The Wit: A Personality Analysis

Clabby, Jr. John F.

doi:10.1207/s15327752jpa4403_15

Cited by 23 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Our finding that cognitive ability was appreciably correlated with humor cognition and humor production is consistent with past findings that (a) humor cognition is related to cognitive ability (e.g., Feingold, 1983;Feingold & Mazzella, 1991), {b) mental ability tests of creativity are related to humor production (Clabby, 1980;Fabrizi & Pollio, 1987;Treadwell, 1970;Ziv, 1984), and (c) cognitive ability is correlated with joke comprehension (Feingold & Mazzella, 1991;Nias, 1981;Pinderhuges i& Zigler, 1985).…”

Section: Comparisons With Other Studiessupporting

confidence: 91%

Preliminary Validation of a Multidimensional Model of Wittiness

Feingold

Mazzella

1993

Journal of Personality

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Past research on wittiness has found that (a) self-ratings and peer ratings of wittiness are highly correlated, but neither type of rating is appreciably correlated with tneasured hutnor production, and {b) sociability is correlated with both types of wittitiess ratings hut not with hutnor productioti. An interpretation of these fitidings was provided by a tnultiditnensional model of wittiness that conceptualizes wittiness as a factorially cotnplex ditnension shaped by three cotnponent traits: hutnor tnotivation, humor cognition, and hutnor cotntnunication. We conducted three correlational studies to test the hypotheses, derived from the theory, that (a) wittiness ratings are influenced by hutnor tnotivation and hutnor cotntnunication, whereas hutnor production taps only hutnor cognition, and {b) sociability is positively correlated with hutnor motivation and humor communication but unrelated to humor cognition. Results were consistent across studies and generally confirmed the predictions.

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Section: Comparisons With Other Studiessupporting

confidence: 91%

Preliminary Validation of a Multidimensional Model of Wittiness

Feingold

Mazzella

1993

Journal of Personality

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“…The 3 WD ( Witz-Dimensionen ) humor test (Ruch 1983) was developed for the reliable and valid assessment of this model of humor appreciation. As regards performance tests , humor creation behavior typically was assessed by means of caption removed cartoons (Babad 1974;Brodzinsky and Rubien 1976;Clabby 1980;Koppel and Sechrest 1970) or still pictures (Derks 1987;Derks and Hervas 1988;Nevo 1984;Nevo, Aharonson, and Klingman 1993; for a review, see O'Quin and Derks in press). Subjects were asked to produce funny captions.…”

Section: Multitrait-multimethods Matrix (Mtmm) Analysis Of Sense Of Humormentioning

confidence: 99%

Sources of variance in current sense of humor inventories: How much substance, how much method variance?

Köhler¹,

Ruch²

1996

Humr

109

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The present study investigates the relationship of self-report inventories of "sense of humor" and behavioral measures of humor as well as their location in the Eysenckian PEN system. 110 male and female adults in the ages from 17 to 83 years answered the following inventories: SHRQ (Martin and Lefcourt 1984), SHQZ (Ziv 1981), SHQ-3 revised (Svebak 1993), CHS (Martin and Lefcourt 1983), MSHS (Thorson and Powell 1993), HIS (Bell, McGhee, and Duffey 1986), 3 WD-K (Ruch 1983), CPPT (Köhler and Ruch 1993), TDS (Murgatroyd, Rushton, Apter, and Ray 1978), STCI-T (Ruch, Freiss, andKöhler 1993), and EPQ-R (Eysenck, Eysenck, and Barrett 1985). Reliability of the humor scales is examined and convergent and discriminant validity of homologous scales of humor appreciation and humor creation is determined. Behavioral measures and self-report instruments yield only meager correlations. While humor appreciation and humor creation form distinct traits in the behavioral measures, they can not be validly discriminated in the self-reports. Factor analysis of self-report inventories yields that the sense of humor is composed of the two orthogonal dimensions of cheerfulness and seriousness.Extraversion is predictive of cheerfulness, low seriousness, and quantity of humor production. Psychoticism is associated with low seriousness, wit and quality of humor production. Finally, emotional stability correlates with cheerfulness. All in all, the general state of the art in the assessment of the sense of humor and its components appears to be far from being satisfactory. Sources of variance -2 -

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“…Babad (1974), Brodzinsky and Rubien (1976), Clabby (1980), and Treadwell (1970) all found significant positive correlations between scores on "creativity tests" (of various kinds) and the levels of wit either produced or appreciated by their subjects. Fabrizi and Pollio (1987), Mollica (1984), and Schoel and Busse (1971) found no significant positive correlation between measures of creativity and those of humor (although Fabrizi and Pollio obtained conflicting results in the scores of a second set of subjects).…”

Section: Comedy and Creativitymentioning

confidence: 98%

Humor and sexual selection

Storey

2003

Hum Nat

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Recently Geoffrey Miller has suggested that humor evolved through sexual selection as a signal of "creativity," which in turn implies youthfulness, intelligence, and adaptive unpredictability. Drawing upon available empirical studies, I argue that the evidence for a link between humor and creativity is weak and ambiguous. I also find only tenuous support for Miller's assumption that the attractiveness of the "sense of humor" is to be found in the wittiness of its possessor, since those who use the phrase often seem to associate it with the affects of relatively mirthless "bonding" laughter. Humor, I conclude, may have evolved as an instrument for achieving broad social adhesiveness and for facilitating the individual's maneuverability within the group, but that it evolved through sexual selection has yet to be convincingly demonstrated.

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The Wit: A Personality Analysis

Cited by 23 publications

References 7 publications

Preliminary Validation of a Multidimensional Model of Wittiness

Preliminary Validation of a Multidimensional Model of Wittiness

Sources of variance in current sense of humor inventories: How much substance, how much method variance?

Humor and sexual selection

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