The location of sense of humor within comprehensive personality spaces: An exploratory study

Hehl, Franz-Josef; Ruch, Willibald

doi:10.1016/0191-8869(85)90081-9

Cited by 47 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The finding of higher aversiveness ratings in the patient group compared to the control group is also in line with the findings by Hehl and Ruch [30] ; individuals scoring high on depression scales tend to respond to humor more negatively in general. The higher funniness ratings in the patient group for NON and INC-RES humor might at first appearance indicate a social desirability response bias.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Do Depressed Patients Lose Their Sense of Humor

Falkenberg

Jarmuzek²,

Bartels³

et al. 2010

Psychopathology

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Background: Humor is an important coping mechanism and can improve mood. However, it is unclear whether depressed patients are able to enjoy funny material, e.g. jokes, and make use of their sense of humor for coping with adverse situations. This study aims at investigating the influence of depression on various aspects of humor abilities such as sense of humor, appraisal of funny material and exhilaration. Sampling and Methods: Nineteen patients with major depression and 18 healthy controls were examined with standardized self-assessment questionnaires to study potential group differences in humor type preferences, state and trait cheerfulness, seriousness and bad mood as well as humor coping. Results: Patients and controls did not differ in their humor type preferences and the degree to which humorous stimuli were rated as being funny. The readiness to react to funny stimuli with exhilaration was significantly less pronounced in the patient group. The patients’ tendency to use humor as a coping strategy was significantly lower than in the control group. Conclusion: The susceptibility to humorous material seems to be unaffected by the disorder. Introducing means to promote humor behavior might therefore be beneficial to depressed patients. Study limitations were that only self-rating instruments were used and that the medication was inhomogeneous.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Do Depressed Patients Lose Their Sense of Humor

Falkenberg

Jarmuzek²,

Bartels³

et al. 2010

Psychopathology

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“…The correlation between funniness of nonsense and TAS found by Hehl and Ruch (1985) was replicated in one of the samples (see Table 1). TAS and the three aversiveness scales correlated consistently negatively but not throughout significant.…”

Section: R E S U L T Smentioning

confidence: 90%

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

Ruch

1988

Personality and Individual Differences

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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.

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“…FPI-R is a personality questionnaire with 138 forced choice (yes/no) items, which has been frequently used in German-speaking countries (Clayton et al, 1994;Hehl & Ruch, 1985;Merikangas et al, 1993;Thomas & Kirkcaldy, 1988). FPI-R measures the following 12 personality traits: life satisfaction (e.g., overall satisfaction, good mood, positive attitude), social orientation (e.g., altruistic, ready to help, emphatic), achievement orientation (e.g., achievement motivated, ambitious, competitive), inhibition (e.g., socially unsure, afraid of contact), excitability (e.g., sensitive, not controlled), aggressiveness (e.g., spontaneously aggressive, stubborn), stress (e.g., strained, overloaded, burned out), somatic complaints (e.g., health complaints), health concerns (e.g., looking after self, health conscious), frankness (e.g., self-criticism, nonconformity, unorthodox), extraversion (e.g., sociable, impulsive), and emotionality (e.g., emotionally unstable, fearful).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%