Previous studies on humor production have mainly focused on general interpersonal dilemmas, emphasizing humor’s role in relieving stress or facilitating interactions. However, few have examined how individuals use humor when they themselves are the offenders in interpersonal situations. This study focused on interpersonal offense situations, exploring the types and skills of humorous responses adults produce and how these relate to gender and humor traits (humor styles and sense of humor). Using the Interpersonal Offense Humor Response Generation Assignment, 222 Taiwanese adults participated and completed the Humor Styles Questionnaire and the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale. Results showed that males tended to produce more aggressive humor and preferred imitation and double-meaning skills, whereas females more often used displacement skills to reframe the situation and ease tension. Individuals with a higher sense of humor generated more and varied humorous responses, especially affiliative humor. Among humor styles, affiliative and self-enhancing humor were positively associated with the quantity and diversity of humorous responses. In addition, specific patterns emerged between humor types and skills: affiliative and self-enhancing humor were frequently combined with displacement, aggressive humor with reverse contrast, and self-defeating humor with exaggeration. Overall, this study highlights how humor production in offense situations is shaped by gender differences and personal humor dispositions, extending previous self-report–based findings on humor tendencies.

Authors:
Meng-Ning Tsai, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
Hsueh-Chih Chen, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Meng-Ning Tsai is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU)

See this presentation on the full schedule – Tuesday Schedule

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