Study: Bad jokes often draw hostility from audience

Please assure me that no public money was used for this "study."
If you don't know in advance that a joke that childish is going to be met with negativity in a small circle of friends, then you must not get out much.
Next I hopoe the researcher will do a "study" on whether or not using racial epithets in front of gang members results in violence.

sounds to be like all the campaigning, for that also could make one hostile!

See, you feared being unemployed, now you realize who gets your tax dollars. You too can get rich in the research business.

I have a true story to tell about this sort of thing. I was in El Paso, TX at Ft. Bliss in 1969. My friend said, "Let's go to a Mensa meeting." He called and the chapter head said it would be OK even if we weren't members.(It would take us too long to go through the admission process and we were soldiers in transit.)

He told us people at meetings liked to talk about their intellectual pursuits and studies. My friend (who was more than a little nuts) decided to have some fun and told everyone he had completed a serious study of knock-knock jokes. When their curiosity was peaked he said, "Would you like to hear some of what I studied?"

You can guess the rest. He proceeded to tell them some witless knock-knock jokes. Some didn't get the joke and nodded their heads solemnly. Some looked at him funny and moved away fast.

We could have saved the government a fortune.

Absolutely true story.