Sensation seeking and the enjoyment of structure and content of humour: Stability of findings across four samples

Abstract

The role of sensation seeking in the realm of enjoyment of humour was investigated. It was hypothesized that the personality trait sensation seeking (SS) is able to predict both, the structure and content of jokes and cartoons. Seven hypotheses were derived and tested for four samples comprising a total of 448 Ss. The hypotheses were related to both components in appreciation of humour, funniness (representing the positive feelings induced by humour) and aversiveness (representing the negative feelings). Experience seeking (ES) and boredom susceptibility (BS) were predictive of low appreciation of humour in which the punchline is mildly surprising and the surprise can easily be overcome by resolving the incongruity (i.e. incongruity-resolution humour). Furthermore, ES and BS were predictive of funniness and (low) aversiveness of humour in which the punchline is largely unpredictable and the incongruity can only partly be resolved or not resolved at all (i.e. nonsense humour). Disinhibition (DIS) was correlated with funniness and (low) aversiveness of sex humour. These correlations were especially high when the sexual content was embedded in the nonsense structure and when DIS was related to an index representing the content of humour only. Sensation seekers yielded lower aversiveness ratings to nonsense and sex humour whereas low disinhibition appeared to represent the tendency to find all kinds of humour aversive. Summary-The role of sensation seeking in the realm of enjoyment of humour was investigated. It was hypothesized that the personality trait sensation seeking (SS) is able to predict both, the structure and content of jokes and cartoons. Seven hypotheses were derived and tested for four samples comprising a total of 448 Ss. The hypotheses were related to both components in appreciation of humour, funniness (representing the positive feelings induced by humour) and aversiveness (representing the negative feelings). Experience Seeking (ES) and Boredom Susceptibility (BS) were predictive of low appreciation of humour in which the punchline is mildly surprising and the surprise can easily be overcome by resolving the incongruity (i.e. incongruity-resolution humour). Furthermore, ES and BS were predictive of funniness and (low) aversiveness of humour in which the punchline is largely unpredictable and the incongruity can only partly be resolved or not resolved at all (i.e. nonsense humour). Disinhibition (DIS) was correlated with funniness and (low) aversiveness of sex humour. These correlations were especially high when the sexual content was embedded in the nonsense structure and when DIS was related to an index representing the content of humour only. Sensation seekers yielded lower aversiveness ratings to nonsense and sex humour whereas low Disinhibition appeared to represent the tendency to find all kinds of humour aversive.

Humor appreciation and sensation seeking: Invariance of findings across culture and assessment instrument?

“…Three of the hypotheses referred to the structural features, and it was predicted that SS correlates positively with 3-WD NON f , negatively with INC-RES f , and negatively with NON a . This is based on the fact that nonsense humor offers more stimulation than incongruity-resolution humor in both the incongruity as well as in the resolution stage (Ruch 1988). Furthermore, it was postulated that the three hypotheses will be mainly connected with ES; i.e.…”

“…Several hypotheses linking SS and its components and appreciation of humor structure and content were put forward and tested in a series of studies involving participants from three European countries involving altogether about 600 participants (Forabosco and Ruch 1994;Ruch 1988). Three of the hypotheses referred to the structural features, and it was predicted that SS correlates positively with 3-WD NON f , negatively with INC-RES f , and negatively with NON a .…”

“…While the hypothesis is related to appreciation of content, it is usually tested with a total score for the subscale (to which also the structure variance contributes). Thus, Ruch (1988) suggested that for a more precise testing of the content-related hypothesis the structure variance needs to be removed (e.g. by computing partial correlations, difference scores, or by analyzing residuals).…”

“…conservatism and intolerance of ambiguity predict liking of humor that provides resolution of incongruity). Among the predictors of humor appreciation sensation seeking is assigned a unique role as it was shown to be predictive of appreciation of both content and structure (Ruch 1988). …”

Humorous TV ads and the 3WD: Evidence for generalizability of humour appreciation across media?

“…Existing results on the relationship of the sensation seeking components and the 3WD dimensions show that across samples, ES and NS were predictive of low appreciation of INC-RES and more funniness of NON. DIS was positively correlated with funniness of SEX stimuli and negatively with aversiveness towards this content category (see Carretero-Dios & Ruch 2010;Ruch 1988;Ruch & Malcherek 2009).…”