Humor at work: validation of the short work-related Humor Styles Questionnaire (swHSQ)
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Tabea Scheel
Tabea Scheel is currently interim professor at the University of Leipzig, Germany, where she also received her PhD from. She worked as a postdoc researcher and lecturer at the University of Vienna, Austria, the Humboldt Universitaet zu Berlin, the Free University of Berlin and the LMU Munich. Her research focuses on the functions of humor at work. Tabea published work on human resource management, error culture and psychological contracts.
,
Cornelia Gerdenitsch
Cornelia Gerdenitsch is a PhD candidate at the University of Vienna, Austria. Her research interests are New Ways of Working, including Coworking Spaces and flexibility issues, as well as job demands and resources.
Christian Korunka, PhD is full professor for Work & Organizational Psychology at the Department of Applied Psychology the University of Vienna, Austria. He is author of many scientific articles dealing with organizational change, quality of working life, and entrepreneurship. His current research interests are new job demands and work stress.
Abstract
As part of daily interactions humor is an integral element of work relationships with consequences for well-being or turnover intentions. However, its adequate assessment in the work context has yet to be improved. While the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin et al. 2003. Individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: Development of the Humor Styles Questionnaire. Journal of Research in Personality 37. 48–75) covers adaptive and maladaptive functions of humor styles, it assesses humor in general life. With the adaption of the HSQ, that is, the short (12-item) and work-related version of the HSQ (swHSQ), we provide an efficient tool for the assessment of individual humor styles in the work context. We validated and tested the swHSQ in two Austrian-German and one U.S. sample and analyzed its structure and impact by means of confirmatory factor analyses as well as regression analyses. The swHSQ seems valid and reliable (α between 0.62 and 0.86) in a German and an English version, thus representing an efficient self-report tool for field research. Evidence for construct validity is provided with regard to humor styles’ associations with optimism, occupational self-efficacy, irritation, and job satisfaction. While the positive (affiliative, self-enhancing) humor styles showed expected relationships with the outcomes, patterns of relationships of the negative styles suggest intercultural differences in workplace humor. Thus, self-defeating but not aggressive humor seems impactful in the Austrian-German sample, while the contrary was found in the U.S. sample.
About the authors
Tabea Scheel is currently interim professor at the University of Leipzig, Germany, where she also received her PhD from. She worked as a postdoc researcher and lecturer at the University of Vienna, Austria, the Humboldt Universitaet zu Berlin, the Free University of Berlin and the LMU Munich. Her research focuses on the functions of humor at work. Tabea published work on human resource management, error culture and psychological contracts.
Cornelia Gerdenitsch is a PhD candidate at the University of Vienna, Austria. Her research interests are New Ways of Working, including Coworking Spaces and flexibility issues, as well as job demands and resources.
Christian Korunka, PhD is full professor for Work & Organizational Psychology at the Department of Applied Psychology the University of Vienna, Austria. He is author of many scientific articles dealing with organizational change, quality of working life, and entrepreneurship. His current research interests are new job demands and work stress.
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by a personal Postdoc research grant from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany) to the first author. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the SIOP conference, 2014, Honolulu/U.S.
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©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Structural functions of the targeted joke: Iranian modernity and the Qazvini man as predatory homosexual
- Metaphor and its humorousness: The case of nominal compounds in German
- The humor of Skopje 2014: Between effects and evaluations
- Faith and laughter: Do atheists and practicing Christians have different senses of humor?
- Humor at work: validation of the short work-related Humor Styles Questionnaire (swHSQ)
- Book Reviews
- Jure Gantar: The Evolution of Wilde’s Wit
- Geert Brône, Kurt Feyaerts and Tony Veale: Cognitive Linguistics and Humor Research
- Benjamin Lazarus: Humanist Comic Elements in Aristophanes and the Old Testament
- Paul Bouissac: The Semiotics of Clowns and Clowning: Rituals of Transgression and the Theory of Laughter
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Structural functions of the targeted joke: Iranian modernity and the Qazvini man as predatory homosexual
- Metaphor and its humorousness: The case of nominal compounds in German
- The humor of Skopje 2014: Between effects and evaluations
- Faith and laughter: Do atheists and practicing Christians have different senses of humor?
- Humor at work: validation of the short work-related Humor Styles Questionnaire (swHSQ)
- Book Reviews
- Jure Gantar: The Evolution of Wilde’s Wit
- Geert Brône, Kurt Feyaerts and Tony Veale: Cognitive Linguistics and Humor Research
- Benjamin Lazarus: Humanist Comic Elements in Aristophanes and the Old Testament
- Paul Bouissac: The Semiotics of Clowns and Clowning: Rituals of Transgression and the Theory of Laughter
