Need help for this essay ? Email me at amnasheikh25@hotmail.com
Introduction
There has been a current push to inspect useful sides of the human
state. Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, & Weir (2003) supported the
optimistic psychology faction in which psychologists were asked to pay
attention on the fundamentals of human resilience and flexibility. Research scrutinised
such topics as optimism coping, hope, and courage (Lefcourt, 2003). Until of
late humour has been principally left out of the optimistic psychologist’s area
of interest. This is unexpected since it could be stated that humour is the essence
of the optimistic psychology faction since it is the exact opposite to melancholy
and hopelessness. It is omnipresent in daily lives and human experience. No group or culture has been found by the anthropologists
that does not have mirth or humour. Humour has the supremacy to lessen physical
and mental pain (Martin, 2001). According to de Koning & Weiss (2002) and
Richman (1995) humour has been associated with a broad array of positive
outcomes, for instant, life satisfaction, martial pleasure, coping with tension,
diseases survival such as cancer, and suicide prevention. Regrettably, the
scientific knowledge of humour influences the anecdotal faith that it is a unanimously
imperative element of the human state. The
majority of research on this subject is sporadic, requires solid methodology,
and falls short to be reproduced.
Also, a good sense of humour is
regarded as a personal quality that can restrained the influence of stressors
in a life of a person (Lefcourt, 2001). It is believed to help an individual
engage in optimistic reframing, and imaginative reinterpretation of happenings
to reduce the pessimistic impact linked to stressors and tensions of life (Abel
& Maxwell, 2002). These are comparatively simple uses of humour to improve
the self and to improve one's relationships with others, utilisation of humour
to augment the self at the cost of others, and use of humour to make the
relationships better at the cost of self.
Humour has been the great
interest of psychologists as well who have been studying it all the way through
the 20th century. They have been focusing on the likely benefits of humour on
psychosocial well-being and health of individuals (Snyder & McCullough,
2000; Martin, 2001). Due to this interest, researchers have worked to develop
some sort of measuring tools to measure the humour. These measures purportedly evaluate
such aspects of humour as the extent to which people smile and laugh in a broad
range of situations, utilise humour as a mean of coping issues, perceive and
benefit from humour, etc. A significant level of validation support has been
also been discovered for a number of these measurements (Martin, 1996). The intention of this paper is to develop a
humour measure that triumphs flaws over the present measures.
Humour Styles
Questionnaire (HSQ) is one of the most valuable means of measurement of humour and
this questionnaire considers humour as a multidimensional trait. It aims at people’s sense of humour that may
be positive or negative in nature. The Humour Styles Questionnaire is the
result of work by Rod A. Martin (et al., 2003).
It tries to capture the dissimilarities in how persons
characteristically use or convey humour and whether its utilisation is helpful
or deleterious for the happiness of individual’s social surroundings. Its development is mainly derived from a sense-of-humour model which
regards humor as adaptive against maladaptive and self- against other-directed
as, and it hypothesizes four individual difference aspects of humor, namely,
affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive and self-defeating humor (Martin et al,
2003).
(1) Affiliative, in which humour is used to
encourage group unity and is characterised by jokes telling and making fun at
which everyone can securely laugh at and experience included in a happy-companionship.
It is the benign and non-competitive humour style. People who are high on this aspect are
inclined to say humorous things, tell jokes, and take on a duty to amuse
others, to make relationships possible, and to decrease interpersonal
apprehensions (Lefcourt, 2001).
(2) Self-enhancing humour: This style is
characterised by the use of humour by an individual on an individual
level. It is an inclination to be entertained by a variety of things in a
person’s life, also when an individual faces with complicated or worrying situations
(Frewen, Brinker, Martin, & Dozois, 2008).
(3) Aggressive humour. The aggressive humour style is related to using humour to
disparage, manipulate or threat others; it is destructive for group cohesion
and can lead to in-group divisions and suffering of certain individuals (Cann, & Calhoun, 2001).
