Sixty-six students rated written jokes on funniness and on eight other scales. Jokes were varied on the equity of retaliation in an exchange of insults, the relative status of the two parties in this exchange, and in another set of jokes, the popularity of a famous victim of the joke squelch. Overretaliation decreased rated funniness and rated resolution ("sensicalness") of the joke. Control for resolution with analysis of covariance reduced the effect of degree of retaliation on funniness to nonsignificance. Jokes with disliked victims were rated as both funnier and higher in resolution than were jokes with neutral or liked victims, but it was necessary to control for both resolution and feltfreedom ratings to eliminate the effect on funniness. Incongruity (surprise) ratings were not affected by any treatment. Results are interpreted as supporting a proposed integration of disparagement theories with incongruityresolution theories of humor.

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