The study was designed to provide empirical data investigating children’s level of sense of humor with the severity of the hassles reported by the children. The sample included 82 children, 50 boys and 32 girls, ranging in age from 8-11 years, and representing the third, fourth, and fifth grades. Both male and female children participated in the study. The Hassles Scale for Elementary School Children (HSESC), a 22-item checklist, was administered to the children to assess the frequency of selected important hassles and the severity of the hassles. Subjects indicated those items that occurred in the past week and rated the severity of all the hassles on a 5-point Likert type response scale. The Children's Self-Rating of Humor (CSRH) questionnaire, a 20-item questionnaire, was completed by the children to evaluate children's level of sense of humor. Subjects rated each question on a 5-point Likert type response scale. Subjects were administered the scales individually and in small groups. To provide a more in-depth understanding of children’s use of humor, a subsample of 12 children, six boys and six girls, randomly selected to represent the three grade levels and high and low humor scores participated in a follow-up interview. The results of this study did not provide support for the contention that children with a high sense of humor would report hassles as being less upsetting as compared with children with a low sense of humor that would report hassles as being more upsetting. Further results seemed to indicate that the use of humor in stressful situations depended more on the child’s perception of the severity of the hassles rather than on the child's perceived level of sense of humor. The less upsetting the stressful situation was to the child the more likely the child would use humor and the more effective humor was in dealing with the stressful situation. More importantly, this study indicated that when humor was used it was not specific to the stressful situation but rather as a distraction, a more general coping mechanism. A recommendation for future research should include the need for a better understanding of how children produce humor in stressful situations. Also, future research should focus on investigating the differences in the effects of different types of humor on stressful situations and the timing of using humor on whether it is an immediate or delayed response to a stressful situation. Future studies should focus on the cognitive processes of children’s humor when applied to stressful situations. / Ph. D.

Humor’s effect on the audience’s relationship to the object, or speaker, of humor has often been neglected, and creating a framework by which scholars can examine how humor works to alter the relationship between audience and other fills this gap. Additionally, the definition of science fiction relies on the existence of a cognitively estranging other and under this definition, humor has not been thoroughly studied. This thesis attempts to explain how humor affects audiences cognitively, utilizing Hegel’s theory of self and other, and then applies this theoretical explanation to the field of science fiction and examines its effects. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of sexually aggressive behavior through the examination of humor appreciation among male undergraduates. As compared to nonaggressive males, sexually aggressive males showed a significantly greater appreciation for humor which negatively stereotyped females, portrayed prejudicial views of rape-and rape victims, and contained content related to male sex drive and virility. Differences in humor appreciation were also found for males with high sex drive. Additional findings included correlations between aggressive drive and sexually aggressive status, as well as between sex drive and likelihood to rape.

Theories and research in the field of disparaging humor were reviewed, and sexist humor was studied as representative of this field. The relationships of sex-role identification, self-esteem, and attitudes toward women to the judgement of humor in sexist material were investigated. The Scale of Sexist Humor, developed for this investigation, utilized a set of 50 cartoons and jokes devised to approximate overlapping standard curves on the dimensions of sexist content and humor. Subjects were 57 males and 70 female undergraduate students. Each subject performed a forced Q^-sort of the cartoons and jokes, thereby rating them on a five-point scale of funniness, then completed instruments designed to evaluate sex-role identification (the Personal Attributes Questionnaire), self-esteem (The Texas Social Behavior Inventory), and attitudes toward women (the Attitudes Toward Women Scale), A demographic information sheet was also obtained from each subject to utilize in ancillary analysis.