(4) Self-defeating humour. This humour style could, sequentially,
be utilized by the poor ginger kid to aim to alleviate the consequences of
the aggressive humour: the
self-defeating style entails permuting others to make jokes at an individual’s expense
and pretending that the individual having fun along the way; it is also a
tendency to use the self-deprecating humour to amuse others (Snyder &
McCullough, 2000).
Two of these dimensions are
regarded to be encouraging to psychosocial well-being, while the rest of the
two are assumed to be less benign and likely deleterious to human welfare.
Several studies have often tried to validate these four different
styles. A study by Saroglou and Scariot (2002) validated the all four
humour styles by the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ). They found four humour
styles distinct with respect to the personality. Self-enhancing and social
humour styles were found to be positively linked to self-esteem, Openness, and
Agreeableness, while hostile humour style was found to be negatively linked to
Conscientiousness and Agreeableness. Self-defeating humour was negatively
related to Emotional Stability, Conscientiousness, and self-esteem. Likewise,
Fox, Dean and Lyford (2011) developed a reliable as well as valid scale i.e. Humour Styles Questionnaire to evaluate maladaptive and adaptive humor in children and remained
successful in developing it. They found
self-defeating and affiliative humor to be related to all four psychosocial
adjustment measures. On the other hand, aggressive humour was discovered to be
related to reduced anxiety and increased self-perceived social capability for
boys, and increased depression with reduced global self-worth for girls. A
number of other studies also provide strong evidence for the validity of these
four different styles across miscellaneous cultures and groups (Kazarian &
Martin, 2004; Chen & Martin, 2007; Vernon, Martin, Schermer, & Mackie,
2008; Hampes, 2006; Saroglou & Scariot, 2002). On the other hand, at
certain places, it was not found to be reliable, for example, a research by Sullivan,
Philip and Dithurbide (2007) was based on validating the psychometric
properties of the HSQ on several athletes’ samples. They
determined the four styles of HSQ for internal consistency. However, the
HSQ did not emerge to comprise satisfactory psychometric properties for
utilization in sport psychology.
Thus, the current study was
designed to examine the validity and internal consistency reliability properties of the Humour Styles Questionnaire among psychology students.
Method
Participants
Data used in this study were
collected as part of assessment in the third year psychology unit, Advanced
Research Methods at the University of Western Sydney, between 2009 and 2015. The sample (N =
974, participated ones =902, 539 were female, males= 363, age 16-65, M = .6, SD = .49) was drawn from students undertaking the unit.
Participation was voluntary and respondents remained anonymous. Detailed
demographic information was not collected, but a diverse multicultural sample
is assumed.
Materials
Humour
Styles Questionnaire.
Derived from the situations, the HSQ-32 was developed. The HSQ comprised of 32
items (questions), testing all four styles of humours. Participants were asked
to respond via a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (1 means Strongly
Disagree) to 7 (7 stands for Strongly Agree). The 32 items contained 8 items
from each of the four styles of humour.
Procedure
The present study is an analysis
of existing data, originally collected with the same general procedure:
students were asked to complete the HSQ online. Instructions for completing the
survey were taken from Martin et al (2003). Means and standard deviations were
first found out for four humour styles and for genders. An independence T test
was performed to determine the difference between gender difference and four
types of humours. In order to find out correlation of HSQ, a Pearson’s correlation was used and for internal
consistencies of the HSQ Cronbach alphas was performed. All the statistical
analysis was performed via SPSS.
Results
Means and standard deviations for
the four Humour Styles Questionnaire for all contributors, and for genders
(males and females individually) are presented in Table 1 in appendix.
HSQ Factor Analysis
By means of Varimax rotation a principal components analysis was
calculated on the 32 items. The scree plot pointed that a use of 4-factor
solution for this study was most favorable. The Rotation Sums for first four
factors were 4.259, 3.809, 3.769 and 3.187 and comprising 13.309%, 11.904%,
11.779% and 9.961% of the total variance (Table 4). The items were examined loaded
on all of four rotated factors and highlighted those factor that were loaded
most strongly on (Table 5). Four items were found to be more strongly loaded
items on first factor corresponded to the original affiliative scale and included Aff1 (Q1), Aff4 (Q13),
Aff6 (Q21), and Aff6 (Q21). Five
of the items were loaded on the second factor with respect to the original
self-enhancing humour while seven were on the third factor with regard
to self-defeating humor scale.
