Sense of Humor and Humor Styles - Research Proposal Example

Introduction Humor is one element that distinguishes humans from the rest of the animal world. The only known animal known to “laugh” is the laughing hyena, but its purpose for making a laughing sound is entirely different from that of humans. Human humor has many different facets and has been a subject of interest of many researchers over the years. Humor serves a variety of purposes. People use it all the time in social situations. A significant amount of research indicates that humor is valuable in coping with life’s challenges (Martin, R.A.,1986; Martin, R. A., & Lefcourt, H. M. ,1983; Miczo, N, 2004) It alleviates stress and can be resorted to in building stronger interpersonal relationships. Studies on humor’s implications on physical health have likewise been done and it shows that “there is very little evidence of stress-moderating effects of humor on health-related outcomes, using existing self-report measures of sense of humor and life events measures of stress” (Martin, 2001, conclusion, para. 13). However, it was also contended that certain types of humor may be effective with certain types of stress. Self-report measures of humor have been developed and used in studies on humor. The Situational Humor Response Questionnaire (SHRQ), (Martin & Lefcourt, 1984) measures respondents’ degree to which they smile and laugh in a wide variety of situations. The Coping Humor Scale (CHS), (Martin & Lefcourt, 1983), participants evaluate how they use humor as a coping strategy. The Sense of Humor Questionnaire (SHQ-6), (Svebak, 1996) evaluates different components of the humor process and the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (MSHS), (Thorson & Powell, 1993) investigates different humor behaviors such as humor creation and humor appreciation. Although the humor scales mentioned were designed to assess presumably adaptive aspects of humor, they do not specifically address ways in which individuals use or express humor in their lives. In 1999, Martin and associates (Phulik-Doris and Martin, 1999) developed a humor scale measuring four humor styles: Social humor (tendency to share humor with others to put them at ease and enhance relationships); Self-enhancing humor (tendency to maintain a humorous outlook on life even when not with others, to cope with stress or to cheer oneself up); Self-defeating humor (tendency to amuse others by self-disparagement to hide one’s true feelings from self and others); and Hostile humor (tendency to use offensive humor to put down or manipulate others). This 60-item Likert-type format questionnaire has been developed and validated by Puhlik-Doris and Martin (1999) in a large Canadian sample. This original version of the Humor Styles Questionnaire was found to have demonstrated the necessary psychometric qualities, a clear factor structure corresponding to the four humor styles above, as well as external validity and predictability of constructs related to coping and health (Saroglou and Scariot, 2002). It has been used on another sample of respondents from a different culture (French-speaking Belgians) in an attempt at cross-validation of factor structure, psychometric qualities, mean comparisons and gender differences. (Saroglou and Scariot, 2002). Results obtained suggested that there were no differences between Belgians and Canadians regarding social and self-defeating humor. However, Belgians, compared with Canadians tended to report less self-enhancing and more hostile humor. The same Humor Styles Questionnaire has undergone revisions. The most recent one was developed by Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray and Weir (2003), trimming the original 60 items to 32. The goal of reducing the number of items (8 items for each of the four scales) was for adequate reliability, while being succinct enough to be useful in a wide variety of future research contexts. It continues to assess four dimensions relating to of individual differences in uses humor namely Affiliative, Self-enhancing, Aggressive and Self-defeating humor. Affiliative Humor relates to jokes that make another feel more at ease. It reduces tension in an otherwise uncomfortable situation. It is used to foster stronger ties with wholesome humor that does not hurt anyone. Self-enhancing humor is humor that allows a person to have a generally humorous outlook on life. It may help a person cope with stressful situations by averting the negative emotions attached to it and trying to look for a funny flipside to the situation, thus protecting the self from it. Its purpose is more to serve the self than to please others – more “intrapsychic” than “interpersonal”. Aggressive humor uses sarcasm, teasing, insults, ridicule or disparagement to elicit laughs from others at the expense of somebody else. The