Interactions Between Personality Traits and Humor Styles

Abstract

The goal of this study was to examine whether there is a relationship between personality traits and humor styles. Although previous research has been conducted on humor and its relationship to personality traits, there is a noticeable gap in studies using appropriate methodologies for measuring humor styles. Prior studies conducted on interactions between personality traits and humor have focused on the likelihood to laugh or appreciation for humor instead of examining the elements that make up one’s personal sense of humor (Thorson & Powell, 1993). The present study attempted to measure sense of humor and used more theoretically appropriate measures to assess humor styles, as opposed to humor appreciation or laughter. This study utilized an online questionnaire containing personality inventories, the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ), and the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (MSHS). A correlational analysis identified relationships between personality traits and humor styles. It was hypothesized that there would be significant interactions between various humor styles and personality traits; in particular, it was expected that narcissism and aggressive humor would have a significant relationship. Per the results, aggressive humor is positively correlated with narcissism. Multiple other significant relationships also exist between personality traits and humor styles. For example, aggressive humor is also negatively correlated with empathy. Self-defeating humor is positively correlated with Machiavellianism and psychopathy and negatively correlated with self-esteem, conscientiousness, and extraversion. Affiliative humor is negatively correlated with extraversion. Self-enhancing humor is positively correlated with empathy, extraversion, and high MSHS scores.