Likewise, five items were loaded strongly on the fourth factor corresponding to
the aggressive humour.
Deviation Of Types Vs. Gender Difference
In order to check the gender
differences the significance levels of t test was applied. The following
results were obtained as shown in Table 2 (see appendix).
Males and females
both attained almost equal scores on all four types of humours, although there
was a mild difference due to difference in the sample size of male and female
population. A significant difference was
nevertheless noticed among males and females with respect to Affiliative and Aggressive humour. Expectedly, males
population reported a much greater inclination to indulge in aggressive types
of humour for example ridicule, mockery, and ‘critical remark humour, as
designated by higher mean scores on the Aggressive humour type (male M= 4.01,
female M = 3.36, t (902) p < 0.05).
The same was found for the Affiliative humour type (male M= 6.05, female M=
5.88, t (902) p >0.05).
Correlations Of The Validity Of HSQ
In order to construct validity of
HSQ a Pearson’s correlation was
performed using the only one part of four types of humours out of eight for the
purpose of easiness. The following results were obtained as shown in table 3.
The Pearson correlation
coefficient r for Aff1 and SE1 is 0.261, and it is statistically
significant because p <
0.0005. The Pearson correlation
coefficient r for Agg1 and SD1 is 0.67 and it is also statistically
significant.
Cronbach Alphas For Internal Consistencies
The internal consistencies of the
HSQ based on the data from 902 participants using Cronbach alphas showed that
all four types of humours have adequate internal consistencies, as presented in
table 4 (appendix).
The Cronbach's alpha
is 0.855, which specifies a
high level of internal consistency for the given four scales with this
particular sample. The intercorrelations among these four types of humour were
generally quite high, indicating that they determined dimensions that were
comparatively similar from one another.
Discussion
The adult Humor Styles Questionnaire was adapted for students of
psychology aged 19 years and upwards. Males and females showed almost equal scores
but the only different finding were the gender difference for affiliative and aggressive humour. The findings of this study have revealed
that the HSQ is suitable for use with the psychology student of mean age 25. The findings have also shown a validity of use
of HSQ in psychology. Furthermore, the males’ population demonstrated higher
tendency towards an aggressive style of humour compared to female population.
This was corresponding to the findings of Underwood
(2003) and Martin et al. (2003), which have found that males are usually more
aggressive as compared to females, at least when there is a physical and verbal
kinds of aggression. A tendency towards affiliative type of humour was also found to be
higher among males. This
study has showed on an acceptable level of internal reliability as well
consistency of Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) scale.
The Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) explores humour considering it as a
multidimensional attribute. It measures individuals normally engage in four
diverse styles of humour. It may be negative or positive in content. The
consequential four styles are affiliative humor, self-enhancing humor,
self-defeating humor and aggressive humor. Self-enhancing humour can be regarded as an ability employed to tackle
stress in a practical way (Frewen, Brinker, Martin, & Dozois, 2008). This type entails a commonly humorous
viewpoint on life, an inclination to be recurrently entertained by the
incongruities of life and to preserve a funny perspective despite the stress or
hardship.Aggressive humour basically relates to the utilisation of
ridicule, sarcasm, derision, teasing, disparagement, critical remark humour. It
also involves the use of humour to
influence others via an implied warning of mockery (Janes & Olson, 2000). Affiliative style of humour is anticipated to be
associated with cheerfulness, extraversion, self-worth, closeness, relationship
contentment, and chiefly positive emotions and moods (Kwon, 2002). Self-defeating humour style makes fun of other. The findings of this study suggest that HSQ
reliably can be measured using these four styles of humour.
Conclusion
A validity and reliability of HSQ scale were determined among psychology
students and it was found to be valid and reliable. Future work and more
research are needed to evaluate the longitudinal relationships among
psychosocial adjustment measures and the four styles of humour including the usage
of peer ratings of humour to offer further validation of this HSQ.
