Humor styles

The Sense of Humor Questionnaire was proposed by Sven Svenbaks in 1974. The original Sense of Humor Questionnaire was 22 items broken into three categories that could be answered on a scale of 1-4. The three categories are: M-items (reactive to humor and implicit messages), L-items (attitude towards humorous people and situations), E-items (openness to expression of amusement). An example of each type of item is: when I go to the movies I prefer to know ahead what type of story it is (M-item), fun is aimed at hurting another (L-item), do you ever laugh so hard it hurts? (E-item). M-items and L-items use the same scale prompts, 1 = total agreement, 4 = total disagreement, whereas E-items use 1 = very seldom, 4 = very often. However, some of the items could overlap and fit into another group of items. Despite the dimensionality problem, the scores correlated moderately positively to each other (r = .29 to .38). The Sense of Humor Questionnaire was revised and included items on each sub-scale that evaluate more in-depth of each group. The revised version of the Sense of Humor Questionnaire M and L-items have strong internal consistency (.60's and .70's) but E-items have poor internal consistency. Due to poor internal consistency, E-items were not used in further studies, but M-items were used for the Situation Humor Response and L-items were used for the Humor Coping Scale. == The Coping Humor Scale ==

The Coping Humor Scale was created by Rod A. Martin, Fazal Mittu and Herbert M. Lefcourt in 1983. The Coping Humor Scale is a survey of 7 items that assesses how much participants use humor to cope with stress. The responses on the survey are on a 1-4 scale, strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (4). The alphas range from .60 to .70 and the test-retest reliability of 12 weeks alpha is .80. While the Coping Humor Scale doesn't have as high of an internal consistency as the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire, it is unique in the "self-observer agreement." The way participants rate themselves is strongly correlated with how their friends rate them on similar content. == The Situational Humor Response Questionnaire ==

The Situational Humor Response Questionnaire was created by Martin and Lefcourt in 1984. It is based on Eysenck's definition of humor and is a survey composed of 18 different situations that are on a scale from everyday events to events that are anxiety inducing and 3 non-situational items. The three non-situational items are: how desirable it is to the participant to have friends that are easily amused, how much a participants' humor changes depending on the situation, and a self-rating question about how likely the participant is to laugh in different situations. In regard to the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire, humor is defined as how often and individual smiles, laughs, or shows amusement but ignores the type of humor used. The responses to the survey are on a 1-5 scale, I would not have been particularly amused (1) to I would have laughed heartily (5). The Situational Humor Response Questionnaire was tested on almost 500 participants in four groups and has alpha coefficients from .70 to .83. Of the participants, 33 were tested again a month later to examine the test-retest reliability which has an alpha of 0.70. The Situational Humor Response Questionnaire was compared to the Crowne-Marlowe (1960) Social Desirability Scale but had only .04 correlation meaning the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire is free from the bias of social desirability. == The Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale ==

The Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale was created by James A. Thorson and F. C. Powell in 1991 and combines elements from the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire, the Coping Humor Scale, and the Sense of Humor Questionnaire. It was created to assess the different elements of sense humor such as playfulness, humorous ability, recognition and appreciation of humor, and using humor to achieve social goals or as a coping mechanism. The Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale is composed of 124 statements with responses on a scale of 1-5. 1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree. The 124 statements were reduced to 29 with an alpha reliability of .92. The remaining statements are broken into four factors. Factor 1 combines humor production humor for social uses, Factor 2 combines coping humor and adaptive humor, Factor 3 evaluates humor appreciation, and Factor 4 evaluates the participant's attitude on humor. Some examples of statements on the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale respective to the factors are: I use humor to entertain my friends, uses of humor help me master difficult situations, I like a good joke, and people who tell jokes are a pain in the neck. ==The Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ)==

The Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) was developed by Rod Martin and Patricia Doris (2003) to measure individual differences in styles of humor. The reliability of the Humor Style Questionnaire is questionable. The original questionnaire was written in German and due to inexact translations and cultural differences, when translated to another language it frequently generates test items that don't produce anticipated results. When the HSQ is given in the original language, the test for internal consistencies was an alpha over 0.77 for all items. However, when translated, the internal consistency alpha varied from .55 (aggressive) to .89 (self-enhancing) in one study, Taher et al. (2008), and from .67 (self-defeating) to .78 (self-enhancing) in another study, Bilge and Saltuk (2007). While most of the styles tested reasonably well, the aggressive humor scale produced the lowest internal consistency values. Affiliative humor Affiliative humor is defined as the style of humor used to enhance one's relationships with others in a benevolent, positive manner. This style of humor is typically used in a benevolent, self-accepting way. Individuals high in this dimension often use humor as a way to charm and amuse others, ease tension among others, and improve relationships. They are often spontaneous in their joke telling, frequently participate in witty banter, and enjoy laughing with others. Affiliative humor is similar to self-defeating humor because both styles of humor enhance the relationships with others. However, unlike self-defeating humor, affiliative humor is not used at one's own expense. In an organizational setting, affiliative humor has been shown to increase group cohesiveness and promote creativity in the workplace. Affiliative humor is also associated with increased levels of (explicit) self-esteem, psychological well-being, emotional stability, and social intimacy. They are also more likely to exhibit higher levels of implicit self-esteem (independently of their level of explicit self-esteem). This style of humor is associated with decreased levels of depressive symptoms Self-enhancing humor is associated with a number of personality variables as well as psychological, physical and health-related outcomes. Individuals who engage more in the self-enhancing humor style are less likely to exhibit depressive symptoms. A variety of variables are associated with self-defeating humor. Individuals who more frequently use self-defeating humor show increased depressive symptoms. Individuals who use this style of humor tend to have higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness. Self-defeating humor is associated with higher levels of depression, anxiety and psychiatric symptoms. It is also associated with lower levels of self-esteem, psychological well-being and intimacy and higher levels of bullying victimization. Examples of self-defeating items on the Humor Styles Questionnaire might include: • I often try to make people like or accept me more by saying something funny about my own weaknesses, blunders, or faults. • If I am having problems or feeling unhappy, I often cover it up by joking around, so that even my closest friends don't know how I really feel. ==References==