Volume 33, Issue 3

Each day for two weeks participants described how often they had used four types of humor that day: affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating humor. Participants also completed the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ), the Coping with Humor scale (CHS), a measure of the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality, and the Rosenberg Self-esteem scale (RSE). A series of multilevel analyses (days nested within persons) found that Extraversion was positively related to the frequency of use of all four types of humor, whereas the other factors of the FFM were not related to daily humor use when they were included in analyses with Extraversion. Controlling for the factors of the FFM, self-esteem was negatively related to the daily use of aggressive and self-defeating humor, whereas Coping with Humor was positively related to the daily use of aggressive and self-defeating humor. Although relationships between our measures of the daily use of humor and the FFM, CHS, and RSE were similar to relationships between the HSQ and these measures, there were enough differences to suggest that our daily measures of humor provided insights into the use of humor that complemented and extended the insights provided by dispositional measures such as the HSQ.

The present study investigates the relationships of eight comic styles (fun, benevolent humor, nonsense, wit, irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism) with acceptability of prejudice (laughing at different groups and topics), humorous self-image (funniness and frequency of laughter), humor appreciation (funniness and aversiveness of cartoons with different structures and contents), and happiness. A representative Chilean adult sample ( N =857, 60.8% women; age M =40.50, SD =17.28) was recruited in face-to-face interviews and online surveys. They completed self-reports of all variables as well as a humor appreciation test. Most of the comic styles related to finding the cartoons funnier. Furthermore, the darker styles were more strongly related to laughing at a variety of topics and groups. Also, happiness was positively related to fun and benevolent humor and negatively to cynicism. This study provides evidence of the criterion validity of the Comic Style Markers in Latin-American cultures and highlights differences between lighter and darker styles.

This study investigated the relationship between types of humor (aggressive humor and affinity humor) of homeroom teachers, as recognized by their students, and five domains of class climate (mutual respect among the students, discipline, willingness, enjoyment, and resistance). The participants included a total of 500 students – 250 primary school students (fourth to sixth grade) and 250 secondary school students (seventh to ninth grade) in Japan. The students answered questions about their homeroom teacher’s type of humor and the climate of their class using a self-report scale. We labeled five variables of class climate as dependent variables, and two types of teachers’ humor as independent variables, and conducted a hierarchal multiple regression analysis with two steps. Findings showed that aggressive humor had a significant negative correlation to all positive class climates, and a significant positive correlation to negative class climates. Affinity humor indicated a significant correlation in the exact opposite manner to the above findings. Furthermore, the interaction effect of the two types of teachers’ humor was insignificant for every variable of class climate. The findings indicated that an ideal class climate could be created if teachers refrained as much as possible from using aggressive humor and used affinity humor.

Using three archival data sets, mean differences in the four humor styles of affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating were assessed for adults ( n  = 6404) across four English-speaking countries: Canada ( n  = 339), the USA ( n  = 165), the United Kingdom ( n  = 4012), and Australia ( n  = 1888). As age and sex varied greatly across the samples and had significant relationships with the humor styles (men scored higher on each scale, younger people scored higher on affiliative, aggressive, and self-defeating humor, and older people scored higher on self-enhancing humor), age and sex were regressed out of the humor style scores and the standardized residuals were examined. Significant differences were found for the four humor styles. Specifically, the Americans were the highest in affiliative and self-enhancing humor, and the British were the highest in both aggressive and self-defeating humor. As humor styles are an insight into human social interactions, the results provide a glimpse into the differences found between these countries.

The paper elucidates the “paradox of comedy”—a perpetual philosophical concern regarding the nature of theatrical/stage comedy—through a cross-cultural comparison between Bharatamuni’s (circa 500 A.D.) and Henri Bergson’s (1859–1941) theorization of the comic and thereupon, fathoms the Indian comic tradition in the canon of comedy studies. Bharata’s hāsya in Nāṭya Śāstra and Bergson’s Laughter become tenable for a comparative aesthetic study as they approach the stagecraft of the comic socio-aesthetically. The comic paradox implies the tension in the nature of comedy, which on one hand has to arouse emotion in the audience and simultaneously, has to detach them from the emotion for the comic manifestation. This is further elaborated through: the personal and social nature of the comic; the absence and presence of feeling; the degrees of the comic paradox through detachment and indifference; the identification and isolation of the character; the aim of the comedy. The authors argue for Bergson’s position of the comic as an ‘outward’ and Bharata’s as an ‘inward-outward’ operation. The study also includes an appendix, which validates Bergson’s approach to laughter as the earliest attempt to dedicate an elaborate study on the nature of the comic.

Recent research suggests that trait cheerfulness triggers larger state cheerfulness variations after facing amusing and sad clips. The present study aimed at replicating and extending these effects. A sample of 80 psychology students (68 women) was selected depending on their scores in trait cheerfulness. Participants watched a set of positive and negative pictures, which was accompanied by statements, and were asked to report their affective states before and after watching them. The results showed that high versus low trait cheerfulness participants reported a larger increase in state cheerfulness, valence, and joy measures after the positive induction and a larger decrease in state cheerfulness after the negative induction. The results replicate and extend previous findings and support the idea that high trait cheerfulness people are more sensitive to the affective environment.