Sex differences in humor production ability: A meta-analysis

Humor Styles in Healthcare Professionals: A Correlational Study

Using humor as a caregiving strategy can help professionals perceive daily and work-related events from a more optimistic and light-hearted perspective. The main objective of this study was to analyze humor styles among health care professionals. A cross-sectional and correlational design was employed. Data were collected using the Humor Styles Questionnaire, which measures four humor styles: affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating humor. Health care professionals scored higher in positive humor than negative humor. Age exhibited a negative correlation with positive humor. Significant differences were observed between marital status and affiliative and self-enhancing humor, professional category and hospital unit with aggressive humor, shift work and self-enhancing humor, and type of contract and experience with affiliative humor. Health care professionals employ various humor styles based on their social and work contexts. It is crucial for health care professionals to receive training in the use of positive humor to consciously avoid humor styles that can hinder well-being.

Electroencephalography (EEG) Evidence for the Psychological Processes of Humor Generation: A Comparison Perspective on Humor and Creativity

(1) Background: Humor stands out as the most dynamic and innovative aspect of human intelligence. Drawing on the cognitive parallels between humor and creativity, this study explored the EEG alpha frequency band activity patterns during humor generation by comparing the process of generating humorous and creative ideas. (2) Methods: Thirty-six participants were randomly assigned to either the humor generation group or the creative generation group, and the dependent variable was the neural oscillation in both low-frequency and high-frequency alpha during the early, middle, and late stages of both humor and creative generation. (3) Results: In the early stages, both humor and creative generation exhibited significantly higher power in low-frequency alpha and high-frequency alpha in the temporal region compared to the middle and late stages. In the middle and late stages, the low-frequency alpha oscillation in the frontal region for humor generation was significantly higher than that for creative generation. (4) Conclusions: Humor and creative generation share similar neural activation patterns in the early stages, involving the activation and retrieval of long-term memory information based on contextual cues. The differences between the two primarily manifest in the middle and late stages, where the selection of humorous ideas requires inhibiting not only irrelevant or ordinary ideas, akin to creative generation but also novel yet non-humorous ideas. This study sheds light on the neurocognitive mechanisms of humor generation and provides insights into the cognitive parallels and distinctions between humor generation and creative generation.

Funny Date, Creative Mate? Unpacking the Effect of Humor on Romantic Attraction

Extensive research shows that people are attracted to funny dating partners, with several competing, sometimes conflicting, explanations for why humor is strongly desired in a mate. The present research asks whether humor is interpreted as a reliable, hard-to-fake indicator of some other, valuable trait. Across six experiments, we manipulated humor in a hypothetical date, online dating profile, or video profile and asked which of several traits statistically linked to humor are reliably inferred about funny partners. Humor-specifically partners producing humor-consistently led to higher ratings of partner creative ingenuity. This effect was not moderated by gender, and mediated desirability for different types of partnership. Results further revealed stronger preference for a first-date activity requiring creative ingenuity with a funny versus non-funny partner. Humor may signal that a potential partner is skilled at creative problem-solving, which may be particularly important when considering various forms of partnership.

Motivated Social Affordance Judgments of Humor Styles

Despite the ingratiating function of humor, not all humor is created equal. Individual differences in humor styles may inform perceptions of whether prospective group members afford affiliative opportunities, with affiliative humor being regarded as especially beneficial. In this research, we tasked participants with evaluating social targets espousing different humor styles to identify these targets' abilities satisfy and impede both affiliative and social goals (Study 1) while determining if individual differences in these motives foster heightened preferences (Study 2). Affiliative and self-enhancing humor afforded the most affiliative and self-protection opportunities, whereas aggressive humor afforded more threats. Additionally, higher need to belong heightened preferences for affiliative humor. Results provide evidence for assortative sociality in the identification of optimum group members based on humor displays.

The Impact of Culture and Social Distance on Humor Appreciation, Sharing, and Production

Building on the benign violation theory and self-construal theory, we conducted four studies to examine how culture and social distance would influence humor appreciation, sharing, and production. Study 1 found that Chinese participants appreciated and intended to share a joke involving distant others more than that involving close others. They also generated funnier titles for a joke involving distant others than close others. Studies 2a and 2b compared Chinese and Americans using various types of jokes, replicating the social distance effect among Chinese but finding little effect of social distance among Americans. In Study 3, interdependence-primed participants generated more humorous titles for a joke involving distant than close others, whereas independence-primed participants showed no effect of social distance. The research provides further support to the benign violation theory from a cultural perspective and has important implications for cross-cultural communications.

The motive of competition but not courtship positively correlates with self-reported use of aggressive humor: A critical test of the contests- vs. mate-choice hypotheses

Introduction

The use of aggressive humor (e.g., teasing, schadenfreude, and sarcasm) is a spiteful behavior because it inflicts costs on both others and the self. To explain the existence of this spiteful behavior, two hypotheses derived from sexual selection theory-namely Mate-Choice and Contests-posit that the use of aggressive humor helps one attract mates or repel competitors. Both hypotheses have merit, but extant data are unable to discriminate between them.

Methods

We critically tested those two hypotheses with a survey study that measured 509 U.S. MTurkers' self-reported tendencies to use aggressive (and other types of) humor, the motives to engage in competition and courtship, and the Dark-Triad personality traits. The final sample was N = 439.

Results

We found that (1) the motive of competition but not courtship positively and significantly correlated with the self-reported tendency to use aggressive humor. (2) Subclinical psychopathy-a personality trait positively associated with competition-mediated the correlation between the motive of competition and self-reported use of aggressive humor. These results were held in both female and male respondents.

