The Chinese ambivalence to humor: Views from undergraduates in Hong Kong and China

Abstract

This paper proposes that Chinese people have traditionally been ambivalent about humor in the following three manners: (1) they tend to value humor but consider themselves to lack humor; (2) being humorous is not associated with being an orthodox Chinese; (3) humor is important but not for everyone. The paper also proposes that the Chinese ambivalence toward humor is largely due to an appreciation-despising complex about humor that is deep-rooted in Chinese culture. To verify this, this author conducted a survey study among a sample of 337 undergraduates in Hong Kong and Huhehot. Results show that (1) participants all rated highly on importance of humor but low on perception of self humor; (2) male students considered themselves to be more humorous than female students; (3) the top ten important characteristics for humor are fundamentally different from the top ten characteristics important for Chinese personality; (4) perception of humor is more positive than that of the Chinese personality. The paper concludes with a discussion of the psycho-social implications of the present findings on studies and enhancement of humor in Chinese society as well on some thoughts on further directions of research.

Humor Styles in Indian University Students

“…This is in line with previous studies that males felt more competent of humor use than females [11,24]. Moreover, valuation of humor was positively correlated with adaptive humor and self-esteem.…”

How Humor Styles Affect Self-Compassion and Life Satisfaction: A Study in Hong Kong

“…Previous studies show that use of affiliative and self-enhancing humor would lead to lower depression and anxiety, higher positive affect, and higher self-esteem; whereas use of selfdefeating humor would lead to increased depression and anxiety, greater negative affect, and lower self-esteem [19][20][21][22][23]. Besides, self-enhancing humor was found to be positively associated with the ability to manage emotions whereas the ability to perceive emotions accurately was negatively related to aggressive and self-defeating humor [24].…”

Chinese students’ perceptions of their creativity and their perceptions of Western students’ creativity

“…In particular, the functionality of creativity would need to be considered for such a purpose as "thinking outside of the box" (Baldwin, 2010), "infusing creative and critical thinking into the curriculum" (Fairweather & Cramond, 2010), and "appreciating humor" and "being independent" (Yue, 2011). These aspects might need to be considered and encouraged.…”

“…Fairweather and Cramond (2010) stated that infusing creative and critical thinking into the curriculum would be an avenue to release students' creativity. Yue (2011) advocated that creativity and humor were very closely associated, thus he encouraged Chinese students to appreciate humor against the rigid social system which discourages independence and creativity.…”

“…There is little research that applies the Four C Model of Creativity in cross cultural creativity research, even though there is a wealth of literature (Feldman, 1999;Gagné, 2005;Gardner, 1983;Guilford, 1967;Niu & Sternberg, 2002;Plucker, 2003;Renzulli, 1978;Sternberg, 2005;Taylor, 1984;Terman, 1916;Torrance, 1966;Yue, 2002Yue, , 2011 investigating creativity. This paper has applied the Four C Model of Creativity to a typical Eastern culture, China.…”