Europe’s Journal of Psychology (PsychOpen)
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Humor Creation Ability and Mental Health: Are Funny People more Psychologically Healthy?
No full textSense of humor is a multidimensional personality construct. Some components may be more relevant to psychological health than others. While there has been a considerable amount of research on humor styles, humor creation ability (HCA) has remained relatively understudied in relation to well-being. This study employed two methods of assessing HCA (a cartoon captioning task and a task involving the generation of humorous responses to vignettes depicting everyday frustrating situations) to study associations with mental health variables. In addition to these humor creation performance tasks, 215 participants completed measures of four humor styles (Humor Styles Questionnaire) and psychological well-being (self-esteem, satisfaction with life, optimism, depression, anxiety, and stress). No significant correlations were found between either of the HCA tasks and any of the well-being measures. In contrast, humor styles were significantly correlated with well-being variables in ways consistent with previous research. In addition, the frustrating situation humor creation task was positively correlated with all four humor styles. These findings add support to the view that the ability to create humor is less relevant to mental health than are the ways people use humor in their daily lives. Implications for humor-based interventions are discussed
Humor Styles, Positive Personality and Health
No full textThe research examines the relationship of sense of humor differences and positive personality qualities with perceptions of stress and well-being. Positive and negative styles of self-directed humor were assumed to have opposing relationships with perceived stress, but the relationships were predicted to be mediated through positive personality qualities. University students provided data at two points in time separated by 8 weeks. Data from time 1 was used to verify the mediation of the relationship of sense of humor with perceived stress through the positive personality qualities. A more extensive theoretical model, using longitudinal data, was tested using the sense of humor measures from time 1 and positive personality qualities at time 2 to predict perceived stress and well-being at time 2. The results from the two analyses support the proposed mediator model in which the potential health benefits of a positive humor style and the potential damage to health associated with a negative humor style are mediated through the positive personality qualities. Thus, it would appear that good humor uses can support maintaining a stable positive personality style, which has positive associations with both psychological and physical well-being
Reactions to Humorous Comments and Implicit Theories of Humor Styles
No full textThe first two studies investigated reactions to several different types of humorous comments. Participants indicated they would be significantly more likely to continue interacting with a friend who used adaptive self-enhancing or affiliative humor rather than maladaptive aggressive or self-defeating humor; with the most detrimental effects being evident for aggressive humor. Adaptive humorous comments also made recipients feel significantly more positive and less negative about themselves. Humor styles were further investigated in terms of implicit theories about humor. Study 2 indicated that for the self, humor was perceived as being used most often with close friends, followed by family members, romantic partners, casual acquaintances, and least often with teachers. Participants also indicated that affiliative humor was used most frequently for each relationship, followed by self-enhancing humor, self-defeating humor, and then aggressive humor. Study 3 examined the perceived frequency of use for each humor style by others. Participants indicated affiliative humor to be the most frequently used humor style, regardless of the group being rated (people in general, people one knows, family and friends), self-enhancing humor to be the second most frequently used, and the two maladaptive humor styles as being used the least often. Different co-variation patterns for the four humor styles were also found. These findings were then discussed in terms of the strong differential impact of humor styles on the recipients of humorous comments; as well as the implicit theories of humor styles that are evident for self or others
The Sense of Humor Questionnaire: Conceptualization and Review of 40 Years of Findings in Empirical Research
No full textThis paper presents the background for developing the Sense of Humor Questionnaire (SHQ), including ideas that guided the ambition to design a tool for assessment of individual differences in sense of humor that was relatively neutral to variations in culture, content and technique. The test was first organized into three dimensions of items, based on face validity of content, with items oriented to openness to ambiguity, preference for humorous situations and emotional suggestibility. The first revision reduced items from twenty-seven to twenty-two. A second revision presented seven items on each of three dimensions that were theoretically founded on ideas of person-situation interactions. Research found that items on meta-message sensitivity (M-items) and liking of humorous situations (L-items) yielded fair alphas, whereas those on mirthful expression (E-items) did not. A review of research is presented based on scores from the M- and L-items of the SHQ. The SHQ-6 is a short form including three items from the M- and the L-dimensions, respectively. This scale has proven effective in research across a vide range of applications including the role of sense of humor in mood, coping, morbidity and mortality. An ultra-short version (SHQ-3) was included in a population health survey and provided descriptive evidence on the prevalence of sense of humor as well as the positive role for sense of humor in surviving into retirement. After age seventy this protective effect of sense of humor faded away
Etic and emic in contemporary psychological ethics