Discussion

Our findings favored the Contests Hypothesis and helped reveal the psychological mechanism that generates the use of aggressive humor as a form of verbal aggression and spiteful behavior.

The sexual selection of creativity: A nomological approach

Cultural innovations, such as tools and other technical articles useful for survival, imply that creativity is an outcome of evolution. However, the existence of purely ornamental items obfuscates the functional value of creativity. What is the functional or adaptive value of aesthetic and intellectual ornaments? Recent evidence shows a connection between ornamental creativity, an individual's attractiveness, and their reproductive success. However, this association is not sufficient for establishing that creativity in humans evolved by sexual selection. In this critical review, we synthesize findings from many disciplines about the mechanisms, ontogeny, phylogeny, and the function of creativity in sexual selection. Existing research indicates that creativity has the characteristics expected of a trait evolved by sexual selection: genetic basis, sexual dimorphism, wider variety in males, influence of sex hormones, dysfunctional expressions, an advantage in mating in humans and other animals, and psychological modules adapted to mating contexts. Future studies should investigate mixed findings in the existing literature, such as creativity not being found particularly attractive in a non-WEIRD society. Moreover, we identified remaining knowledge gaps and recommend that further research should be undertaken in the following areas: sexual and reproductive correlates of creativity in non-WEIRD societies, relationship between androgens, development, and creative expression, as well as the impact of ornamental, technical and everyday creativity on attractiveness. Evolutionary research should analyze whether being an evolved signal of genetic quality is the only way in which creativity becomes sexually selected and therefore passed on from generation to generation. This review has gone a long way toward integrating and enhancing our understanding of ornamental creativity as a possible sexual selected psychological trait.

Dynamic cognitive processes of humor generation: activation and inhibition of information

Humor is a lubricant of interpersonal relationships and is regarded as an important quality of individual creativity. Previous studies have mainly focused on passive humor appreciation and comprehension but ignored active humor generation, especially the cognitive process of humor generation. Based on the hypothesis that humor generation is similar to creative cognition, this study used humorous two-part allegorical sayings to explore whether humor generation involves the cognitive processes of the activation and inhibition of information. The experiment manipulated the duration (5/10 s) of the presentation of the first part of humorous two-part allegorical sayings, which are called "yinyu," and the type of subthreshold probe words (humorous probe words/usual probe words). The results showed that the interaction between the duration of the presentation of yinyu and the type of subthreshold probe words was significant; the correct number of humorous probe words reported was significantly lower than that of usual probe words when the yinyu was presented for 5 s, which reflected the widespread activation of information. The correct number of humorous probe words reported was significantly higher than that of usual probe words when the yinyu was presented for 10 s, which suggested the inhibition of non-humorous information. This study revealed the dynamic cognitive processes of humor generation and verified possible cognitive similarities between humor generation and creative cognition.

Partner Accuracy in Humor Perception and Associations With Relationship Satisfaction

Do people accurately perceive their partner's humor style? The current study extends work on partner perception by examining accuracy and bias in people's perception of their partners' humor styles-a subjective, evaluative, and important factor in relationship satisfaction. We recruited 337 heterosexual couples (N = 674 individuals, M_age = 65.71 years, SD = 12.107) who completed self-reports and partner-reports of humor styles. Truth and Bias modeling revealed that, although bias varied across humor styles, participants consistently demonstrated accuracy in their judgments of their partner's humor styles. Bias forces were moderated by relationship satisfaction such that assumed similarity biases were stronger among those in particularly satisfying relationships.

Testing the associations between dispositions toward ridicule and being laughed at and romantic jealousy in couples: An APIM analysis

OBJECTIVE

How people deal with ridicule and being laughed at plays a role in romantic life. We extend the research on the fear of being laughed at (gelotophobia), joy in being laughed at (gelotophilia), and joy in laughing at others (katagelasticism) by testing their associations with romantic jealousy and its consequences for relationship satisfaction (RS).

METHOD

Our study is based on Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) analyses of self and partner ratings of the laughter-related dispositions using data from 228 opposite-sex couples. APIM mediation analyses estimated indirect effects of jealousy on the associations between the dispositions and RS.

RESULTS

As expected, gelotophobia-related positively to jealousy in actors, whereas gelotophilia and katagelasticism showed differential relationships. The analysis of partner effects showed that the actual expressions in the dispositions are unrelated to jealousy but perceived expressions account robustly for experiences of jealousy beyond self-ratings. Finally, jealousy had indirect effects on the associations between the dispositions and RS.

CONCLUSION

These findings contribute to our understanding of the role of dealing with ridicule and laughter in romantic life. We embed the findings into the literature, discuss practical implications, and derive future directions to expand the knowledge on gelotophobia, gelotophilia, and katagelasticism in romantic life.

Time to Renovate the Humor Styles Questionnaire? An Item Response Theory Analysis of the HSQ

The Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) is one of the most popular self-report scales in humor research. The present research conducted a forward-looking psychometric analysis grounded in Rasch and item response theory models, which have not been applied to the HSQ thus far. Regarding strengths, the analyses found very good evidence for reliability and dimensionality and essentially zero gender-based differential item functioning, indicating no gender bias in the items. Regarding opportunities for future development, the analyses suggested that (1) the seven-point rating scale performs poorly relative to a five-point scale; (2) the affiliative subscale is far too easy to endorse and much easier than the other subscales; (3) the four subscales show problematic variation in their readability and proportion of reverse-scored items; and (4) a handful of items with poor discrimination and high local dependence are easy targets for scale revision. Taken together, the findings suggest that the HSQ, as it nears the two-decade mark, has many strengths but would benefit from light remodeling.