Humor and personality: Psychometric properties of the Italian version of the comic styles markers and its relationships with the big five personality traits

Competitive Latent Structures for the Comic Style Markers: Developing a Psychometrically Sound Short Version Using Spanish and US American Samples

The Comic Style Markers (CSM) is a questionnaire that allows a fine-grained description of how people differ in the way they display humor in their daily lives. It includes 48 statements capturing eight interrelated, yet distinct comic styles: fun, irony, wit, sarcasm, benevolent humor, satire, nonsense humor, and cynicism. Despite the independent conceptual roots of these humorous domains, the analysis of the CSM scales' latent structure shows that their empirical distinction needs to be improved. Using the information derived from a competitive latent approach, including confirmatory factor analysis, bifactor analysis, and exploratory structural equation modeling, we proposed and validated a shorter 24-item version of the CSM in a large sample of 925 Spanish individuals (SP-CSM-24). This scale-refinement improved the psychometric differentiation of the eight comic styles without undermining the good internal consistency and the temporal stability of the CSM scores. Strong invariance was held for gender and age groups, and partial scalar invariance for countries also emerged using a sample of 318 U.S. American adults. Structural equation modeling also corroborated a convincing test-criterion validity for the SP-CSM-24, with dispositional expressions of benevolent humor (positively) and cynicism (negatively) outperforming other comic styles in accounting for individuals' well-being.

Understanding the Association Between Humor and Emotional Distress: The Role of Light and Dark Humor in Predicting Depression, Anxiety, and Stress

Despite increasing interest in the relationship between humor and psychological distress, investigations have failed to focus on specific categories of humor and negative mental conditions. A sample of 686 Italian participants (187 men and 499 women), aged between 20 and 76 years, completed an online survey, data from which was used to investigate the relationship between eight comic styles, depression, anxiety, and stress. Findings from the multiple linear regression demonstrate benign humor as a protective factor of all three variables considered, while irony was positively associated with anxiety and stress. Wit was a protective factor associated with anxiety, while sarcasm was positively related to depression. No significant correlations emerged between the other variables considered. These findings highlight how specific categories are linked to varying dimensions of emotional distress, which are discussed with reference to the extant literature.

Humor and Attachment: Exploring the Relationships between Insecure Attachment and the Comic Styles

In this study, the relationship between individuals' insecure attachment styles and eight comic styles was explored. A sample of 636 Italian adults (206 males, 428 females, 2 non-binary), aged 18 to 81 years (M = 41.44; DS = 13.44) completed an online survey to investigate the relationship between insecure attachment styles, namely anxious and avoidant, and the eight comic styles, clustered into lighter style (fun, benevolent humor, wit, nonsense) and darker style (irony, satire, sarcasm, cynicism). The findings of this research indicated the lighter and darker styles were differently related to the anxious and avoidant styles. The anxious attachment was negatively related to both benevolent humor and wit and positively with irony. The avoidant style was positively associated with nonsense and sarcasm, while no other relationship emerged. This research indicated that attachment orientations are associated with individual differences in the detailed differentiation of humor-related styles.

#funnypoliticians: How Do Political Figures Use Humor on Twitter?

Social media has increased its popularity among politicians. If they wish to succeed in the political arena, politicians need to present themselves to citizens as attractive individuals through these platforms. This study examined how politicians present themselves using humor on Twitter. We analyzed tweets (n = 6,443) from 27 politicians to determine their use of different types of humor and its relationship with age, gender, or political position. We also present changes in humor use in relation to the publication of a political survey in which politicians who were part of this study were evaluated. Results showed politicians' use of humor is relatively low in frequency and primarily aggressive. Politicians who are male, younger, and in the opposition tend to use more aggressive humor. We discuss the results considering the role of aggressive humor in political messages. Based on the analyses of tweets and the publication of the survey, we propose as a hypothesis for future studies that politicians' use of humor on Twitter could be affected by the publication of these kinds of surveys.

Humor and Personality: Temperament and Character Have Different Roles

This study aimed to test how sense of humor is dependent on the complex and dynamic interactions between the emotional (temperament) and sociocognitive (character) components of personality. Specifically, we examined the relationship of temperament and/or character profiles to overall humor potential and comic style. In total, 665 adults responded to Cloninger’s Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) and the Comic Style Markers. Temperament profiles were associated with overall humor potential but not comic styles. People with positive development of all three character traits had the highest levels of fun, benevolent humor, and wit. Sense of humor depended on integrated profiles of both temperament and character. We conclude that temperament energizes overall humor potential while character shapes the comic styles. This study advances research by directing focus to the causal within-person psychobiological processes that underlie sense of humor.