Sun Cuicui, Shen Jielin, Lin Jiajia, Zhang Tingyu, Li Junyi
School of Psychology, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China.
Psych J. 2025 Feb;14(1):28-36. doi: 10.1002/pchj.799. Epub 2024 Sep 16.
The purpose of this study was to examine how individual openness to experience influences humor production and to explore the underlying psychological mechanisms of this relationship, specifically focusing on cognitive flexibility (the cognitive path) and ambiguity tolerance (the motivational path). To comprehensively evaluate individuals' humor production ability, Study 1 employed a subjective self-report questionnaire on sense of humor, while Study 2 used an objective humor dialogue generation task. The results of Study 1 indicated that openness to experience did not directly impact sense of humor; instead, the relationship between openness to experience and sense of humor was fully mediated by cognitive flexibility. In Study 2, findings showed that openness to experience positively predicted humor production ability, with ambiguity tolerance partially mediating this effect. These results suggest that individuals with higher levels of openness to experience have a greater capacity for generating humorous perspectives. Moreover, the study identified two psychological pathways-cognition and motivation-in the process of generating funny ideas. The specific pathway influenced by the measurement method used for humor production further highlights the importance of both cognitive flexibility and ambiguity tolerance in understanding how openness to experience contributes to humor production.
本研究的目的是考察个体的经验开放性如何影响幽默生成，并探索这种关系背后的心理机制，特别关注认知灵活性（认知路径）和模糊容忍度（动机路径）。为了全面评估个体的幽默生成能力，研究1采用了一份关于幽默感的主观自我报告问卷，而研究2则使用了一项客观的幽默对话生成任务。研究1的结果表明，经验开放性并没有直接影响幽默感；相反，经验开放性与幽默感之间的关系完全由认知灵活性介导。在研究2中，结果表明经验开放性正向预测幽默生成能力，模糊容忍度部分介导了这一效应。这些结果表明，经验开放性水平较高的个体具有更强的生成幽默观点的能力。此外，该研究在生成有趣想法的过程中确定了两条心理路径——认知和动机。用于幽默生成的测量方法所影响的具体路径进一步凸显了认知灵活性和模糊容忍度在理解经验开放性如何促进幽默生成方面的重要性。
