Who Laughs with Whom? Disentangling Influential Factors in Humor Preferences across User Clusters and LLMs

arXiv:2601.03103 · cs.CL, cs.AI · Submitted 2026-01-06 · Read on arXiv

cs.CL, cs.AI

Submitted: 2026-01-06

Updated: 2026-09-07

Comments: Accepted at EMNLP2026 Main

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

The gist: Humor preferences vary widely across individuals and cultures, complicating the evaluation of humor using large language models (LLMs).

Terminology

Abstract

Humor preferences vary widely across individuals and cultures, complicating the evaluation of humor using large language models (LLMs). In this study, we model heterogeneity in humor preferences in Oogiri, a Japanese creative response game, by clustering users with voting logs and estimating cluster-specific weights over interpretable preference factors using Bradley-Terry-Luce models. We elicit preference judgments from LLMs by prompting them to select the funnier response and found that user clusters exhibit distinct preference patterns and that the LLM results can resemble those of particular clusters. Finally, we demonstrate that, by persona prompting, LLM preferences can be directed toward a specific cluster. The scripts for data collection and analysis are publicly available to support reproducibility.

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