Benevolent and Corrective Humor, Life Satisfaction, and Broad Humor Dimensions: Extending the Nomological Network of the BenCor Across 25 Countries

Heintz, Sonja; Ruch, Willibald; Aykan, Simge; Brdar, Ingrid; Brzozowska, Dorota; Carretero‐Dios, Hugo; Chen, Hsueh Chih; Chłopicki, Władysław; Choi, Incheol; Dionigi, Alberto; Ďurka, Róbert; Ford, Thomas E.; Güsewell, Angelika; Isler, Robert B.; Ivanova, Alyona; Laineste, Liisi; Lajčiaková, Petra; Lau, Chloe; Lee, Minha; Măda, Stanca; Martin‐Krumm, Charles; Mendiburo-Seguel, Andrés; Migiwa, Ifu; Mustafi, Nailya; Oshio, Atsushi; Platt, Tracey; Proyer, René T.; Quiroga-Garza, Angélica; Ramis, TamilSelvan; Săftoiu, Răzvan; Saklofske, Donald H.; Shcherbakova, Olga; Slezáčková, Alena; Stalikas, Anastassios; Stokenberga, Ieva; Torres‐Marín, Jorge; Wong, Peter S. O.

doi:10.1007/s10902-019-00185-9

Cited by 18 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Fourth, subsequent studies should seek to replicate these findings controlling for relevant aspects during a lockdown period, such as household size or types of housing. Furthermore, the small-to-moderate effect sizes observed (see Gignac & Szodorai, 2016 ) lie within the range of humor-related individual differences in other studies (Martin, 2007 ) and can be seen as a realistic view of the relationships between humor and wellbeing (see, for example, Heintz et al, 2020 ). Regarding the potential practical implications of these findings, we argue that the implementation of well-established humor-based interventions aimed at minimizing the negative emotions unleashed by COVID-19 can be relevant for individuals most susceptible/vulnerable to the psychological impact of this pandemic and for professionals with a higher exposure to its tragic consequences (e.g., health professionals).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Humor Styles, Perceived Threat, Funniness of COVID-19 Memes, and Affective Mood in the Early Stages of COVID-19 Lockdown

et al. 2022

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Existing psychological research has long considered humor as a useful strategy for individuals in coping with adverse circumstances and life stressors. However, empirical studies are called for to better understand the role of humor in facing the COVID-19 pandemic. In a community sample of 527 Spanish adults, we investigated the associations between humor styles, perceived threat from COVID-19, funniness of COVID-19 memes, and individuals’ affective mood. Data were collected during the third week of lockdown in Spain (from 26 to 31 March 2020). Our results suggest that intrapsychic humor styles were associated with better coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. Structural equation modelling showed that self-enhancing and aggressive humor styles were related to perceiving COVID-19 as less psychologically threatening, which, in turn, was associated with a greater perceived funniness of COVID-19 memes, thus predicting higher levels of happiness. Interestingly, the opposite pattern of connections was found for self-defeating humor. These findings suggest that humor styles aimed at boosting one’s own self, irrespective of their potentially lighter or darker nature, may contribute to alleviating adverse psychological consequences arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Humor Styles, Perceived Threat, Funniness of COVID-19 Memes, and Affective Mood in the Early Stages of COVID-19 Lockdown

et al. 2022

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“…Other variables were assessed (comic styles, cheerfulness, humor factors) that are not relevant for the present study. Samples 1 and 2 partially overlap with a previously published study (Heintz et al, 2020); however, none of the present findings have been reported previously.…”

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 75%

“…For example, the English-speaking sample was comprised of young college students, while the German-speaking sample was drawn both from both university students and the general population. Additionally, participants in both samples had different cultural backgrounds, which might have influenced the results (e.g., Heintz et al, 2020; Schermer & Kfrerer, 2020). Thus, future studies should disentangle these potentially different sources of variance by recruiting representative or comparable samples from different languages.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and Validation of the Short Version of the Sense of Humor Scale (SHS-S)

Heintz

Ruch

Lau

et al. 2022

European Journal of Psychological Assessment

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Abstract. Humor training has become increasingly popular to enhance the “sense of humor” and well-being and to decrease depressive symptoms. Despite the wide applications of these training programs, the assessment of training efficacy has attracted less attention. The Sense of Humor Scale (SHS; McGhee, 1996 , 1999 ) recently was expanded to a long version (SHS-L) to enhance its internal consistency ( Ruch & Heintz, 2018 ). At the same time, there is also the need for a brief version of this scale. The purpose of the present study is to develop a short version (SHS-S) in both German- and English-speaking countries, test its psychometric properties (internal consistency, factorial, construct, and criterion validity), and assess measurement invariance across gender and the two languages. Using three samples (Sample 1: 570 English-speakers, Sample 2: 353 German-speakers, Sample 3: 94 other-reports), the 29-item SHS-S was developed and yielded promising internal consistency and validity scores for the six humor skill factors of enjoyment of humor, laughter, verbal humor, finding humor in everyday life, laughing at yourself, and humor under stress. Overall, the SHS-S is an internally consistent, valid, and economic tool for future research and group-based applications, while the SHS-L seems especially useful in individual applications.

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“…In this way, it seeks to determine differences regarding the tendency to engage in benevolent humor and corrective humor. Different studies support its structure, reliability, and validity in several countries (Dionigi et al, 2021;Heintz et al, 2018Heintz et al, , 2020Mendiburo-Seguel & Heintz, 2020). It uses a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 on a 7-point Likert disagree-agree response scale (1 = ''Totally disagree'' and 7 = ''Totally agree'').…”

Section: Instrumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laughing at Politicians to Make Justice: The Moral Component of Humor in Appraising Politicians

et al. 2023

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A recent line of research in the field of humor has proposed the existence of two morally based comic styles. One of them, corrective humor (or satire), seeks to ridicule and mock to establish justice. In contrast, benevolent humor attempts to correct deviances using humor in a friendly manner understanding human imperfections. Considering their focus on correcting what is perceived as morally wrong, in this study we seek to examine how these styles can affect the evaluation that is made of politicians after being exposed to humor that attacks them. To achieve this, we conducted an experiment in which three groups had to evaluate two politicians after being exposed to different stimuli (memes that ridiculed them, images with the same content without its humorous content, or no exposure; total n = 160). Our results demonstrate that it is corrective humor and not benevolent humor that influences the evaluation and that it does so positively; people with higher scores in corrective humor have a better evaluation of politicians after seeing memes with anti-politician content. We discuss possible explanations for this finding and implications for political psychology and humor studies.

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Benevolent and Corrective Humor, Life Satisfaction, and Broad Humor Dimensions: Extending the Nomological Network of the BenCor Across 25 Countries

Cited by 18 publications

References 43 publications

Humor Styles, Perceived Threat, Funniness of COVID-19 Memes, and Affective Mood in the Early Stages of COVID-19 Lockdown

Humor Styles, Perceived Threat, Funniness of COVID-19 Memes, and Affective Mood in the Early Stages of COVID-19 Lockdown

Development and Validation of the Short Version of the Sense of Humor Scale (SHS-S)

Laughing at Politicians to Make Justice: The Moral Component of Humor in Appraising Politicians

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