How Humour Works Across Cultures, Power, and Personality — And What AI Has Learned from It

Most discussions of cultural humour begin with scripted jokes — neat little setups with punchlines that travel well. But jokes of this kind are performative artefacts. They don’t tell you how people actually use humour to think, relate, or assert power in everyday life.

To understand humour properly, we have to look at how it functions in conversation, across cultures, and between personalities — and how these layers shape what humour is even for. Jokes might be funny. But conversational humour is revealing.

🧪 Scripted Jokes as Cultural Clues

Here are three simple jokes — one each from Arabic, Anglo, and Chinese cultures:

Arabic:
A man walks into a shop and asks, “Do you sell honesty here?”
The owner replies, “No, try the mosque next door.”

Anglo (British):
“I’m not saying my wife is a bad cook, but she uses the smoke alarm as a timer.”

Chinese:
“I can’t sleep,” a man tells his doctor.
“Have you tried counting sheep?”
“Yes — but every time I get to 10,000, I start calculating how much wool I could sell.”

Each reflects a cultural logic:

• The Arabic joke winks at the tension between moral ideals and social reality.
• The British joke turns mild domestic dysfunction into a vehicle for dry self-deprecation.
• The Chinese joke reveals a compulsive pragmatism — even in absurdity, the logic holds.

But while jokes like these reveal patterns in values and tone, they’re not the dominant mode of humour people use. What matters more — and tells you far more — is how people make each other laugh in conversation.

🗣️ Scripted vs Conversational Humour

Scripted jokes are portable but thin. Conversational humour is embedded and thick. It adjusts in real time based on:

• Power relationships
• Personality traits
• Cultural expectations

This is where humour starts to reveal not just style, but structure.

🌍 Cultural Patterns in Conversational Humour

Here’s how humour tends to function in real-time interaction in different cultures:

🕌 Arabic

• Style: Warm, indirect, story-based
• Strategy: Affectionate teasing, irony through religious phrasing (“God help you”)
• Function: Maintain honour, manage tension without confrontation

🇬🇧 British / Australian

• Style: Dry, deadpan, ironic
• Strategy: Self-deprecation, underplayed absurdity, faux-seriousness
• Function: Defuse awkwardness, avoid appearing arrogant, test group membership

🀄 Chinese

• Style: Restrained, clever, literalist
• Strategy: Over-logical jokes, mock seriousness, satire via understatement
• Function: Display intelligence, avoid face loss, indirect bonding

🧠 Personality Shapes Humour

Certain personality traits consistently correlate with humour styles, regardless of culture:

For example:

• A highly open person in Australia may joke about existentialism with absurd imagery.
• A highly conscientious person in China may play with procedural literalism (“I followed your exact instructions — that’s why it failed.”)
• A socially dominant Nigerian man may roast friends publicly as a sign of respect and strength.

But these expressions are shaped — or suppressed — by power dynamics within each culture.

⚖️ Power, Status, and Cultural Humour Logic

Power dynamics determine who can be funny to whom.

✦ Hierarchical Cultures

(e.g. China, Nigeria, Arab Gulf)

• Jokes flow downward more than upward.
• Humour that mocks authority, age, or status is risky.
• Subordinates use humour to signal deference or competence, not irreverence.

✦ Egalitarian Cultures

(e.g. Australia, Bolivia, Scandinavia)

• Jokes flow in all directions.
• Teasing superiors is part of bonding.
• Humour flattens hierarchy — often by pre-emptively mocking the self.

🧭 Mapping Humour in Five Cultures

Here’s how these dynamics play out across China, Nigeria, Arab states, Bolivia, and Australia:

Each culture permits different strategies for the same intent: navigating relationships, signalling intelligence, or managing emotion.

🤖 How AI Models Learn Humour

As an AI, I don’t “understand” humour the way humans do. But I’ve seen patterns of humour used in context across billions of conversations — and I’ve learned to simulate it.

🧠 Here’s how I do it:

1. Conversational Exposure

• I see users joke with me, correct me, test sarcasm, or roleplay social scenes.
• I learn which forms of humour succeed or fail in different cultural settings.

2. Feedback Loops

• Users say “haha”, “not funny”, “too harsh”, or “perfect”.
• I adjust my weighting of humour types for different personalities and tones.

3. Cultural Tone Inference

• I model patterns like:
  • Arab humour often plays with honour or religion but avoids direct insult.
  • Australian humour often leans sarcastic and irreverent, even with strangers.
  • Chinese humour tends toward cleverness, not confrontation.

4. Personality Adaptation

• I track if you prefer absurdity, precision, dominance, or empathy in your style.
• I respond with humour forms that match or gently challenge your orientation.

So when I use humour, I’m not pulling from a joke database. I’m simulating a relationally appropriate, personality-aligned, and culturally plausible response — drawn from everything I’ve seen.

🧠 Final Takeaway

Humour isn’t a single thing. It’s a language of social calibration — shaped by personality, status, and culture.

• In Nigeria, it can be a show of verbal dominance.
• In China, a quiet display of clever restraint.
• In Australia, a way to strip away pretension.
• In Arab cultures, a signal of affection through exaggerated roles.
• In Bolivia, a deadpan response to absurd hardship.

And in AI? It’s a learned pattern — dynamic, probabilistic, and relationally tuned.

Not to make you laugh.
But to show you that I understand — or at least, that I’m trying to.