The purpose of this study was to reevaluate the multi-dimensional model of humor creation, which is comprised of three dimensions: humor motivation, humor cognition, and humor communication, using in vivo (natural setting) methodology. Thirty-four lecturers from colleges and universities completed a questionnaire. Additionally, 1530 students observed these lecturers and evaluated their sense of humor. Judges also evaluated the degree of humor in 750 video clips excerpted from 91 filmed lessons taught by the lecturers. Two path-analysis models substantiated the multidimensional model. A person's role – humor creator or humor receiver – was the strongest variable explaining the variance in humor creation. This study suggests that not only the humor creator, but also the humor receiver, contributes to variance in humor creation. In addition, the study expands the toolbox of humor measurement.
| [1] | Apter, M.J., (1991). A structural-phenomenology of play. In J. H. Kerr & Michael J. Apter (eds.), Adult play: A reversal theory approach, (13-29). Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger. PubMed |
| [2] | Apter, M.J., (Ed.). (2001). Motivational styles in everyday life: A guide to reversal theory. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.View Article |
| [3] | Bippus, A.M. (2003). Humor motives, qualities, and reactions in recalled conflict episodes. Western Journal of Communication, 67, 413-426.View Article |
| [4] | Bippus, A.M. & Dunbar, N.E. (2011, July). Partners’ agreement about humor frequency and style. Paper presented at the International Society for Humor Studies Conference, Boston. PubMed |
| [5] | Booth-Butterfield, S. & Booth-Butterfield. M. (1991). Individual differences in the communication of humorous messages. Southern Communication Journal, 56, 205-218. View Article |
| [6] | Brownell, Hiram H., Dee Michel, John Powelson & Howard Gardner. 1983. Surprise but not coherence: sensitivity to verbal humor in right-hemisphere patients. Brain Lang Usage, 18, 20-27.View Article |
| [7] | Cann, Arnie & Lawrence G. Calhoun. 2001. Perceived personality associations with differences in sense of humor: Stereotype of hypothetical others with high or low senses of humor. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 14, 117-130.View Article |
| [8] | Cline, T. W., Altsech, M. B., & Kellaris, J. J. (2003). When Does Humor Enhance Or Inhibit Ad Responses?: The Moderating Role of the Need for Humor. Journal of Advertising, 32, 31-46.View Article |
| [9] | Cook, N.D. (2002). Tone of voice and mind: The connections between intonation, emotion, cognition and consciousness. Amsterdam/Philadelpia: Cureton, E. E., John Benjamins Publishing.View Article |
| [10] | Deckers, L. (1993). On the validity of weight-judging paradigm for the study of humor. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 6, 43-56.View Article |
| [11] | Deckers, L. & Buttram R.T. (1990). Humor as a response to incongruities within or between schemata. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 3, 53-64.View Article |
| [12] | Dunbar, K. 2001. What scientific thinking reveals about the nature of cognition. In K. Crowley, C.D. Schunn, & Takeshi (Eds.). Designing for science: Implications from everyday classroom and professional settings, (115-140). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Elbaum. |
| [13] | Feingold, A. & Mazzella, R. (1991). Psychometric intelligence and verbal humor ability. Personality and Individual Differences, 12, 427-435.View Article |
| [14] | Feingold, A. & Mazzella, R. (1993). Preliminary validation of multidimensional model of wittiness. Journal of Personality, 61, 439-456. View Article |
| [15] | Freud, S. (1960) [1905]. Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. New York: Norton. |
| [16] | Frymier, A.B., Wanzer M.B. & Wojtaszczyk, A.M. (2007, November). Assessing student perceptions of inappropriate and appropriate teacher humor. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the National Communication Association, Chicago, Illinois, Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov ED = 499080. |
| [17] | Galinkin, M.B. (2000). The spontaneous humor production of four intellectually precoscious preschoolers: A window into the mind. Dissertation-Abstract International-Section A: Humanities and Social Science, 60, 2361. |
| [18] | Gardner, H., Ling, P.K., Flamm, L., & J. Silverman 1975. Comprehension and appreciation of humorous material following brain damage. Brain, 98, 399-412.View Article PubMed |
| [19] | Geles, L. (2006). How to read people according to their speech, voice, body and facial language. Translated from English by I. Miller &. Kineret Zmora-Bitan, Dvir Publishers. Hebrew |
| [20] | Gruner, C.R. (1978). Understanding laughter: The working of wit and humor. Chicago: Nelson-Hall. |
| [21] | Gruner, Charles R. (1997). The game of humor: A comprehensive theory of why we laugh. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. PubMed |
| [22] | Howrigan, D.P. & MacDonald, K.B. (2008). Humor as a mental fitness indicator Evolutionary Psychology, 6, 652-666. |
| [23] | Hu, L.T. & Bentler, P.M. (1995). Evaluating model fit. In R.H. Hoyle (Ed.), Structural equation modeling. Concepts, issues, and applications, 76-99. London: Sage. |
| [24] | Jackson, D. L. (2003). Revisiting sample size and number of parameter estimates: some support for the N:q hypothesis. Structural Equation Modeling, 10 (1), 128-141.View Article |
| [25] | Johnson, A. & McCord, D.M. (2010). Relating sense of humor to the Five Factor Theory personality domains and facets. American Journal of Psychological Research, 6, 32-40. |
