More aggressive cartoons are funnier.

Independent rankings of humor and aggressiveness were obtained for sets of cartoons drawn randomly from 2 magazines. The correlation of median humor and median aggressiveness rankings ranged from .49 to .90 in 6 studies involving 6 sets of cartoons and 6 different groups of Ss, including children and adults, high and low SES individuals, and native- and foreign-born Ss. It was found that this correlation was consistent with Freudian, arousal, and superiority theories of humor. Another prediction of Freudian theory, that high-SES Ss should be more appreciative of aggressive humor than low-SES Ss, was not supported. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)