sarcasm
and cynicism and the character strength spirituality/religiousness
(Ruch et al., 2018a). The same pattern was found for nonsense,
irony, and satire. Irony and satire also entail mocking others,
which might be less acceptable for people adhering to a religion.
The finding for nonsense could be explained by a higher tolerance
for ambiguities in non-religious people, as people with higher
scores in this comic style appreciate incongruities, rather than
solving them (Ruch & Hehl, 1983). As religiousness was found to
relate to being more intolerant towards ambiguities (Budner,
1962), this trait might explain the higher scores in nonsense for
agnostics and atheists in the present study. More generally, the
pattern suggests that non-religious people engage more in playful
and mockery-related humor in their everyday lives, which is also
in line with previous findings on humor appreciation (Ott &
Schweizer, 2018; Schweizer & Ott, 2016). As we mostly obtained
small effects, future studies could investigate religious practice in
addition to religious denomination as well as spiritual practices
and beliefs to delineate which aspects of religion, religiosity, and
spirituality might drive these effects.
The comparisons of the five political groups only yielded one
significant finding for cynicism, not for nonsense as initially
expected. People who identified as liberals or closer to the left
engaged more in cynicism than people situated in the extreme
left, center, or right wing of the political spectrum. Cynicism and
Scand J Psychol (2020)
disparaging political humor more generally have been previously
implied in trusting politicians less (e.g., Fieschi & Heywood,
2004; Mendiburo-Seguel, Vargas & Rubio, 2017), though
previous research did not find differences in party affiliation for
political cynicism (Agger, Goldstein & Pearl, 1961). Thus,
investigating cynicism as a comic style in relationship to other
political attitudes, such as populism (Rooduijn, van der Brug, de
Lange & Parlevliet, 2017), as well as its malleability by
environmental factors, such as election news (Schuck,
Boomgaarden & de Vreese, 2013) would be interesting avenues
for further research and applications. The lack of support for
nonsense could stem from our investigation of appreciating and
showing nonsense in everyday life, while previous studies
investigated the appreciation of specific jokes and cartoons
(Bonanno & Jost, 2006; Ruch & Hehl, 1988).
The regression analyses revealed a unique “sociodemographic
signature” for each comic style. Benevolent humor was unrelated to
sociodemographic variables, which indicates that everyone was
equally likely to engage in this comic style. Fun and irony were
related to being younger, and wit was higher in males rather than
females. Nonsense was higher in men and younger people. Satire
was higher in men, younger people, and those with at least
complete primary education. Sarcasm was higher in men, younger
people, and those without religious denominations. Finally,
cynicism was higher in men, younger people, those without
religious denominations, and those adhering to the left political
spectrum. In total, the sociodemographic variables explained up to
11.1% of the variance (small effect), which indicates that they are
one, yet not the only, predictors of comic styles. This shows that
albeit certain groups tend to engage more in certain styles, the styles
are ubiquitous for a people with many different backgrounds.
It should also be considered that culture may have a role in these
results. A study by Mendiburo-Seguel, P
aez, and Mart
ınez-Zelaya
(2017) correlated data from different countries of the Humor Styles
Questionnaire (Martin et al., 2003) with cultural dimensions.
Considering 26 countries, it was observed that Chile was in the
second quartile regarding aggressive humor, fourth regarding
affiliative humor, and first regarding self-enhancing and self-
defeating humor styles. In this case, such a profile was related
to higher femininity (high self-defeating and high self-enhancing),
lower power distance (higher self-defeating), and higher
uncertainty avoidance (low affiliative). This raises the question of
how (or if) generalizations to other countries can be made from the
data obtained in Chile. Luckily, in the last years joint efforts by
researchers from different countries (Heintz, Ruch, Aykan et al.,
2019; Heintz et al., 2018) have shown that certain types of humor
are empirically observed in different countries and cultures, but
also with evidence for regional differences. In these cases, the
considered theoretical model included two comic styles considered
in this study (benevolent humor and corrective humor/satire), so
evidence supports the idea that the behavior of comic styles in
Chile could be similar to their behavior in other countries.
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
First, the design of the study allowed the possibility of the pollster
effect interfering with the results, at least in the face-to-face
samples. To reduce this effect, pollsters were carefully trained on
© 2020 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Sociodemographics and comic styles 7
how to run the survey. Given that the present study showed
similarities in several psychometric properties of the comic styles
(e.g., factor structure, patterns of correlations between the scales,
reliability) to previous studies (which mostly used online samples),
the biases introduced by the pollster effect are however deemed to
be minimal. Second, in the case of religion it should be considered
that self-reported affiliation does not capture magnitude. This means
that how actively a person participates in a religion probably has an
effect on our variables of interest, but we are not able to determine
it in this case. Third, the study needs replications, as the findings
might not generalize well across different cultural contexts. Still, it
is the most comprehensive study to date on sociodemographic
differences in the comic styles and humor more generally and likely
provides robust findings due to the large sample size and the varied
background of the sample. Fourth, the present study cannot
determine why sociodemographic differences occurred in the comic
styles. This requires qualitative, longitudinal, and experimental
studies, for which the present findings can provide an impetus. For
example, future studies could derive hypotheses from evolutionary
theories (e.g., Li, Griskevicius, Durante, Jonason, Pasisz & Aumer,
2009) or test methodological influences, such as social desirability
(see e.g., Cann & Matson, 2014).
CONCLUSIONS
The present study contributed to the validation and nomological
network of eight comic styles and of individual differences in
humor more generally. First, it supported the factorial validity of the
Comic Style Markers in confirmatory factor analyses, showing that
the measure can be used in another language (Spanish) and cultural
setting (Chile). Second, the eight comic styles showed differential
relationships with a range of sociodemographic variables, including
gender, age, education, religious affiliation, and the political
spectrum. The present findings are especially valid and
generalizable given the large sample employed. Overall, the present
study shows that both research and applications of humor need to
take into account the multidimensionality underlying individual
differences in humor by differentiating at least eight comic styles.
FUNDING
This study was funded by Grant No. 11160661 from the Chilean
National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development
(FONDECYT de Iniciaci
on, CONICYT).
ETHICAL APPROVAL
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants
were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and
national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration
and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
INFORMED CONSENT
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants
included in the study.
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that
there is no conflict of interest.
8 A. Mendiburo-Seguel and S. Heintz
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