Conservatism as a predictor of responses to humour-I: A comparison of four scales

Four conservatism questionnaires (C-Scale; Wilson and Patterson, 1970; POI; Eysenck, 1976; MK; Cloetta, 1983; 16PF-Q1; Schneewind, Schröder and Cattell, 1983) were compared with regard to their ability to predict responses to humour based on the incongruity-resolution structure. We further investigated, whether a prediction of humour responses could be improved by assessing variables like toughmindedness, capitalism, rigidity and intolerance of ambiguity. The results showed that the conservatism scales overlap in their prediction of funniness of incongruity-resolution jokes, sex jokes and rejection of nonsense jokes. Correlations with the other humour scales were specific for certain conservatism questionnaires. A canonical correlation analysis relating the humour scores and the conservatism scales yielded three significant correlations (rc1 = 0.65, rc2 = 0.51 and rc3 = 0.44). Capitalism was also related to appreciation of incongruity-resolution jokes and of sex jokes. The previously found effects of intolerance of ambiguity could be replicated. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(86)90102-9 Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-77526 Originally published at: Ruch, Willibald; Hehl, Franz-Josef (1986). Conservatism as a predictor of responses to humour-I: A comparison of four scales. Personality and Individual Differences, 7(1):1-14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(86)90102-9 This manuscript was published as: Ruch, W. & Hehl, F.-J. (1986). Conservatism as a predictor of responses to humour-I. A comparison of four scales. Personality and Individual Differences, 7, 1-14. CONSERVATISM AS A PREDICTOR OF RESPONSES TO HUMOUR-I. A COMPARISON OF FOUR SCALES. WILLIBALD RUCH AND FRANZ-JOSEF HEHL Department of Experimental Biological Psychology, University of Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1., D-4000 Düsseldorf, F.R.G. SummaryFour conservatism questionnaires (C-Scale; Wilson and Patterson, 1970; POI; Eysenck, 1976; MK; Cloetta, 1983; 16PF-Q1, Schneewind, Schröder and Cattell, 1983) were compared with regard to their ability to predict responses to humour based on the incongruityresolution structure. We further investigated, whether a prediction of humour responses could be improved by assessing variables like toughmindedness, capitalism, rigidity and intolerance of ambiguity. The results showed that the conservatism scales overlap in their prediction of funniness of incongruity-resolution jokes, sex jokes and rejection of nonsense jokes. Correlations with the other humour scales were specific for certain conservatism questionnaires. A canonical correlation analysis relating the humour scores and the conservatism scales yielded three significant correlations (rc1=0.65, rc2=0.51 and rc3=0.44). Capitalism was also related to appreciation of incongruity-resolution jokes and of sex jokes. The previously found effects of intolerance of ambiguity could be replicated. I N T R O D U C T I O N Despite nearly a century of psychological research on humour the phenomenon still has not revealed its last secrets. About 80 yr ago, in 1905, Freud's book Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten was originally published. Although not being the first, his ideas about the comic, jokes and humour dominated investigations of psychologists and psychiatrists until recently. However, his model also was criticized and much experimental evidence has been gathered since then favouring alternative views and models. Nowadays humour research has overcome Freudian thinking and a variety of new ideas have been adopted and empirically tested. But despite the increased interest in experimental research on humour during the last two decades more questions have arisen than have been answered. We still do not know the basic mechanisms underlying humour and laughter. One question has attracted psychologists since the beginning of humour research. What are the variables that determine the type of humour one acquires? What are the causes for interindividual differences in sense of humour? The hypothesis that an individual's humour and his personality are interwoven was set up very early. Among other variables (e.g. extraversion, intelligence, aggressiveness, anxiety) conservatism was assumed to be affiliated with preference for certain types of humour. The categories of humour that were expected to be correlated with conservatism have changed during the years. Murray's (1934) early study revealed a correlation between a ConservativeRadical (C-R) Sentiments Test and disparagement jokes. About 40 yr later a set of investigations was carried out by Wilson and coworkers (e.g. Wilson, 1973b; Wilson and Brazendale, 1973; Wilson and Patterson, 1969). Wilson and Patterson (1969) postulated a dimension 'formal vs libidinal' jokes and predicted that conservatives (with 'chronically mobilized inhibitions') will show a preference for the former type of jokes (e.g. puns, incongruity) while disliking the latter (sick and sex jokes). Later research focused on risque sex jokes and led to the conclusion that Conservatism & Humor-I, 2 "...subjects scoring high on anti-hedonism (are) showing a particular dislike for