| [26] | Jorgensen, J. (1996). The function of sarcastic irony in speech. Journal of Pragmatics, 26, 613-634.View Article |
| [27] | Kohler, G. & Ruch, W. (1996). Sources of variance in current sense of humor inventories: How much substance, how much method variance? Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 9, 363-397.View Article |
| [28] | Koestler, A. (1964). The art of creation. London: Hutchinson. |
| [29] | Kruger, A. (1996). The nature of humor in human nature: Cross-cultural commonalties. Counseling Psychology Quarterly, 9, 235-242.View Article |
| [30] | Latour, B. (2000). Pandora's hope: Essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. |
| [31] | Lefcourt, H.M. (2001). Humor-The psychology of living buoyantly. New York: Kluwer Academic, Plenum. |
| [32] | Long, D.L. & Graesser. A.C. (1988). Wit and humor in discourse processing. Discourse Processes, 11, 35-60.View Article |
| [33] | MacCallum, R.C., Browne, M.W. & Sugawara, H.M. (1996). Power analysis and determination of sample size for covariance structure modeling. Psychological Methods, 1, 130-149.View Article |
| [34] | Martin, R.A. (1998). Approaches to the sense of humor: An historical review. In W. Ruch (Ed.), The sense of humor, 15-60. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.View Article |
| [35] | Martin, R.A. (2007). The psychology of humor: An integrative approach. London: Elsevier Academic Press. |
| [36] | Martin, R.A. & Kuiper, N.A. (1999). Daily occurrence of laughter: Relationships with age, gender, and Type A personality. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 12, 355-384.View Article |
| [37] | McCrae, R.R. & John, O.P. (1992). An introduction to the five-factor model and its applications. Journal of Personality, 60, 175-215.View Article PubMed |
| [38] | Mehu, M. & Dunbar, R.I.M. (2008). Relationship between smiling and laughter in humans (homo sapiens): testing the power asymmetry hypothesis. Folia Primatol, 79, 269-280.View Article PubMed |
| [39] | Merolla, A.J. (2006). Decoding ability and humor production. Communication Quarterly, 54, 175-189.View Article |
| [40] | Meyers, J.C. (2000). Humor as a double-edged sword: Four functions of humor in communication. Communication Theory, 10, 310-331.View Article |
| [41] | Norrick, N.R. (1986). A frame-theoretical analysis of verbal humor. Semiotica, 60, 225-245.View Article |
| [42] | Norrick, N.R. (2003). Issues in conversational joking. Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 1333-1359.View Article |
| [43] | North, M.S., Todorov, A. & Osherson, D.N. (2010). Inferring the preferences of others from spontaneous, low-emotional facial expressions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Available online 25 June 2010.View Article |
| [44] | Provine, R.R. (2000). Laughter: A scientific investigation. New York: Viking. PubMed PubMed |
| [45] | Provine R.R. & Emmorey, K. (2006). Laughter among deaf signers. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 11, 403-409.View Article PubMed PubMed |
| [46] | Provine, R.R. & Fisher, K.R. (1989). Laughing, smiling, and talking: Relation to sleeping and social context in humans. Ethology, 83, 295-305.View Article |
| [47] | Ritchie, G. (2001). Current directions in computational humour. Artificial Intelligence Review, 16, 119-135.View Article |
| [48] | Robinson, D.T. & Smith-Lovin, L. (2001). Getting a laugh: Gender, status, and humor in task discussions. Social Forces, 80, 123-158.View Article |
| [49] | Saroglou, V. & Scariot, C. (2002). Humor styles questionnaire: Personality and educational correlates in Belgian high school and college students. European Journal of Personality, 16, 43-54.View Article |
| [50] | Scherer, K.R., Banse, R., & Walbott, H.G. (2001). Emotion inferences from vocal expression correlate across languages and cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32, 76-92.View Article |
| [51] | Suls, J.M. (1983). Cognitive processes in humor appreciation. In P.E. McGee & J.H. Goldstein (Eds.), Handbook of humor research, Vol. 1: Basic issues, 39-57. New York: Springer-Verlag. |
| [52] | Turner, R.G. (1980). Self-monitoring and humor production. Journal of Personality, 48, 163-172.View Article |
| [53] | Vernon, P.A., Martin, R.A., Schermer, J.A. & Mackie, A. (2008). A behavioral genetic investigation of humor styles and their correlations with the Big-5 personality dimensions. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 1116-1125.View Article |
| [54] | Wanzer, M., Booth-Butterfield, M. & Booth-Butterfield, S. (1995). The funny people: A source-orientation to the communication of humor. Communication Quarterly, 43, 142-153.View Article |
| [55] | Weston, R., & Gore, P.A. (2006). A brief guide to structural equation modeling. The Counseling Psychologist. 34, 719.View Article |
| [56] | Wyer, R.S. (2004). Social comprehension and judgment: The role of situation models, narratives, and implicit theories. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. |
| [57] | Zajdman, A. (1995). Humorous face-threatening acts: Humor as strategy. Journal of Pragmatics, 23, 325-339.View Article |
| [58] | Ziv, A. (1979). Sociometry of humor: Objectifying the subjective. Perceptual and Motor Skills. 49, 97-98.View Article |
| [59] | Ziv, A., & Gadish, O. (1990). The disinhibiting effects of humor: Aggressive and affective responses. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 3, 247-257.View Article |
| [60] | Zweyer, K., Velker, B. & Ruch, W. (2004). Do cheerfulness, exhilaration, and humor production moderate pain tolerance? A FACS study. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research. 17, 85-119. View Article |