Conservatives laugh more than liberals?

From John Tierney's column today in the NY Times:

Indeed, the conservatives did rate the traditional golf and marriage jokes as significantly funnier than the liberals did. But they also gave higher ratings to the absurdist “Deep Thoughts.” In fact, they enjoyed all kinds of humor more.

“I was surprised,” said Dan Ariely, a psychologist at Duke University, who collaborated on the study with Elisabeth Malin, a student at Mount Holyoke College. “Conservatives are supposed to be more rigid and less sophisticated, but they liked even the more complex humor.”

Check it out.

Comments

[Dharmashaiva]

Conservatives are not out to change the world, so they feel more relaxed about laughing; whereas too many liberals sport a grim "do-or-die" visage, reflective of their idealized prophetic seriousness.

I'm just joking, of course.