Halfpenny Caitlin Charlotte, James Lucy Amelia
School of Psychology, Keele University, Keele, United Kingdom.
Eur J Psychol. 2020 Mar 3;16(1):148-166. doi: 10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934. eCollection 2020 Mar.
Humor is a complex phenomenon. For one individual a joke may be perceived as comical, yet for another, the same joke may be deemed completely inappropriate. The appropriate use of humor is perhaps dependent on how a humorist relates to, understands and can empathize with their audience. Thus, the present research aimed to determine whether empathy is related to junior-school children's use of different humor styles. It has been proposed that four styles of humor exist, two of which are thought to be adaptive (affiliative and self-enhancing) and two of which are thought to be maladaptive (aggressive and self-defeating). However, research exploring the role of humor styles in younger children's development has been limited. To investigate this the Humor Styles Questionnaire for young children (HSQ-Y) and the Thinking and Feeling Questionnaire were administered to 214 UK children aged 9-11 years old. Correlational analyses revealed that self-enhancing humor is associated with cognitive empathy, affective empathy and sympathy, affiliative humor is positively associated with cognitive empathy specifically and aggressive humor is negatively associated with affective empathy and sympathy. Possible explanations for these associations are explored, with a consideration of the direction for future research in this predominantly unexplored field of study.
幽默是一种复杂的现象。对一个人来说，一个笑话可能被认为很滑稽，但对另一个人来说，同一个笑话可能被认为完全不合适。幽默的恰当运用可能取决于幽默者与听众的关系、理解程度以及能否产生共情。因此，本研究旨在确定共情是否与小学生使用不同幽默风格有关。有人提出存在四种幽默风格，其中两种被认为是适应性的（亲和型和自我提升型），两种被认为是适应不良的（攻击型和自我挫败型）。然而，探索幽默风格在年幼儿童发展中作用的研究一直有限。为了对此进行调查，我们对214名9至11岁的英国儿童进行了幼儿幽默风格问卷（HSQ-Y）和思维与情感问卷的测试。相关分析表明，自我提升型幽默与认知共情、情感共情和同情心相关，亲和型幽默尤其与认知共情呈正相关，攻击型幽默与情感共情和同情心呈负相关。我们探讨了这些关联的可能解释，并考虑了在这个主要未被探索的研究领域未来的研究方向。