jokes referring to intercourse and sex organs but significantly appreciating jokes about urination and pregnancy relative to Ss scoring low on anti-hedonism." (Wilson, 1973b, p. 181) Wilson's results got support from Thomas, Shea and Rigby (1971) using a non-reactive technique but not from Askenasy (1976). In a study by Chapman and Gadfield (1976) an analysis of single correlations showed that there are positive as well as negative and nonsignificant relationships between sex jokes of different themes and conservatism. Recently, another hypothesis has been set up, relating conservatism to the structure of jokes rather than to their content (Ruch, 1981, 1984; Ruch and Hehl, 1983d). Conservatism is thought to be the general factor determining appreciation of one type of joke, which is different in content but homogeneous in structure. The new hypothesis stresses the similarity between the mode of procession of jokes, other humorous material and Wilson's (1973a) 'dynamic theory of conservatism'. A similar mechanism, i.e. a characteristic tendency to cope with uncertainty (in sense of information theory), underlies conservative attitude as well as appreciation of humour. The new hypothesis is based on the differential psychological implications inherent in current models of humour. Conservatism is theoretically linked with parameters in humour regarded as fundamental by many humour theorists. We will first discuss some models of humour and then present our own approach to humour, linking various categories of humour to conservatism and to related variables. M O D E L S O F H U M O U R Many variables are discussed in contemporary humour research. Researchers agree that all stimuli we consider funny have incongruent elements. Incongruity is defined as "... a conflict between what is expected and what actually occurs in a joke" (Shultz, 1976, pp. 12-13). Some investigators (Nerhardt, 1976; Rothbart, 1973) postulate that incongruity alone is sufficient to produce humour. Others claim that the incongruity also has to be solved in order to understand or 'get' the joke (Shultz, 1972; Suls, 1972). One model became known as the 'two-stage' model or 'incongruity-resolution' model of humour. According to this model all the information in the joke body is congruent up to the point where the punchline has to be processed. The punchline is unpredictable and in contrast to the joke body. This incongruity can be solved by finding a 'cognitive rule' (Suls, 1972) which makes the joke ending predictable by the joke body. Which of the two models, the 'incongruity-resolution' model or the model based on incongruity alone, is more appropriate is still under discussion. Factor analytic investigations (Ruch, 1981, 1984) carried out in Austria and Germany using different samples of jokes and cartoons showed that there are three stable dimensions in sense of humour. In these analyses Ss had to rate between 48 and 120 jokes and cartoons on several 7-point rating scales. Some samples were very homogeneous (e.g. students, patients with special psychosomatic disorders); some were fairly representative. A three mode factor analysis showed that the ratings used were two-dimensional, and therefore the two most typical representatives ('Funniness' and 'Rejection') were used in further studies. The humour dimensions extracted seem to have a close relationship to the two models described above. Factor 1 contains jokes and cartoons with incongruities that ought to be resolved. This factor supports Suls' model and was therefore labelled the 'incongruityresolution' type of humour. Probably this factor can be related to the arousal boost-jag hypothesis (Berlyne, 1972). Factor 2 was called 'nonsense' or 'absurd' jokes. Humour of this type (mostly cartoons) is based on the moment of surprise. These incongruities cannot be resolved or their resolution brings new incongruities. On the whole they remain absurd or Conservatism & Humor-I, 3 incongruent. Rothbart and Pien (1977) have described the structure of these jokes at the Welsh Conference on Humour. A good description of this factor might also be "... pure or unsolvable incongruities" (Shultz, 1976). The third factor contains all sex jokes and only sex jokes. They can be based on either the incongruity-resolution or the nonsense structure. This is also confirmed by their double loadings on the first or the second factor. So if we speak of sex jokes we have to distinguish whether we speak of incongruity-resolution sex jokes or of nonsense sex jokes. Our results show that we should not look for a general model of humour. On the contrary, we should distinguish at least two kinds of humour, one in which the solubility of the incongruity is important and one in which the incongruity is sufficient. These seem to be the major dimensions of humour. Suls (1983), in a recent survey of the literature, comes to the same conclusion. Additionally, if a common salient feature of some jokes becomes dominant, then it can be separated from the major dimensions to form its own category, as has been done with sex jokes in our case. We have studies in progress that will try also to take into consideration other salient features; but the jokes presented are based on either the one or the other structure. T H E S E N S E O F H U M O