Reference list
Cann, A., & Calhoun, L. G. (2001). Perceived personality
associations with differences in sense of humor: Stereotypes of hypothetical
others with high or low senses of humor. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 14(2), 117-130.
Cayirdag, N., & Acar, S. (2010). Relationship between styles of
humor and divergent thinking. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences,
2, 3236–3240. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.03.494
Chen, G.-H., & Martin, R. A. (2007). A comparison of
humor styles, coping humor, and mental health between Chinese and Canadian
university students. Humor, 20,
215–234.
de Koning, E., & Weiss, R. L. (2002). The Relational Humor
Inventory: Functions of humor in close relationships. American Journal of
Family Therapy, 30(1), 1-18.
Dews, S., Kaplan, J., & Winner, E. (1995). Why Not Say It Directly?
The Social Functions of Irony. Discourse Processes(19), 347-367.
Eysenck, H. J. (1972). Foreword. In J. H. Goldstein, & P. E. McGhee
(Eds.), The psychology of humor: Theoretical perspectives and empirical
issues. (pp. xxii-xvii). New York: Academic Press.
Fox, C.L., Dean, S & Lyford, K. (2011). Development
of a Humour Styles Questionnaire for children. International Journal of Humor Studies, 1-38.
Hampes, W. P. (2006). Humor and shyness: The relation
between humor styles and shyness. Humor, 19, 179–187.
Janes, L.M. , & Olson, J. M.(2000). Jeer pressure:
The behavioral effects of observing ridicule of others.Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 26, 474–485.
Kazarian, S. S., & Martin, R. A. (2004). Humor
styles, personality, and well-being among Lebanese university students. European Journal of Personality, 18,
209–219.
Kwon, P. (2002). Hope, defense mechanisms, and adjustment: Implications
for false hope and defensive hopelessness. Journal
of Personality, 70(2), 207-231.
Lefcourt, H. M. (2003). Humor as a Moderator of Life Stress in Adults.
In C. E. Schaefer (Ed.), Play Therapy with Adults (pp. 144-165). Hoboken, NJ:
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Liu, K. W. (2012). Humor Styles, Self-Esteem and Subjective
Happiness. Discovery – SS Student E-Journal, 1, 21-41.
Long, D. C., & Greaser, A. C. (1988). Wit and Humor in Discourse
Processing. Discourse Processes, 35-60.
Martin, A. R., Puhlik-Doris, P., Larsen, G., Gray, J., & Weir, K.
(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.
Martin, R. A. (2007). The psychology of humor: an integrative
approach. Burlington: Elsevier Academic Press.
Martin, R. A., Puhlik-Doris, P., Larsen, G., Gray, J., & Weir, K.
(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(1), 48-75
Martin, R.A. (2001).Humor, laughter, and physical health:
Methodological issues and research findings. Psychological Bulletin, 127,
504–519.
Martin, R.A., & Kuiper, N.A.(1999). Daily occurrence
of laughter: Relationships with age, gender, and Type A personality. Humor:
International Journal of Humor Research, 12, 355–384.
Richman, J. (1996). Jokes as a projective technique: The
humor of psychiatric patients. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 50(3),
336-346
Ruch, W. (1992). Assessment of appreciation of humor:
Studies with the 3 WD Humor Test. In C. D. Spielberger, & J. N. Butcher
(Eds.), Advances in personality assessment (Vol. 9, pp.
27-75). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Saroglou, V., & Scariot, C. (2002). Humor Styles
Questionnaire: Personality and educational correlates in Belgian high school
and college students. European Journal of
Personality, 16, 43–54
Saroglou, V. and Scariot, C. (2002). Humor Styles Questionnaire: personality and
educational correlates in Belgian high school and college students. 16 (1), 43–54
Snyder, C.R., & McCullough, M.E.(2000). A positive
psychology field of dreams: If you build it, they will come. Journal of Social
and Clinical Psychology, 19, 151–160.
Sullivan, Philip J., and Lori Dithurbide. (2007). The
psychometric properties of the humor styles questionnaire with a sample of
athletes. Journal of Sport & Exercise
Psychology 29, 207-207.
