The Comedian's World: Some Tentative Mappings

Abstract

To recover the properties serving to define the imaginary worlds evoked by contemporary comedians, word associations—more correctly, comedian associations—were gathered in response to the names of 37 currently recognizable comedians. From these data associative overlap scores were computed between all possible pairs of comedians and a factor analysis done. Eight major groupings of comedians emerged and suggested that comedians could be described in terms of surface (comedian's sex or color, etc.), and style factors (verbal fluency and use of hostility). These latter two factors were seen as consistent with eclectic analysis of what it is that makes someone or some situation a source of fun or humor.