The Tears of a Clown: Understanding Comedy Writers

Kaufman, Scott Barry; Kozbelt, Aaron

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511627101.007

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 57 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Ruch and Heintz (2019) commented that while O’Quin and Derks (1997) reported positive correlations between humor production and creativity, the review did not control for covariates such as positive affect, intelligence, and optimism. Humor creation and creativity require both quality and novelty (Kaufman & Kozbelt, 2009). Thus, the third study addresses this gap in the literature through assessing whether the temperamental basis of sense of humor and comic styles are associated with more creative and humorous responses.…”

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is humor temperament associated with being creative, original, and funny? A tale of three studies.

Lau¹,

Li²,

Chiesi³

et al. 2024

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although humor production and creativity may be interrelated, no study has examined whether the temperamental basis of humor promotes creativity. The present study investigates whether humor temperament is associated with creativity. Study 1 (N = 620) investigates the associations between humor temperament (i.e., cheerfulness, seriousness, bad mood), self-report creativity, and judges’ ratings of verbal creativity (i.e., wit, originality, humor). Self-report findings revealed cheerfulness (r = .49, Bayes factor [BF]10 > 100) and seriousness (r = .24, BF10 > 100) were positively associated with self/everyday creativity, whereas bad mood (r = –.36, BF10 > 100) was negatively associated with self/everyday creativity. Cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood were not associated with judges’ ratings of originality, wit, and humor in verbal creativity. Study 2 (N = 439) evaluated the associations between humor temperament and judges’ ratings of how well individuals coped with daily stressors. Cheerfulness was associated with judges’ ratings of effective stress management (r = .23, BF10 > 100) and conflict management (r = .19, BF10 >100), whereas bad mood was negatively associated with effective stress management (r = –.29, BF10 >100). Study 3 (N = 234) examined the associations between humor temperament, comic styles (e.g., fun, nonsense, satire), and judges’ ratings of creativity (i.e., originality, wit, humor) in a humor production task. Whereas humor temperament traits were not associated with creativity, comic styles “humor” and “nonsense” were associated with creativity. Results inform the impact of cheerfulness on increasing cognitive flexibility in generating innovation in everyday creativity.

show abstract

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is humor temperament associated with being creative, original, and funny? A tale of three studies.

Lau¹,

Li²,

Chiesi³

et al. 2024

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Online daters use humor in their profile texts as a strategy to appear unique and more creative [ 17 ]. Positive correlations have been found between perceptions of creativity and sense of humor (e.g., [ 26 , 27 , 31 , 32 ]). It has been suggested that since humor and creativity share many features, such as playfulness and risk taking, humor can even be seen as a subset of creativity [ 33 ].…”

Section: Perceived Originality In Online Dating Profile Textsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Originality in online dating profile texts: How does perceived originality affect impression formation and what makes a text original?

Zanden

Schouten²,

Mos³

et al. 2022

PLoS ONE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper investigates origins and consequences of perceived profile text originality. The first goal was to examine whether the perceived originality of authentic online dating profile texts affects online daters’ perceptions of attractiveness, and whether perceptions of (less) desired partner personality traits mediate this effect. Results showed the positive impact of perceived profile text originality on impression formation: text originality positively affects perceptions of intelligence and sense of humor, which improve impressions of attractiveness and boost dating intention. The second goal was to explore what profile text features increase perceptions of profile text originality. Results revealed profile texts which were stylistically original (e.g., include metaphors) and contained more and concrete self-disclosure statements were considered more original, explaining almost half of the variance in originality scores. Taken together, our results suggest that perceived originality in profile texts is manifested in both meaning and form, and is a balancing act between novelty and appropriateness.

show abstract

The Psychology of Creative Writing

Forgeard

Kaufman

2013

A Companion to Creative Writing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

21Approximately 3 billion books are sold each year in the United States, and more than a quarter of the population reports reading more than 15 books per year (Ipsos 1). The work of creative writers -including novelists, poets, playwrights, screenwriters, and sitcom writers -has a significant impact on our lives. Not surprisingly, creative writers elicit much curiosity from their audience. Freud had already noted that "We laymen have always been intensely curious to know . . . from what source that strange being, the creative writer, draws his material, and how he manages to make such an impression on us with it, and to arouse in us emotions of which, perhaps, we had not even thought ourselves capable" (Freud 36).To further stimulate our curiosity, Freud noted that when asked, writers often give no explanation, or no good explanation, for their creative behavior -shrouding the creative writing process in an intriguing veil of mystery. The seemingly mysterious nature of creative writing may at least partially explain the relative lack of scientific attention this central human activity has garnered from psychologists. As noted by Sternberg, "creativity has been relatively little studied in psychology, creative writing even less so" (xv). Given the importance of writing in our daily lives, why haven't psychologists attempted to pierce the mystery and to understand the processes underlying creative writing? Creative writing is a complex, multifaceted endeavor that can only be adequately apprehended using an interdisciplinary perspective. Researchers may have therefore been discouraged by the necessity of taking into account insights from other fields, and by the fact that creative writing may be harder to study (because A Companion to Creative Writing, First Edition. Edited by Graeme Harper.

show abstract

The Tears of a Clown: Understanding Comedy Writers

Cited by 4 publications

References 57 publications

Is humor temperament associated with being creative, original, and funny? A tale of three studies.

Is humor temperament associated with being creative, original, and funny? A tale of three studies.

Originality in online dating profile texts: How does perceived originality affect impression formation and what makes a text original?

The Psychology of Creative Writing

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About