I feel that what we find funny also make us feel a bit dangerous and uneasy. Liberals are too concern about not hurting other people to laugh at certain jokes. They would think that it is tasteless to laugh about a dead wife, foreign culture or other people's religion. It doesn't really mean that conservatives are necessary more or less open-minded using this measure.

Have you tried math, science or pun jokes that doesn't involve people?

p.s. You are also required to embrace stereotype to enjoy a lot of these jokes. Which might actually indicate lower open-mindedness.

I think you need a different set of jokes. most of them derive their humor by riffing off conservative culture, and while I recognize what they're trying to convey, the jokes are so distant from my life that there isn't much bite to them, it's like reading jokes from a foreign language that don't translate well.

Love humor. Truly.

I completely agree with Felix that a different set of jokes is in order. Reading these, color me unsurprised that conservatives found them funnier.

A more interesting (but admittedly, difficult to design) study might be teasing out the sorts of humor that appeal to liberals and conservatives.

Leave it to the Psych community to over analyze the study. The jokes were funny...oh sorry I guess that gives away my political affiliation. Those that suppose that liberals are more sensitive to woman and minorities when it comes to humor are simply not in touch with the facts. The fact is, there is no shortage of religious humor from a liberal point of view. Bill Maher's movie Religulous, the movie Dogma, and Borat just to name a few. Stereotyping and sexist humor from a liberal point of view exists on Bill Maher's show, SNL, MadTV and many others who have continually made fun of Hillary and Sarah Palin. Racially insensitive humor can also be seen in many of the liberal leaning comedy outlets such as the Daily Show, the Simpsons and again SNL. So for those of you who think it is only the conservatives who buy into humor that support stereotypes, you may want to turn on your televisions and take a look. Afterwards, if you are still unconvinced, you may want to take a refresher course on Freud's theory of defense mechanisms paying close attention to the terms denial and projection.

Hey Mitch, it's called "irony". ;)

Most of these jokes were not particularly clever... Maybe a different set of jokes would have gotten different results? These all dragged on and spent too much time getting to the punchline. Where did these researchers find these?

There is no objective criteria for determining what is humorous or clever that is only a matter of personal taste. I am not saying the study in question was valid or invalid mind you but I find it interesting that people who call themselves tolerant and broadminded will stereotype conservatives (i.e. "color me unsurprised that conservatives found them funnier") while implying that conservatives are the ones who embrace stereotypes by giving the jokes higher ratings.

I dunno, I found all the jokes funny, and I self-identify as a liberal ... guess I'm an outlier.

I think your results reflect the fact that a mediocre intelligence cannot distinguish mediocrity from excellence rather than any effect of ideology on perception of humor. All of the selected jokes were pure groaners, none of them witty or clever (with the possible exception of the Hambone and Flippy Deep Thought, which had a minor element of inspired weirdness going for it).

No one has done the basic research that would be necessary to back this up, but I'm of the opinion that the average IQ of self-described conservatives is likely to be a standard deviation or so below that of self-described liberals or progressives. Such people may enjoy the blessing of taking honest delight in just about anything that purports to be humorous.

Next study, I'd recommend either taking more trouble choosing the stimuli or controlling for IQ.

Interesting study! I look forward to learning more if you do further analysis.
The way the conclusion is written, though, seems to conflate self-perception of being funny with tendency to find other people funny:
"So, is the stereotype of liberals as being funnier completely off? When we asked our respondents to self-report how funny they are, liberals indicated that they were funnier. This means that liberals are not finding life to be funnier, but they think they are."
These two attributes don't necessarily go together. I'm liberal, and I would rate myself as funnier-than-average. But (and I would not stand by this as one of my more charming qualities), I don't laugh easily at others' jokes. I'm too opinionated about how a joke should be constructed, and often that distracts me from laughing at it, particularly if I think it's not well constructed. However, this tendency may well make me better able to construct a joke well, and may thus make me funnier to others.

Also, I think earlier posters have hit on an important point: conservatives may be more willing to laugh at other people than liberals are. This goes along with that oft-parodied liberal earnestness, which in extreme cases shades into insufferably self-congratulatory compassion.

It's not that liberals don't have a sense of humor. it's just that after the last eight years, they're mostly too depressed to laugh at anything. Try the test again a couple of years from now, after this terrifying example of the Rove effect has worn off, and you might see a different result entirely.

All jokes are funny. To someone. Whether we laugh out loud depends just as much on the time of day, our mood, whose company we're keeping at the moment, and a host of other variables this bogus study fails to take into account. It's why I stopped reading PT years ago: it's all bogus pop pseudoscience designed to sell magazines, not to advance anything worthwhile.
The Pope is sitting next to one of his most trusted Cardinals while working on a crossword puzzle. The Pope asks, "What's a 4-letter word for woman ending in U-N-T?"
The Cardinal replies, "aunt."
The Pope says, "Do you have an eraser?"

Another way to interpret these data: To be a conservative living in Boston, you need to have a really good sense of humor.