Underwood, Marion K. (2003). Social aggression among girls. New York: Guilford.
Vernon, P. A., Martin, R. A., Schermer, J. A., &
Mackie, A. (2008). A behavioral genetic investigation of humor styles and their
correlations with the Big Five personality dimensions. Personality and
Individual Differences, 44, 116–125.
Appendix
Table 1
Descriptive
Statistic
|
|
Participant Gender
N
|
Mean
|
Std. Deviation
|
Aff
|
Male
|
6.05
|
1.140
|
|
Female
|
5.88
|
1.171
|
SEQ
|
Male
|
4.87
|
1.614
|
|
Female
|
4.75
|
1.542
|
SD
|
Male
|
3.75
|
1.778
|
|
Female
|
3.5
|
1.806
|
Agg
|
Male
|
4.01
|
1.774
|
|
Female
|
3.36
|
1.766
|
Table 2
|
Independent T Test
|
Total sample
T test
|
|
|
Males (Mean)
|
Females
(Mean)
|
Signif. (2 tail)
|
Aff
|
902
|
6.05
|
5.88
|
>0.05
|
SEQ
|
902
|
4.87
|
4.75
|
>0.05
|
Agg
|
902
|
4.01
|
3.36
|
<0.05
|
SD
|
902
|
3.75
|
3.5
|
=0.05
|
Table 4
|
Cronbach alpha for all
contributors (n = 902) Reliability
Statistics
|
Cronbach's Alpha
|
Cronbach's Alpha Based on
Standardized Items
|
N of Items
|
.855
|
.864
|
32
|
Table
3
|
Pearson’s Correlations
|
|
|
Aff1 (Q1)
|
SE1 (Q2)
|
Agg1 (Q3)
|
SD1 (Q4)
|
Aff1
(Q1)
|
Pearson
Correlation
|
1
|
.261**
|
.126**
|
.067*
|
Sig.
(2-tailed)
|
|
.000
|
.000
|
.042
|
N
|
902
|
902
|
902
|
902
|
SE1 (Q2)
|
Pearson
Correlation
|
.261**
|
1
|
.097**
|
.013
|
Sig.
(2-tailed)
|
.000
|
|
.003
|
.692
|
N
|
908
|
908
|
908
|
902
|
Agg1
(Q3)
|
Pearson
Correlation
|
.126**
|
.097**
|
1
|
.131**
|
Sig.
(2-tailed)
|
.000
|
.003
|
|
.000
|
N
|
908
|
908
|
908
|
902
|
SD1 (Q4)
|
Pearson
Correlation
|
.067*
|
.013
|
.131**
|
1
|
Sig.
(2-tailed)
|
.042
|
.692
|
.000
|
|
N
|
902
|
902
|
902
|
902
|
Table 4
|
Total Variance
Explained
|
Component
|
Initial
Eigenvalues
|
Rotation Sums
of Squared Loadings
|
Total
|
% of Variance
|
Cumulative %
|
Total
|
% of Variance
|
Cumulative %
|
1
|
6.359
|
19.872
|
19.872
|
4.259
|
13.309
|
13.309
|
2
|
3.797
|
11.866
|
31.738
|
3.809
|
11.904
|
25.213
|
3
|
2.688
|
8.399
|
40.137
|
3.769
|
11.779
|
36.992
|
4
|
2.181
|
6.817
|
46.953
|
3.187
|
9.961
|
46.953
|
5
|
1.133
|
3.540
|
50.493
|
|
|
|
6
|
1.053
|
3.290
|
53.783
|
|
|
|
7
|
.990
|
3.095
|
56.878
|
|
|
|
8
|
.943
|
2.948
|
59.826
|
|
|
|
9
|
.839
|
2.623
|
62.449
|
|
|
|
10
|
.806
|
2.517
|
