A cross-cultural test of the two-part typology of humor

Ten humorous television advertisements were shown to 44 Finnish and 68 American university students to investigate whether Freud's two-part humor typology (tendencious/nontendencious) adequately represented the perceptions of both nationalities. Confirmatory factor analysis did not confirm the two-type structure for either nationality, and subsequent exploratory factor analysis indicated different humor perceptions for Finns and Americans. Second-order factor analysis yielded an aggressive and a nonsense factor, which suggests that the more reductive two-part structure may exist across cultures.