Genetic and Environmental Contributions to Humor Styles: A Replication Study

Abstract

One thousand and seventy three pairs of adult monozygotic (MZ) twins and 895 pairs of same sex adult dizygotic (DZ) twins from the United Kingdom (UK) completed the Humor Styles Questionnaire: a 32-item measure which assesses two positive and two negative styles of humor. MZ correlations were approximately twice as large as DZ correlations for all four humor styles, and univariate behavioral genetic model fitting indicated that individual differences in all of them can be accounted for entirely by genetic and nonshared environmental factors, with heritabilities ranging from .34 to .49. These results, while perhaps not surprising, are somewhat at odds with a previous study that we conducted in North America (Vernon et al., in press) in which genetic factors contributed significantly to individual differences in the two positive humor styles, but contributed far less to the two negative styles, variance in which was instead largely due to shared and nonshared environmental factors. We suggest that differences between North American and UK citizens in their appreciation of different kinds of humor may be responsible for the different results obtained in these two studies.

A Behavioral Genetic Study of Humor Styles in an Australian Sample

“…These findings may reflect differences placed on the expression of humor among these cultures. With this in mind, it is interesting that previous studies of humor styles (Vernon et al, 2008a(Vernon et al, , 2008b as well as this particular investigation have assessed participants from individualistic cultures (UK, U.S., Australia), but have noted different patterns of genetic and environmental influences on variation in these traits. This observation may suggest that humor styles are too complex to be looked at via broad comparisons between individualist and collectivist cultures.…”

“…Furthermore, the sample consisted of over 70% females. However, previous studies on the subject have also employed samples comprising a larger proportion of MZ twins and females (Vernon et al, 2008a(Vernon et al, , 2008b. Therefore, sex and zygosity biases are not factors contributing to variability in the results.…”

“…The researchers found that individual differences in the positive humor styles were influenced by genetic and non-shared environmental factors, whereas individual differences in the negative humor styles were accounted for solely by shared and non-shared environmental factors. Subsequently, Vernon et al (2008a) conducted a similar study with over 1,000 same-sex adult twin pairs from the United Kingdom (UK). Results showed that both positive and negative humor styles were influenced by additive genetic and non-shared environmental factors.…”

“…Results showed that both positive and negative humor styles were influenced by additive genetic and non-shared environmental factors. Vernon et al (2008a) proposed that cultural differences in what are deemed to be acceptable uses of humor may have elicited the unique pattern of results obtained in their study versus that of Vernon et al (2008b).…”

Autism-spectrum traits predict humor styles in the general population

“…These studies generally support the notion that the positive humour styles are positively linked to well-being whereas negative styles tend to be negatively associated with well-being, a finding that extends to relationship satisfaction (Cann et al 2008(Cann et al , 2009). The heritability of humour styles has been estimated to range between 30 and 50 percent (Rushton et al 2009;Vernon et al 2008aVernon et al , 2008bVernon et al , 2009Veselka et al 2010aVeselka et al , 2010b.…”