Cultural tightness reduces a person’s ability to be funny

A recent study published in American Psychologist provides evidence that people from cultures with strict social norms tend to be less skilled at coming up with funny material compared to those from more relaxed cultures. These findings suggest that the ability to generate humor is not just an inborn personality trait, but a skill heavily shaped by the social rules of the environment in which a person lives. Understanding this dynamic can help people communicate more effectively and avoid misunderstandings in diverse, multicultural settings.

Humor is a universal human behavior that brings people together, but what is considered funny in one part of the world might lead to awkward silence or even legal trouble in another. For example, comedians in certain nations have faced severe backlash for making jokes about sensitive topics like the military. Scientists wanted to understand why these cultural differences in humor exist and what specific factors drive them.

The researchers focused on a concept called cultural tightness. Cultural tightness refers to how strictly a society enforces its social norms and rules, along with how harshly it punishes those who break them. They suspected that because making a joke usually involves breaking a rule or violating an expectation, strict societies might discourage people from developing their comedic skills.

“Our interest in this topic stems from a long-standing curiosity about humor in Chinese culture. Previous research has shown that, compared to people in Western countries like the United States or Canada, Chinese individuals tend to produce less humor,” explained study authors Yi Cao, a postdoctoral researcher at Peking University and Cornell University, and Li-Jun Ji, a professor at Queen’s University.

“This raised a simple yet important question: why? Earlier studies have offered broad cultural explanations?for example, the influence of Confucian values. While this makes sense, it left us wondering: what exactly within Confucianism contributes to this lower humor production? And more importantly, how could we test these ideas empirically?”

“Since humor is deeply shaped by social norms and expectations, we decided to investigate this through the framework of cultural tightness and looseness, which provides a clearer, more concrete way to understand cross-cultural differences in humor expression.”

To test this idea, they separated the concept of a sense of humor into two distinct parts. The first part is humor appreciation, which means finding things funny or laughing at a joke. The second part is humor production, which involves actively creating original jokes, writing funny captions, or using comedy in social interactions.

The scientists hypothesized that cultural tightness would primarily restrict humor production because creating a joke carries a higher social risk than simply laughing at one. To investigate this, the researchers conducted six separate studies. In the first study, they recruited 279 participants, consisting of 136 people from China, representing a tight culture, and 143 people from the United States, representing a loose culture.

The participants filled out a questionnaire that asked them to rate their own abilities in both appreciating and producing humor. The scientists found that Chinese participants rated themselves lower in humor production compared to the American participants. The two groups did not show a significant difference in their ability to appreciate humor.

The second study aimed to measure actual comedic ability rather than relying on self-reports. The researchers gathered 278 university students, including 150 from China and 128 from the United States. They asked the participants to look at two photographs and write the funniest captions they could think of.

Native speakers from each respective country then rated these captions on a scale from one to seven based on how funny they were. The results showed that the Chinese students generated captions that were rated as less funny than those written by the American students.

For the third study, the researchers expanded their scope to see if this pattern held true across a wider variety of nations. They recruited a total of 441 participants from three tight cultures, specifically China, India, and Norway, as well as two loose cultures, the United States and Australia. The participants completed the same photo caption task from the second study and also rated the funniness of eight pre-selected jokes.

The researchers found that participants from the tight cultures produced less funny captions than those from the loose cultures. While people from tight cultures also appreciated the pre-selected jokes slightly less, this difference was very weak compared to the gap in humor production.

“We were surprised by some of the nuances in our findings,” Cao and Ji told PsyPost. “What stood out to us was that cultural tightness strongly influenced humor production, but had little to no effect on humor appreciation across different countries. In other words, people living in tighter cultures don’t lack a sense of humor: they simply tend to be more reserved in expressing it because of social expectations and norms.”

In the fourth study, the scientists wanted to make sure that the differences they observed were actually due to cultural tightness and not another common cultural concept called collectivism. Collectivism refers to cultures that prioritize group harmony over individual needs. They recruited 199 participants, with 100 from Germany, a tight but individual-focused culture, and 99 from Brazil, a loose but group-focused culture.

After having the participants complete the photo caption task, the researchers found that the German participants produced less funny humor than the Brazilian participants. A combined statistical analysis of the previous studies confirmed that cultural tightness negatively predicts humor production. This analysis also showed that collectivism had no relationship with a person’s ability to produce humor.

Finally, the researchers conducted two experiments to see if they could cause a temporary change in humor production by altering people’s immediate mindset. They recruited 233 Chinese students for one experiment and 246 American students for the other. The participants read a story about a fictional future society that either had very strict social rules or very relaxed social rules, which served to prime their thinking.

Afterward, the participants were asked to complete three different joke scenarios in a funny way. The scientists found that participants who read about the strict society produced less funny joke completions than those who read about the relaxed society, regardless of whether they were from China or the United States.

“Cultural norms play a significant role in shaping how people express humor,” the researchers explained. “If someone seems less playful or doesn’t respond humorously, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are cold or disengaged. Instead, it might simply reflect their cultural expectations about when and where humor is appropriate. This insight is especially important in cross-cultural communication, where humor differences are often misunderstood or misinterpreted.”

While these findings provide consistent evidence, the researchers noted a few potential limitations to their work. One issue is that the ages and genders of the participants were not perfectly balanced across the different cultural groups. Although the scientists adjusted their statistical models to account for these differences, seeking out more balanced groups in future studies would help verify the results.

Another limitation relates to the method used to prime participants in the final experiments. Reading a story about a fictional society might simply bring the concept of strictness to mind rather than truly changing a person’s immediate behavior. The scientists suggest that future research could place participants in naturally strict environments, like a formal business meeting, to see how real-world settings impact joke creation.

They also recommend looking at other forms of comedy, such as retelling existing jokes rather than inventing new ones. It is possible that retelling a familiar joke carries less social risk and might not be as affected by strict cultural norms.

“Tightness and looseness do not only vary across cultures; they can vary across everyday social or organizational contexts,” Cao and Ji said. “In looser environments, where norms are more flexible, people may feel freer to express humor, even within generally tighter cultures. We are currently investigating this dynamic in ongoing research.”

“At the same time, we continue to explore broader questions about culture and humor. In two recent papers published in Journal of Positive Psychology and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, we found that Chinese humor often takes a ‘seriocomic’ form, where humor and seriousness coexist rather than oppose each other. Chinese individuals tend to prefer leaders who can flexibly switch between serious and humorous styles and frequently use humor to convey serious messages. This distinct cultural understanding of humor may help explain why Chinese-produced humor is sometimes perceived as less funny by Western audiences.”

“Moving forward, we aim to deepen our understanding of how these cultural conceptions of humor shape psychological processes and behavior, and how they contribute to broader differences between Eastern and Western cultures,” Cao and Ji added.

The study, “Cultural Tightness Reduces Humor Production: Evidence From Multiple Countries,” was authored by Yi Cao, Yubo Hou, Yijiang Wang, and Li-Jun Ji.