64.967
|
|
|
|
11
|
.790
|
2.468
|
67.435
|
|
|
|
12
|
.721
|
2.253
|
69.687
|
|
|
|
13
|
.704
|
2.199
|
71.886
|
|
|
|
14
|
.670
|
2.095
|
73.981
|
|
|
|
15
|
.650
|
2.030
|
76.011
|
|
|
|
16
|
.626
|
1.956
|
77.967
|
|
|
|
17
|
.591
|
1.847
|
79.814
|
|
|
|
18
|
.580
|
1.813
|
81.626
|
|
|
|
19
|
.554
|
1.730
|
83.356
|
|
|
|
20
|
.546
|
1.705
|
85.062
|
|
|
|
21
|
.515
|
1.609
|
86.671
|
|
|
|
22
|
.504
|
1.574
|
88.245
|
|
|
|
23
|
.488
|
1.525
|
89.770
|
|
|
|
24
|
.461
|
1.441
|
91.211
|
|
|
|
25
|
.440
|
1.376
|
92.587
|
|
|
|
26
|
.428
|
1.338
|
93.926
|
|
|
|
27
|
.413
|
1.292
|
95.217
|
|
|
|
28
|
.389
|
1.215
|
96.432
|
|
|
|
29
|
.356
|
1.113
|
97.545
|
|
|
|
30
|
.293
|
.916
|
98.460
|
|
|
|
31
|
.263
|
.821
|
99.282
|
|
|
|
32
|
.230
|
.718
|
100.000
|
|
|
|
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.
|
|
|
|
Table 5
Rotated
Component Matrixa
|
|
Component
|
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
Aff1 (Q1)
|
.720
|
.109
|
.042
|
.061
|
Agg1 (Q3)
|
.137
|
.062
|
.119
|
.640
|
SD1 (Q4)
|
-.004
|
-.007
|
.647
|
.027
|
SE1 (Q2)
|
.217
|
.666
|
-.006
|
-.016
|
Aff2 (Q5)
|
.598
|
.211
|
.018
|
.144
|
SE2 (Q6)
|
.268
|
.429
|
.204
|
.039
|
Agg2 (Q7)
|
-.067
|
-.046
|
.066
|
.529
|
SD2 (Q8)
|
.082
|
.063
|
.795
|
.109
|
Aff3 (Q9)
|
.519
|
.071
|
.227
|
.035
|
SE3 (Q10)
|
.030
|
.815
|
.064
|
.005
|
Agg3 (Q11)
|
-.049
|
.151
|
.008
|
.617
|
SD3 (Q12)
|
.046
|
.062
|
.696
|
.098
|
Aff4 (Q13)
|
.763
|
.158
|
-.020
|
.081
|
SE4 (Q14)
|
.240
|
.646
|
-.026
|
.007
|
Agg4 (Q15)
|
.083
|
-.002
|
.128
|
.612
|
SD4 (Q16)
|
.138
|
-.020
|
.646
|
.191
|
Aff5 (Q17)
|
.795
|
.099
|
.076
|
.088
|
SE5 (Q18)
|
.037
|
.825
|
.038
|
.001
|
Agg5 (Q19)
|
.158
|
.228
|
.229
|
.512
|
SD5 (Q20)
|
-.032
|
.090
|
.784
|
.173
|
Aff6 (Q21)
|
.731
|
.142
|
.086
|
-.070
|
SE6 (Q22)
|
.095
|
.544
|
-.030
|
.091
|
Agg6 (Q23)
|
.172
|
.010
|
.107
|
.656
|
SD6 (Q24)
|
-.138
|
-.020
|
.604
|
.110
|
Aff6 (Q21)
|
.807
|
.116
|
-.011
|
.082
|
SE7 (Q26)
|
.089
|
.735
|
.173
|
-.017
|
Agg7 (Q27)
|
.005
|
.005
|
.219
|
.594
|
SD7 (Q28)
|
.106
|
.237
|
.276
|
.051
|
Aff8 (Q29)
|
.567
|
.170
|
-.123
|
.136
|
SE8 (Q30)
|
.134
|
.507
|
.033
|
.126
|
Agg8 (Q31)
|
.146
|
-.022
|
.003
|
.699
|
SD8 (Q32)
|
.115
|
.119
|
.672
|
.100
|
