Humor styles and personality: A systematic review and meta-analysis on the relations between humor styles and the Big Five personality traits

Plessen, Constantin Yves; Franken, Fabian; Ster, Christoph; Schmid, Rebecca Rosa; Wolfmayr, Christoph; Mayer, Anna-Maria; Sobisch, Marc; Kathofer, Maximilian; Rattner, Katrin; Kotlyar, Elona; Maierwieser, Rory J.; Tran, Ulrich S.

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2019.109676

Cited by 52 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…This finding, as a within-person effect, is not confounded by between-person third variables (e.g., humor ability or self-efficacy), so it is compelling evidence that people have at least some ability to evaluate the comedic effectiveness of their ideas. The effect size was small in magnitude, which is consistent with the wide range of ways that people can try to be funny and the enormous individual differences in what people find funny (Plessen et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

“…Research on personality and self-ratings of global humor shows a role for extraversion and openness to experience. People higher in those traits are more likely to rate themselves as funny people (Beins & O'Toole, 2010), to see being funny as important to their identity , and to say they are good at amusing others and making them laugh (i.e., an affiliative humor style; Plessen et al, 2020). Smaller but notable effects have been found for other traits.…”

Section: Self-rated Humormentioning

confidence: 99%

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If You’re Funny and You Know It: Personality, Gender, and People’s Ratings of Their Attempts at Humor

Silvia¹,

Greengross²,

Cotter³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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In seven studies (n = 1,133), adults tried to create funny ideas and then rated the funniness of their responses, which were also independently rated by judges. People were relatively modest and self-critical about their ideas. Extraversion (r = .12 [.07, .18], k =7) and openness to experience (r = .09 [.03, .15], k = 7) predicted rating one’s responses as funnier; women rated their responses as less funny (d = -.28 [-.37, -.19], k = 7). The within-person correlation between self and judge ratings was small but significant (r = .13 [.07, .19], k = 7), so people had some insight into their ideas’ funniness.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

Section: Self-rated Humormentioning

confidence: 99%

If You’re Funny and You Know It: Personality, Gender, and People’s Ratings of Their Attempts at Humor

Silvia¹,

Greengross²,

Cotter³

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In contrast, negative humor styles (aggressive and self-defeating) have been positively associated with the personality dimensions of neuroticism and extraversion (for aggressive humor style only), while negatively correlated with agreeableness and conscientiousness (Plessen et al, 2020). Aggressive humor is interpersonal behavior, such as teasing and ridicule, which is likely to hurt or alienate others.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Much literature has shown the relationship between these positive humor styles and the Big Five personality traits. For example, in a recent meta-analysis of 24 studies, Plessen et al (2020) reported positive correlations of the affiliative humor style with both extraversion and openness to experience. Also from the metaanalysis, the self-enhancing humor style negatively correlated with neuroticism and positively with extraversion, agreeableness, and openness (Plessen et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humor styles and the ten personality dimensions from the Supernumerary Personality Inventory

Kfrerer¹,

Schermer²

2020

Current Issues in Personality Psychology

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BackgroundThe present study examines the relationship between humor styles and the 10 Supernumerary Personality Invento-ry (SPI) traits to understand how humor styles correlate with personality dimensions “beyond the Big Five” model. Humor styles and the personality dimensions of the SPI have yet to be explored. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore how humor styles correlate with traits outside of conventional personality models, in order to better un-derstand humor expression related to personality traits.Participants and procedureThe data were from 693 adult participants (135 men and 560 women) from North America.ResultsAll four humor styles positively correlated with the SPI humorousness scale. The two positive humor styles, affiliative and self-enhancing, had significant positive correlations with the egotism SPI scale. The two negative humor styles, aggressive and self-defeating, had significant positive correlations with the SPI scales of seductiveness and manipu-lativeness and significant negative correlations with the integrity scale from the SPI. A sub-group of the sample (n = 471) also completed a Big Five personality measure. For this sample, the variance due to the Big Five was re-gressed out of the SPI scales.ConclusionsThe correlations between the SPI residuals and the humor style scores decreased from the unaltered SPI scale scores except for the aggressive humor style correlations, which were less affected, suggesting that this dimension of humor may have some variance “beyond” the Big Five.

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“…The scale has been translated into dozens of languages [ 8 ] and adapted for versions used in the workplace [ 9 ] and with children [ 10 , 11 ]. Several meta-analyses and systematic reviews involving the HSQ [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ] and nearly 2000 citations to the original publication (as of November, 2020) attest to its importance to modern humor scholars.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time to Renovate the Humor Styles Questionnaire? An Item Response Theory Analysis of the HSQ

Silvia

Rodriguez-Boerwinkle

2020

Behavioral Sciences

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The Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) is one of the most popular self-report scales in humor research. The present research conducted a forward-looking psychometric analysis grounded in Rasch and item response theory models, which have not been applied to the HSQ thus far. Regarding strengths, the analyses found very good evidence for reliability and dimensionality and essentially zero gender-based differential item functioning, indicating no gender bias in the items. Regarding opportunities for future development, the analyses suggested that (1) the seven-point rating scale performs poorly relative to a five-point scale; (2) the affiliative subscale is far too easy to endorse and much easier than the other subscales; (3) the four subscales show problematic variation in their readability and proportion of reverse-scored items; and (4) a handful of items with poor discrimination and high local dependence are easy targets for scale revision. Taken together, the findings suggest that the HSQ, as it nears the two-decade mark, has many strengths but would benefit from light remodeling.

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Humor styles and personality: A systematic review and meta-analysis on the relations between humor styles and the Big Five personality traits

Cited by 52 publications

References 58 publications

If You’re Funny and You Know It: Personality, Gender, and People’s Ratings of Their Attempts at Humor

If You’re Funny and You Know It: Personality, Gender, and People’s Ratings of Their Attempts at Humor

Humor styles and the ten personality dimensions from the Supernumerary Personality Inventory

Time to Renovate the Humor Styles Questionnaire? An Item Response Theory Analysis of the HSQ

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