Sensation seeking, social attitudes and humor appreciation in Italy

Abstract

The present study examines the role of sensation seeking, conservatism, toughmindedness, sex, and age in appreciation of humor in Italian adults. A sample of 100 females and 48 males responded to Italian adaptations of the 3 WD humor test, Form V of the sensation seeking scale, and the C-Scale. Funniness of incongruity-resolution humor correlated positively with conservatism, female sex, and age, and negatively with all components of sensation seeking. Funniness of nonsense humor correlated positively with experience seeking, general sensation seeking, and male sex and negatively with conservatism. Funniness of sexual content in humor correlated positively with male sex, disinhibition, boredom susceptibility, and toughmindedness. Aversiveness of humor yielded less significant correlations. Conservatism, sensation seeking, and age were potent predictors of structure preference. The investigation of indices of appreciation of sexual content in humor confirmed that structure and content have to be separated both theoretically and empirically in appreciation of sexual humor. Finally, the attitudes held by individuals appreciating a particular type of humor were explored. The results allow the conclusion that appreciation of humor is embedded into a similar nomological network in Italy than in other countries studied. Summary-The present study examines the role of sensation seeking, conservatism, toughmindedness, sex, and age in appreciation of humor in Italian adults. A sample of 100 females and 48 males responded to Italian adaptations of the 3 WD humor test (Ruch 1983), Form V of the sensation seeking scale (Zuckerman, 1979), and the C-Scale (Wilson & Patterson, 1970). Funniness of incongruity-resolution humor correlated positively with conservatism, female sex, and age, and negatively with all components of sensation seeking. Funniness of nonsense humor correlated positively with experience seeking, general sensation seeking, and male sex and negatively with conservatism. Funniness of sexual content in humor correlated positively with male sex, disinhibition, boredom susceptibility, and toughmindedness. Aversiveness of humor yielded less significant correlations. Conservatism, sensation seeking, and age were potent predictors of structure preference. The investigation of indices of appreciation of sexual content in humor confirmed that structure and content have to be separated both theoretically and empirically in appreciation of sexual humor. Finally, the attitudes held by individuals appreciating a particular type of humor were explored. The results allow the conclusion that appreciation of humor appreciation is embedded into a similar nomological network in Italy than in other countries studied.Humor appreciation in Italy, -2 -

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

“…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 .…”

A cross-cultural study of humor appreciation: Italy and Germany

“…Finally, potential differences in humor appreciation between the two nations will be explored äs well. A parallel article deals with the third Step of the program, the replication of the nomological network (Forabosco and Ruch 1994).…”

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

“…Sometimes the three subcategories of "pure" sexual humour (PURE SEX), incongruity-resolution based sexual humour (INC-RES SEX) and nonsense based sexual humour (NON SEX) are used in addition to the general sexual humour category. Further indices have been derived and were validated in several studies (Forabosco & Ruch 1994;Ruch & Hehl 1988;Ruch et al 1990). Moreover, Carretero-Dios and Ruch (2010) delivered empirical support for the measurement invariance of the 3WD across cultures.…”