Sense of humor and styles of everyday humorous conduct

This study systematically examines the relations between the folk concept of ''sense of humor'' and the behavioral domain of everyday humorous conduct. Participants completed our Humorous Behavior e-sort Deck (HBQD) and a set of self-ratings contributing to an overall sense of humor index as well as personality measures including the California Psychological Inventory and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Our analyses revealed that overall sense of humor subsumed only a delimited and specific set of humor-related behaviors, in particular, socially constructive and competent forms of humorous conduct within interpersonal contexts. Results with the HBQD further indicated that overall sense of humor was positively associated with only two dimensions of humorous conduct (Socially Warm Versus Cold humorous style and Competent versus Inept humorous style) and unrelated to three others (Reflective versus Boorish, Earthy versus Repressed and Benign versus Mean-spirited humorous styles). Sense of humor was also found to be linked to socially desirable behaviors, but only those behaviors associated with social warmth and competence and not the entire range of socially desirable forms of humor. Analysis of the concept of ''sense of humor'' among subsamples of extraverts and introverts also revealed that although socially constructive uses of humor were important for both psychological types, humor competence figured more prominently in the introverts' notion of sense of humor. General personality characteristics were only minimally related to overall sense of humor, but revealed substantial and differentiated correlates to the styles of humorous conduct isolated by the HBQD. Overall, our findings argue strongly for a comprehensive approach to the assessment of individuals' understanding of humor and their styles of everyday humorous conduct.