Experimentally Manipulating Items Informs on the (Limited) Construct and Criterion Validity of the Humor Styles Questionnaire

Abstract

How strongly does humor (i.e., the construct-relevant content) in the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin et al., 2003) determine the responses to this measure (i.e., construct validity)? Also, how much does humor influence the relationships of the four HSQ scales, namely affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating, with personality traits and subjective well-being (i.e., criterion validity)? The present paper answers these two questions by experimentally manipulating the 32 items of the HSQ to only (or mostly) contain humor (i.e., construct-relevant content) or to substitute the humor content with non-humorous alternatives (i.e., only assessing construct-irrelevant context). Study 1 (N = 187) showed that the HSQ affiliative scale was mainly determined by humor, self-enhancing and aggressive were determined by both humor and non-humorous context, and self-defeating was primarily determined by the context. This suggests that humor is not the primary source of the variance in three of the HQS scales, thereby limiting their construct validity. Study 2 (N = 261) showed that the relationships of the HSQ scales to the Big Five personality traits and subjective well-being (positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction) were consistently reduced (personality) or vanished (subjective well-being) when the non-humorous contexts in the HSQ items were controlled for. For the HSQ self-defeating scale, the pattern of relationships to personality was also altered, supporting an positive rather than a negative view of the humor in this humor style. The present findings thus call for a reevaluation of the role that humor plays in the HSQ (construct validity) and in the relationships to personality and well-being (criterion validity).

The effect of humour on nursing professionals’ psychological well‐being goes beyond the influence of empathy: a cross‐sectional study

“…As in the case of aggressive humour, it would be interesting to explore whether the effects of self‐defeating humour are work context‐dependent. Furthermore, it has been also suggested that the humour present in laughing at oneself could be associated with prosocial behaviours that are characteristic of agreeableness and extroversion . Therefore, further research is needed: first, to determine whether these discrepancies are explained by contextual factors (cultural or work‐based differences), and second, to continue exploring the construct/criterion validity of the self‐defeating humour dimension .…”

Do Others Judge My Humor Style as I Do?

“…This implies that the self-defeating scale does not adequately measure the self-defeating humor style and might thus lead to misleading conclusions (see also Ruch & Heintz, 2017). It seems likely that the self-defeating scale is less a measure of humor than of negative self-evaluation, potentially changing the meaning of the construct and the interpretations of existing findings on the scale.…”

“…The largest overlap (i.e., lowest discriminant validity) was found between affiliative and self-enhancing. Another approach (Ruch & Heintz, 2017) involved experimentally separating the construct-relevant content (i.e., humor) and construct-irrelevant context within the HSQ items. Correlating these manipulated versions with the original HSQ scales showed that the affiliative and self-enhancing scales were mainly determined by their construct-relevant content, while the self-defeating scale was mainly determined by the construct-irrelevant context entailed in its items (e.g., going overboard).…”

Moving Forward in Fostering Humour: Towards Training Lighter Forms of Humour in Multicultural Contexts

“…This is supported by the fact that the former two typically correlate with positive outcomes and the latter correlates with variables of a more negative connotation (e.g., Martin, 2007). Unfortunately, the measurement instrument to assess these humour styles shows a lack of construct and criterion validity, in particular with respect to the self-defeating humour style which might be overcome with a revision (e.g., Ruch & Heintz, 2017).…”