published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Inspection of the data obtained by Deckers and Kizer (1974) in exploring the incongruity hypothesis of humor brings to attention what appears to be discrepancies with the incongruity hypothesis of humor. Shifts in weight of equal physical proportion produced differential degrees of expressed humor. The incongruity hypothesis would predict humor to be a function of the size of the incongruity rather than the direction. In the present study, it was hypothesized that these differences in expressed humor were the result of incongruous shifts of unequal psychological distance. A total of 120 subjects were assigned to one of three ranges of expectation with half shifting tc a heavy weight and the others to a light weight. As predicted, shifts of equal psychological distance produced equal degrees of humor expression and shifts of unequal psychological distance produced differing degrees of humor expression. An interaction (p<.002) between the weight of the Standard and the weight of the Critical Comparison affected humor expression. The incongruity hypothesis was upheld.

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M.A. (Counselling Psychology) / A correlation between academic achievement and academic self-concept has been well established during past studies. Academic self-concept may be influenced by the experience of academic stress, especially academic expectancy stress which is stress derived from the expectations of the self and significant others. With debilitating effects that academic expectancy stress may have on students, interventions need to be put in place to assist students in coping with the workload and also to protect their academic self-concept. The use of humour in an educational setting has been shown to be successful in assisting students in performing well academically. Different humour styles may, however, play a role in the relationship between academic expectancy stress and academic self-concept. This study focused on humour styles (self-enhancing, affiliative, self-defeating and aggressive humour styles) as moderators in the relationship between academic expectancy stress and academic self-concept. The sample of this study consisted of 976 undergraduate students from the University of Johannesburg. The Humour Styles Questionnaire, Academic Expectations Stress Inventory and the Academic Self-concept Scale were used to gather data. A correlational analysis was initially done to determine the relationships between the variables and to check for multicollinearity. Next, a moderated multiple regression analysis was done to determine if the four humour styles moderate the relationship between academic expectancy stress and academic self-concept ...

In the psychological literature little has been written about the use of humor in therapy. Especially lacking is empirical data regarding the topic. In the current study I investigated the relationship between a personality characteristic, sense of humor, and the amount of humor used by a therapist in a mock therapy session. A 2 x 3 factorial design was implemented with participant's sense of humor and the amount of humor used by the therapist being the independent variables. I hypothesized that a moderate amount of humor would result in more positive ratings of the therapist than either the low or high humor conditions. I also hypothesized that participants who had a greater sense of humor would rate the therapist more positively. Results revealed a partial confirmation of the hypotheses. The greatest amount of humor used by the therapist resulted in decreased ratings of the therapist for a measure of appropriateness of humor and a measure of warmth and empathy. Also, the therapist who used the most humor was rated significantly less rigid and dull than the therapist who used no humor. Suggestions forfuture research in the area are given. / Department of Psychological Science

The purpose of this study was to test the relationship among sense of humor and three constructs: stress, humor as a coping mechanism, and communication apprehension. The participants were 352 midwestern university students. Respondents answered Likert type scales regarding the constructs.Pearson's correlations were computed to test the hypotheses and research questions. The results show significant, though not strong, relationships among all variables regarding sense of humor: stress, humor as a coping mechanism, and communication apprehension. The relationships between sense of humor and the two constructs, stress and communication apprehension, are unexpectedly positive. There are nonsignificant results between communication apprehension and stress.Since the results between sense of humor and stress are contrary to previous research and this is an original test between sense of humor and communication apprehension,further research is indicated. Future reliability and validity checks on the instrument are necessary. / Department of Speech Communication

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The purpose of this study was to determine if using a humor program affected hospital oncology and osteology patients' recuperation times or use of pain medications. A quasi-experimental, retrospective study was designed. Thirty pairs of patients were identified from existing records at a hospital that has a comprehensive humor program. One patient in each pair had used the humor program, the other had not. Chi-square analysis on the demographic variables of race, marital status, smoking status and sex showed no significant association between humor usage and all variables except sex. No correlation was found between patient age and humor program use. Independent t-tests (a = 0.05) were performed on the duration of stay for treatment and control populations, for the oncology and the osteology groups. No statistically significant differences were found in either population. Two independent t-tests (a = 0.05) were performed to analyze pain medication usage. The first examined the differences in the mean percent of p.r.n. pain medications used. Neither population showed statistically significant differences. The second t-tests examined coded scores for changes in pain medication orders. Again, no statistically significant differences were found in either population. / Department of Physiology and Health Science

The present study examined the relationship of sense of humor to affect and coping with humor ability. The participants were 147 Introductory Psychology students from Ball State University. Participants first took the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire (SHRQ: Martin & Lefcourt, 1984), then observed 1 of 3 videos (i.e., sad, neutral, or humorous), which was then followed by the Coping with Humor Scale (CHS: Martin & Lefcourt, 1983) and the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL: Zuckerman & Lubin, 1965). The results indicate that sense of humor is inversely related to depression and hostility regardless of video condition but not with anxiety. Low sense of humor participants were influenced greatly as a function of the video condition but the high sense of humor paticipants were not. High sense of humor paticipants used humor to cope more than the low sense of humor participants in the sad video condition. The findings indicate that sense of humor is strongly related to depression, that depression levels can be reduced with a humor stimulus, and that those with a high sense of humor are more likely to use humor to cope with problems. / Department of Psychological Science

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