No full textGlobalization can be characterized as a process of worldwide integration through the movement of goods and capital, expansion of democratic institutions and human rights, access to information, and migration of large numbers of people. Psychology, too, has become more globalized in form and scope and in its standards for competent and ethical practice, as psychologists operate in ever more diverse and rapidly changing environments (Stevens & Gielen, 2007). Differences in countries’ ecological systems and cultural worldviews pose challenges for globalization and the globalizing of psychology, with increasing interconnectedness opposed by a movement favoring localization. How might the seemingly contradictory forces of globalization and localization (universalism vs. particularism) manifest with regard to implementation of the Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles for Psychologists (Ad Hoc Joint Committee, 2008)
A New Species of Trouble: Explorations in Disaster, Trauma and Community
No full textBy Kai Erikson Current scholarship is based on the review of books no older than one or two years. No matter the contests or even the importance of the material, this kind of ill-fashioned dispositions impinge on the advance of Science; they don’t allow for a broader re-discovery of other relevant projects which have been ignored for a considerable lapse of time. This is the case of the book authored by Kai Erikson, lecturer at Yale University. His valuable but contradictory work focuses on the exploration of trauma and social pathologies after-disasters. In a moment in which mankind is fraught with natural or made-man disasters, a project of this nature is fundamental in order for readers to understand the convergence of uncertainty with fear
Searching for the Sense of Humor: Stereotypes of Ourselves and Others
No full textResearchers have made consistent claims that people do not have an awareness of their humor competence and that the vast majority of people claim to have an above-average sense of humor. In this study, we examined whether people’s self reports of humor competence matched an independent measurement of sense of humor. We also investigated participants’ self-reported personality characteristics to see if they attributed to themselves the same characteristics that participants in earlier research attributed to hypothetical others that shared their level of humor competence. Participants completed the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (MSHS) and inventories based on the Big Five model of personality. The results revealed that participants had a realistic view of their humor competence. Their self-perceived humor competence correlated reliably with their scores on the MSHS. In addition, they characterized themselves on the personality inventories in the way that previous research participants evaluated others. Participants’ self-reports matched the stereotypes they had of imaginary others for extraversion and neuroticism, but not for agreeableness and openness. The findings suggest that people hold implicit theories of the link between humor and personality and apply it reliably both to themselves and to others. Results are discussed in terms of the need to study humor as multidimensional construct and in light of expectations of evolutionary theory
Zinc levels, cognitive and personality features in children with different socioeconomic backgrounds
No full textZinc is an essential nutrient having a complex biological role, including neuropsychological aspects. The study aimed to compare zinc level and psychic features in two pupils groups from different socioeconomic backgrounds. It also ascertains the relationship between zinc levels and aspects of intellectual development (attention, memory, intelligence) and personality features (psychoticism, neuroticism and extraversion). 103 pupils from an orphanage and 100 pupils from a regular state school were investigated. They were 11-15 years old and apparently healthy. Serum and erythrocyte zinc mean values were higher in the regular state school group (p=0.001 in both cases). The distribution of subjects regarding intellectual development was different in the two groups (p=0.000 in all cases) and personality features differed regarding psychoticism and neuroticism tendencies (p=0.019 and p=0.012 respectively). The U-test showed a significant difference between the subjects with deficient serum zinc and those with normal serum zinc as regarding attention (p=0.024) and intelligence (p=0.035) and between the subjects with deficient erythrocyte zinc and those with normal erythrocyte zinc as regards extraversion (p=0.011) in the group from the orphanage. Subjects with normal zinc status obtained higher (better) scores for psychological traits in all these situations. In conclusion, zinc levels and psychological features were different in the two groups of pupils. Our study pointed out a positive connection between zinc level and some aspects of intellectual developmental and personality features, emphasizing the importance of this trace element for the normal psychological status of children
ADD – Hidden Obstacles: Navigating the Detours
No full textBy Karin Windt Notable in the growing literature base on attentional difficulties, distractibility and impulsivity currently described and studied as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), is that studies focusing on the non-hyperactive subtype of the disorder or Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) are relatively lacking. While the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – Text – Revised, 4th edition includes the diagnostic category ADHD, Predominately Inattentive Type, much study is still needed of this disorder in terms of phenomenology, treatment and outcomes in individuals of all ages. In addition, nomenclature of this and other ADHD subtypes is likely to change in the next edition of this diagnostic manual, anticipated in 2012
In memoriam Prof. Dr. Horia D. Pitariu
No full textThe mentor of Romanian I/O Psychology, Prof. Horia D. Pitariu, passed away on March 25th, 2010 He would have been 71 years on April 9th, only 2 weeks later. And I cannot help but think that he would have been 81 in 10 years from now, and no one is able to assess what further creations he would have given to Romanian and international I/O psychology in these other years – it’s only sure that he would have. The professional and teacher Horia Pitariu is a loss to our whole community, but it is the man Horia Pitariu some of us will miss most