Putting “Laughing at Yourself” to the Test
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Jennifer Hofmann
Jennifer Hofmann PhD, is a senior teaching and research fellow at the department of personality and assessment (Institute of Psychology), University of Zurich. Her current research interests are in personality and assessment, humor, en-and decoding of positive emotions, as well as nonverbal behavior (applying the Facial Action Coding System), with a special interest in laughter.
Abstract
McGhee described the ability to laugh at yourself as a facet of the sense of humor that is malleable and constitutes the fifth out of six facets forming the sense of humor. Also, McGhee made it measurable by including it in the Sense of Humor Scale (SHS McGhee, Paul E. 1996. Health, healing, and the amuse system (2. edition): Humor as survival training. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing). The current study investigated whether individuals (N=78) could laugh at photos in which their face was distorted and mocking captions were added (multi-method approach: self-reports, facial responses assessed by the Facial Action Coding System, unobtrusive measures). Moreover, as two possible pre-conditions of being able to laugh at yourself, acceptance and importance of one’s physical appearance were studied. The results show that individuals indeed get amused about themselves, yet, laughing at yourself in McGhee’s sense was a better predictor of the absence of negative responses towards the stimuli (in reported emotions, facial responses, ratings of photos) than the presence of positive responses. Accepting ones appearance correlated positively to laughing at yourself. Thus, to be able to laugh at yourself seems to be a continuum, starting from not feeling negatively about being the target of a joke to “hearty laughter”.
About the author
Jennifer Hofmann PhD, is a senior teaching and research fellow at the department of personality and assessment (Institute of Psychology), University of Zurich. Her current research interests are in personality and assessment, humor, en-and decoding of positive emotions, as well as nonverbal behavior (applying the Facial Action Coding System), with a special interest in laughter.
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© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: Festschrift for Paul McGhee – Humor Across the Lifespan, Theory, Measurement, and Applications
- Paul McGhee and humor research
- Comments on the special issue
- Humor as a developmental phenomenon: the contributions of Paul McGhee
- Brief article of gratitude to Paul McGhee
- Psychometric evaluation of the revised Sense of Humor Scale and the construction of a parallel form
- Playfulness and humor in psychology: An overview and update
- Putting “Laughing at Yourself” to the Test
- Training the sense of humor with the 7 Humor Habits Program and satisfaction with life
- Humor and well-being: A little less is quite enough
- How one mad scientist grasped the profound potential of humor and changed the face of nursing
- The neurology and psychiatry of humor, smiling and laughter: A tribute to Paul McGhee. Part I. Introduction and clinical studies
- The neurology and psychiatry of humor, smiling, and laughter: a tribute to Paul McGhee Part II. neurological studies and brain imaging
- Some Reflections
- Chimpanzee and gorilla humor: progressive emergence from origins in the wild to captivity to sign language learning
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: Festschrift for Paul McGhee – Humor Across the Lifespan, Theory, Measurement, and Applications
- Paul McGhee and humor research
- Comments on the special issue
- Humor as a developmental phenomenon: the contributions of Paul McGhee
- Brief article of gratitude to Paul McGhee
- Psychometric evaluation of the revised Sense of Humor Scale and the construction of a parallel form
- Playfulness and humor in psychology: An overview and update
- Putting “Laughing at Yourself” to the Test
- Training the sense of humor with the 7 Humor Habits Program and satisfaction with life
- Humor and well-being: A little less is quite enough
- How one mad scientist grasped the profound potential of humor and changed the face of nursing
- The neurology and psychiatry of humor, smiling and laughter: A tribute to Paul McGhee. Part I. Introduction and clinical studies
- The neurology and psychiatry of humor, smiling, and laughter: a tribute to Paul McGhee Part II. neurological studies and brain imaging
- Some Reflections
- Chimpanzee and gorilla humor: progressive emergence from origins in the wild to captivity to sign language learning