U R I N V E N T O R Y ( 3 W D ) The next step was to construct inventories that can measure these three factors. Two short alternative forms and a longer one are available. The shorter forms (3WD-A, 3WD-B) consist of 35 jokes (verbal jokes and cartoons) each; 5 jokes are for 'warming-up', and 10 jokes are for each of the three factors. These parallel forms can be employed for testing reliability and for multiple measurements, because repetition of the same humour test may not be indicated. The longer form (3WD-K) consists of 15 jokes for each factor, and again 5 jokes for 'warming up'. Ss rate each joke for 'funniness' (not funny vs very funny) and degree of 'rejection' (no rejection at all vs strong rejection) on two unipolar 7-point rating scales. Therefore the forms provide six scores; three for funniness of incongruity-resolution, nonsense and sex jokes and three for their rejection. The Rejection scale represents the negative emotions (e.g. painfulness, anger, indignation, disgust) induceable by jokes. It turned out that the corresponding Funniness and Rejection ratings within each joke category are only slightly negatively correlated or in some samples even uncorrelated; i.e. jokes are rejected (e.g. due to moral, ethical reasons, simplicity, complexity) relatively independent of their degree of funniness. Several reliability studies have been carried out and it could be shown that the Cronbach alphas (1951) are sufficiently high for each of the tests. T H E R E L A T I O N S H I P O F S E N S E O F H U M O U R T O C O N S E R V A T I S M A N D T O I N T O L E R A N C E O F A M B I G U I T Y In several studies we tried to predict the personality of people who found the different types of humour funny and of those who rejected them (Hehl and Ruch, 1983, 1985; Ruch, 1981, 1984; Ruch and Hehl, 1983a, c, d, 1984). Our approach was twofold: (1) We tried to locate our humour factors within comprehensive personality and attitude spaces. (2) We tried to 'explain' the variance of the 'funniness/rejection' judgements using personality variables. In our second approach the aim was to conduct the studies within the theoretical framework of the dimensions of humour. Taking into account the two different models of humour we formulated several hypotheses about links between humour and personality. Both Conservatism & Humor-I, 4 types of jokes contain incongruities that are unexpected and surprise the recipient. Suls states that "... It is suggested that degree of incongruity is directly related to the amount of surprise experienced, and the amount of surprise that the punchline creates should produce a corresponding need to solve the problem, ... The prediction here is that the more surprising the punchline, the more one should want to overcome the surprise. When the problem is solved, the recipient should experience greater appreciation." (Suls, 1972, p. 91) We have mentioned before that Suls' model fits our first factor well. Jokes of our second factor contain incongruities that cannot be resolved at all or cannot be completely resolved, or in which the resolution adds new incongruities (Rothbart and Pien, 1977). The need for resolution postulated by Suls will not be satisfied here completely. Our hypothesis was that there are individual differences in this need for resolution. Already in an everyday-life situation one can see that people differ with regard to their preference for structured, stable stimuli vs uncertain, unpredictable stimuli. Our hypothesis was that these individual differences in the need for reducing uncertainty play a role in the appreciation of humour. Some people will prefer jokes with incongruities that can be resolved and reject jokes that remain incongruent. It was hypothesized that differences in humour emerge because some people like incongruities and other people like their resolution. We looked for personality variables that can predict these differences in appreciation of humour and we found two variables, intolerance of ambiguity and conservatism. Intolerance of Ambiguity Intolerance of ambiguity classifies people according to the intensity of their experience of ambiguous (i.e. new, unsolvable and complex) stimuli as a source of threat. Berlyne (1972) argues that the arousal decrease evoked by the resolution of incongruity is experienced as pleasant. We postulated that the reduction of ambiguity has higher values of reinforcement for the high ambiguity-intolerant people. Therefore they should rate the incongruityresolution jokes funnier than the (ambiguity-) tolerant Ss. As nonsense jokes do not provide ambiguity reduction, they should be rejected more strongly by the group of intolerant persons. We showed for a sample of 134 Ss, that 57 (of the 120 jokes used) correlated with the Intolerance of Ambiguity questionnaire (Brengelmann and Brengelmann, 1960b) at least at the 5 % level of significance (Ruch and Hehl, 1983a, c). Only one of the 57 jokes was of the nonsense type; the remaining 56 jokes came from the incongruity-resolution or the sex joke category. Altogether, the three joke types could account for 58 % of the reliable variance of the questionnaire. Comparison of extreme groups showed that intolerants preferred incongruity-resolution jokes and sex jokes and rejected nonsense jokes.