Volume 23, Issue 3

The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a Questionnaire of Occupational Humorous Coping (QOHC), partly based on the model of emotion regulation by Gross (Current Directions in Psychological Science 10: 214–219, 2001). Items intended to measure antecedent-focused, response-focused, and affiliative and aggressive-manipulative humorous coping methods were generated. Preliminary studies led to improvements in the questionnaire and to the removal of items controlling for acquiescence bias. Principal axis factoring with oblique rotation on a large sample yielded four stable and reliable factors: an antecedent-focused, a response-focused, an aggressive-manipulative and an affiliative instrumental humorous coping factor. Convergent and discriminant validity with existing humorous coping and other sense of humor measures (the CHS, the MSHS and the HSQ) was satisfactory, but not always in the expected direction. Antecedent-focused and generic humorous coping (CHS) were weakly associated with job-related positive affect and well-being; for the self-enhancing humor style these associations were moderate. Aggressive-manipulative, response-focused and generic humorous coping (CHS) showed weak associations with negative job-related affect. The findings are explained in terms of assessment issues and possible moderating effects of humorous coping.

The study describes the construction and initial validation of a new assessment instrument named EAHU (from the Spanish Escala de Apreciación del Humor, Humor Appreciation Scale, in English). A dimensional proposal is presented, which incorporates funniness and aversiveness of the content and structure of humor. The dimensions are incongruity-resolution, nonsense, sexual, black, man disparagement and woman disparagement humor. The construction strategy for the EAHU is outlined. The development of the EAHU involved using Spanish samples comprising more that 1500 participants altogether. The metric characteristics of the items and the internal structure of the scale appeared to be highly stable across the samples. The psychometric characteristics of the EAHU scales appeared to be satisfactory. There were sex differences only in the content scales, and a relevant role of age was observed in the EAHU scales. An interaction effect was found for sex, age and different type of humor. We conclude that the EAHU is an adequate instrument to assess the content and structure of humor.

The aim of this article is to provide a system for analysis of verbal humorous interactions that incorporates both the General Theory of Verbal Humor and the meta-communicative level. The integration will be accomplished using a two-pronged analytical model of humorous interactions. According to the General Theory of Verbal Humor, the first phase will trace the humor in the text with particular attention given to the Script Opposition and to the Logical Mechanism; the second will monitor the meta-communicative level, focusing on meta-communicative signals. Information about the humorous frame constitutes a seventh Knowledge Resource, called Meta-Knowledge Resource. Applying this model to an Italian film starring the comic actor Totò produced two results: 1) the definition of two kinds of humor on- and off-stage depending on the presence of Meta-Knowledge Resource and 2) a description of the “ideal author” postulated by the text. The second result is achieved by an analysis that combines on- and off-stage humor with verbal and referential humor.

This article explores the impact of the use of negative humor on relational satisfaction and the importance of humor in long-term relationships from a coorientation perspective. Dyadic data from 123 couples were gathered using a survey measuring positive and negative humor use. These data were analyzed using structural equations modeling and the Actor-Partner Independence Model (Kenny et al., Dyadic data analysis, The Guilford Press, 2006: 144). Negative humor weakly predicted relational outcomes, but was valuable when partners saw themselves as possessing a shared sense of humor. Men acknowledge that their own public negative humor use negatively impacts the importance of humor in their relationship. Perceived similarity in negative humor use positively predicts relational satisfaction for both partners, and positively predicts the importance of humor for men, regardless of how much positive humor the couple uses. Accurately knowing a partner's negative humor use, or having greater understanding, negatively predicted relational outcomes.

The relation between humor comprehension and humor production was examined. Unlike earlier studies that used comprehension tasks requiring a productive component, here participants simply decided whether cartoons were matched or mismatched to presented “latent content” (i.e., the implied meaning of the cartoon). To test humor production, the same participants devised humorous captions for photographs, which judges reliably rated on funniness. Performance on the two tasks showed a significant positive correlation. Relations between response time, confidence, and funniness ratings in the comprehension task were consistent with an “insight” view of humor comprehension: correct responses were made more quickly, and matched latent content trials were identified faster and were rated as funnier than mismatched trials. In the humor production task, judged funniness showed a reliable (but rather small) positive correlation with response time, offering little support for an “insight” view of humor production. Limitations of the study and possibilities for future research on humor production, modeled on creativity research, are discussed.

Humor was first documented around 2,500 BC in China when the first Chinese poetry and literary books appeared. Zhuangzi, a co-founder of Taoism, is recognized as the very first humorist in China. Chinese humor has been mostly characterized by joke-telling and funny show-performing. Humor has been traditionally given little respect in Chinese culture mainly due to the Confucian emphasis on keeping proper manners of social interactions. Confucius once ordered to execute humorists for having “improper performance” before dignitaries in 500 BC. The term humor was translated by Mr. Lin Yu-tang in 1920s and it has been increasingly popular in China. During the “Cultural Revolution” (1966–1976), however, humorists of various kinds were all criticized and even prosecuted. Since 1980s, humor got rehabilitated as an important element of creativity, personal charisma and social harmony. Important as it is, humor has rarely been studied in China. Of the few studies conducted, it was shown that (1) humor was not valued by the Chinese even though they all enjoyed it; (2) humor was often considered the least important factor in ration to creativity, and ideal Chinese personality.