person using this style of humor may express irreverent or even hostile jesting without any regard for its potential impact on the target of his humor. At the other end of the spectrum, Self-defeating humor is used by a person who subjects himself to self-disparaging jokes and sarcasm just to make others laugh. He does not mind the humiliation he brings upon himself as long as he gains the approval of others. This may also be used to cover up underlying negative emotions and as a way to avoid constructively dealing with problems. The HSQ has been administered to different groups to test its reliability and validity. The data obtained provide evidence that the four HSQ scales make independent and valuable contributions in the prediction of various aspects of psychological well-being and social relationships. In particular, the pattern of correlations provides support for the view that Affiliative and Self-enhancing humor involve benign uses of humor positively associated with psychological health and well-being, whereas Aggressive and Self-defeating humor are negatively related to well-being and may represent more detrimental and potentially unhealthy uses of humor (Martin, et al, 2003). This is an improvement on many existing self-report humor scales, as it also assesses aspects of humor that may be potentially deleterious to well-being. It also yielded findings that men score substantially higher than women on both the potentially detrimental humor scales (Aggressive and Self-defeating) but not on the two scales measuring more benign humor uses. Overall, the findings provide encouraging evidence for construct validity of the HSQ. Aside from the convergent self-report data, the correlations observed between each of the four HSQ scales provide promising evidence of criterion validity and specificity. However, to ensure that these scales do relate to the behaviors that they claim to measure, further validation with non-self-report methods is needed. (Martin et al, 2003). The purpose of this study is to evaluate the Humor Styles Questionnaire on an Australian sample drawn from a multicultural population area. It aims to validate previous research findings on the reliability and validity of the HSQ, and hopefully to unearth new information to contribute to humor research. Methodology One hundred ninety three students enrolled in a Psychology class in Australia will be required to complete a scale on Humor Styles provided on WebCT. The 32-item questionnaire asks the respondents to rate the degree of their agreement or disagreement to statements related to ways they experience and express humor on a scale of 1-7, 1 representing Totally disagree and 7 representing Totally agree. To obtain more subjects in this study, they will each ask an opposite-sex friend or relative aged 18 years and above to likewise complete the questionnaire. The collated dataset shall be analyzed using appropriate statistical methods to evaluate the structure and psychometric properties of the scale. References Dobson, L. (2006). What’s your humor style? Psychology Today Magazine, Jul/Aug 2006 issue Martin, R.A. , & Lefcourt, H.M. (1983).Sense of humor as a moderator of the relation between stressors and moods. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 1313–1324. Martin, R.A. , & Lefcourt, H.M. (1984). Situational humor response questionnaire: Quantitative measure of the sense of humor. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 145–155. Martin, R.A. (1996).The Situational Humor Response Questionnaire (SHRQ) and Coping Humor Scale (CHS): A decade of research findings. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 9, 251–272. Martin, R.A. (2001).Humor, laughter, and physical health: Methodological issues and research findings. Psychological Bulletin, 127, 504–519. 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, 48–75. Miczo, N., Humor ability, unwillingness to communicate, loneliness, and perceived stress: Testing a security theory. Communication Studies, Vol. 55, 2004 Puhlik-Doris, P. & Martin, R.A. (1999) A new measure of humor: distinguishing adjusted from maladjusted humor. Sense of Humor: Further Explorations of a Personality Characteristic, Ruch, W. (chair). Symposium conducted at the 11th International Society for Humor Studies Conference, Oakland, CA. Saroglou, V. & Scariot, C. (2002). Humor styles questionnaire: Personality and educational correlates in Belgian college and high school students. European Journal of Personality, 16, 43-54. Svebak, S.(1996).The development of the sense of humor questionnaire: From SHQ to SHQ-6. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 9, 341–361. Thorson, J.A. , & Powell, F. C.(1993).Developme nt and validation of a multidimensional sense of humor scale. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 48, 13–23. Read More