A nonexperimental descriptive study was conducted to determine the interrelatedness among coping strategies, humor and burnout among nursing education faculty. The conceptual framework of this study was based on the constructs of coping strategies and humor which were conceptualized as having a direct relationship to burnout. Areview of the literature concerning coping, humor and burnout supported this proposition and emphasized the need for empirical testing. Coping Humor Scale. Wavs of Coping Questionnaire and Maslach Burnout Inventory were the instruments used to measure the constructs. Academic history and demographic data sheets were also used. Hie instruments were mailed to 285 nursing faculty teaching in programs of nursing in the Dallas /Fort Worth, Texas area. The return rate for the mailing was 70.07%. Burnout among nursing education faculty showed a low degree of emotional exhaustion (54.8%), a low degree of depersonalization (84.7% and a low degree of personal accomplishment (60.7%). The findings did not reveal a high or low degree of burnout but rather a pattern of burnout suggestive of a different stage. Humor as a coping mechanism during stressful events was not frequently used. The highest proportion of nursing education faculty used distancing (46.53%) as a coping strategy. The second strategy used was planful problem solving (11.3%) with escape-avoidance used the least (3.34%). Multiple regression was used to test the research questions related to the predictor variables of coping, academic history and demographic data as they relate to each criterion variable of burnout. The use coping strategies (including humor) to predict various stages of burnout revealed only weak variable predictors. Academic history and demographic were also weak predictors for burnout.

Celebrities such as Halle Berry, Dave Chappelle, Kathy Griffin, and Don Imus have recently evoked public ire for making what some people have seen as tasteless jokes. Their notorious humorous communication shares two notable qualities: the discourse was mass mediated and the “jokes” were all premised on stereotypes. This two-part dissertation addresses the complicated subject of understanding the meanings viewers co-create with humorous mediated communication that is premised on racial stereotypes. I focus on Chappelle’s Show as my primary text of analysis, but the findings here have applicability to the wider genre of humorous mediated communication that is premised on stereotypes. In the first part of the dissertation I survey humor theory and humor criticism, noting weaknesses in the ways that communication scholars have previously studied humorous mediated texts. I then suggest that humor scholarship can be improved through two principal methods: 1. humor scholars of various academic disciplines need to use a unified set of terms that refer to the humor stimulus, humor motivation, and the possible effects of the humor, and 2. critics of humorous mediated texts need to approach them as a unique genre, with a critical lens that accounts for the polysemy inherent in many humorous texts. In the next part of the dissertation, I model a multi-methodological approach to mining the mélange of meanings in Chappelle’s Show. My in-depth case study of racial stereotype-based humor in Chappelle’s Show incorporates textual analysis of a dozen sketches, qualitative analysis of viewer opinions about the show, and a quantitative analysis of viewing behaviors as well as the relationship between viewing the show and prejudice. This multi-methodological approach helps better mine the polysemic meanings of the text because it explores the spectrum of the communication model from stimulus to receiver. I conclude that Chappelle’s Show can both encourage and reduce prejudice. While inconclusive conclusions are an anomaly in media criticism, I advocate the pursuit of such conclusions in humor criticism. Stereotype-based mediated comedic texts demand an exploration of their multiple meanings, not a definitive statement about how they should be interpreted or how they affect an audience. / text

The purpose of this thesis is to reveal some of the behavioral characteristics of a specific type of laughter that I term "feigned laughter," and how it is used in the context of face-threatening-utterances (FTUs), or utterances that threaten the face needs of an individual.

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by Law Ning Chi. / Added t.p. in Chinese and English. / Thesis (M.A.Ed.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references. / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.i / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / LIST OF TABLES --- p.iii / INTRODUCTION / Background of the study --- p.1 / Purpose of the study --- p.5 / Concept of humor --- p.6 / Concept of burnout --- p.8 / REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE / Humor / Some of the early humor theories --- p.11 / Humor in education --- p.14 / Measure of sense of humor --- p.20 / Burnout / Prevalence of teacher burnout --- p.22 / Symptoms of teacher burnout --- p.23 / Sources of stress and burnout --- p.25 / Measure of burnout --- p.27 / Humor and Burnout --- p.29 / METHOD / Measures --- p.33 / Hypothesis --- p.35 / Pilot Study --- p.36 / Main Study --- p.36 / RESULTS / Reliability of Instruments --- p.40 / General Comparisons --- p.40 / Relation between Humor and Burnout --- p.46 / Prediction of Burnout by Humor --- p.54 / DISCUSSION / Teacher Burnout Phenomenon in Hong Kong --- p.64 / "Teachers' Background Characteristics, Humor, and Burnout" --- p.64 / Humor and Burnout --- p.66 / Recommendations for Future Research --- p.68 / REFERENCES / APPENDICES