Reply to Martin (2015): Why our conclusions hold

Sonja Heintz; Willibald Ruch

doi:10.1515/humor-2015-0132

Article

Reply to Martin (2015): Why our conclusions hold

Sonja Heintz
Sonja Heintz received her master’s degree in Psychology at the Saarland University in 2012, and she has since worked in the Section of Personality and Assessment at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. She works as a research, administration, and teaching assistant and pursues her PhD. Her main research interests are humor behaviors, individual differences in humor and positive psychological variables, methodology, and measurement.
and Willibald Ruch
Willibald Ruch is a Full Professor of Psychology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. His research interests are in the field of humor and laughter, cheerfulness, and smiling. In his doctoral dissertation at the University of Graz (Austria) in 1980, he developed a taxonomy of jokes and cartoons and studied their relation to personality. His more recent work, together with his research team at the University of Zurich, includes humor from a positive psychology perspective, the effectiveness of humor training programs and clown interventions, the ability to laugh at oneself, the fear of being laughed at (gelotophobia), and the measurement of humor.

Published/Copyright: February 16, 2016

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From the journal HUMOR Volume 29 Issue 1

Abstract

We (Heintz and Ruch 2015, An examination of the convergence between the conceptualization and the measurement of humor styles: A study of the construct validity of the Humor Styles Questionnaire. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 28. 611–633) pointed to a lack of convergence between the conceptualization of humor styles and how they are measured with the HSQ (i. e. the Humor Styles Questionnaire and recommended adjusting the model of the humor styles or alternatively the HSQ. The reply (Martin 2015, On the challenges of measuring humor styles: Response to Heintz and Ruch. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 28. 635–639) suggested that our study could be methodologically flawed, thereby limiting the conclusions that can be drawn. In the present reply, we discuss each of these criticisms and demonstrate that these are likely unfounded and do not influence our results and conclusions. Thus we still suggest that the gap between the conceptualization and the measurement of humor styles should be closed to improve the construct validity of the HSQ. This would allow interpreting the manifold findings with the HSQ and deriving hypotheses for future studies based on the humor style constructs.

Keywords: humor styles; humor styles questionnaire (HSQ); validity; conceptualization

About the authors

Sonja Heintz

Sonja Heintz received her master’s degree in Psychology at the Saarland University in 2012, and she has since worked in the Section of Personality and Assessment at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. She works as a research, administration, and teaching assistant and pursues her PhD. Her main research interests are humor behaviors, individual differences in humor and positive psychological variables, methodology, and measurement.

Willibald Ruch

Willibald Ruch is a Full Professor of Psychology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. His research interests are in the field of humor and laughter, cheerfulness, and smiling. In his doctoral dissertation at the University of Graz (Austria) in 1980, he developed a taxonomy of jokes and cartoons and studied their relation to personality. His more recent work, together with his research team at the University of Zurich, includes humor from a positive psychology perspective, the effectiveness of humor training programs and clown interventions, the ability to laugh at oneself, the fear of being laughed at (gelotophobia), and the measurement of humor.

References

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Martin, Rod A. 2015. On the challenges of measuring humor styles: Response to Heintz and Ruch. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 28. 635–639.10.1515/humor-2015-0096Search in Google Scholar

Martin, Rod A., Patricia Puhlik-Doris, Gwen Larsen, Jeanette Gray & Kelly Weir. 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 3. 48–75.10.1016/S0092-6566(02)00534-2Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2016-2-16

Published in Print: 2016-2-1

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2015-0132

Keywords for this article

humor styles; humor styles questionnaire (HSQ); validity; conceptualization