An examination of the convergence between the conceptualization and the measurement of humor styles: A study of the construct validity of the Humor Styles Questionnaire

The Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin et al. 2003) was developed using a constructbased scale construction approach to measure four humor styles, namely affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating. The present study investigates to what extent the HSQ scales converge with and represent the conceptualizations (i.e., the definitions and construct descriptions) of the four humor styles as outlined by Martin et al. (2003). To this end, 340 participants provided self-reports on the definitions, construct descriptions, and the 32 items of the HSQ. Two multitrait-multimethod analyses yielded a good convergence of the self-defeating humor style, yet for the affiliative, selfenhancing, and aggressive humor styles convergence was lower and they were partly mismatched. The discrimination between the humor styles was mostly supported with the exception of affiliative and self-enhancing. Further, the HSQ scales predicted about two-thirds of the reliable variance in the conceptualizations in multiple regression analyses, so they represented several conceptual elements. Overall, these findings do only lend partial support for the convergence of the HSQ with the original conceptualization of the humor styles. If replicable, this implicates that either the constructs and model of the humor styles need to be adjusted or newly developed, or the HSQ does. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2015-0095 Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-121696 Originally published at: Heintz, Sonja; Ruch, Willibald (2015). An examination of the convergence between the conceptualization and the measurement of humor styles: A study of the construct validity of the Humor Styles Questionnaire. HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research, 28(4):611-633. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2015-0095 Sonja Heintz* and Willibald Ruch An examination of the convergence between the conceptualization and the measurement of humor styles: A study of the construct validity of the Humor Styles Questionnaire DOI 10.1515/humor-2015-0095 Abstract: The Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin et al. 2003) was developed using a construct-based scale construction approach to measure four humor styles, namely affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating. The present study investigates to what extent the HSQ scales converge with and represent the conceptualizations (i.e., the definitions and construct descriptions) of the four humor styles as outlined by Martin et al. (2003). To this end, 340 participants provided self-reports on the definitions, construct descriptions, and the 32 items of the HSQ. Two multitrait-multimethod analyses yielded a good convergence of the self-defeating humor style, yet for the affiliative, selfenhancing, and aggressive humor styles convergence was lower and they were partly mismatched. The discrimination between the humor styles was mostly supported with the exception of affiliative and self-enhancing. Further, the HSQ scales predicted about two-thirds of the reliable variance in the conceptualizations in multiple regression analyses, so they represented several conceptual elements. Overall, these findings do only lend partial support for the convergence of the HSQ with the original conceptualization of the humor styles. If replicable, this implicates that either the constructs and model of the humor styles need to be adjusted or newly developed, or the HSQ does. The Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin et al. 2003) was developed using a construct-based scale construction approach to measure four humor styles, namely affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating. The present study investigates to what extent the HSQ scales converge with and represent the conceptualizations (i.e., the definitions and construct descriptions) of the four humor styles as outlined by Martin et al. (2003). To this end, 340 participants provided self-reports on the definitions, construct descriptions, and the 32 items of the HSQ. Two multitrait-multimethod analyses yielded a good convergence of the self-defeating humor style, yet for the affiliative, selfenhancing, and aggressive humor styles convergence was lower and they were partly mismatched. The discrimination between the humor styles was mostly supported with the exception of affiliative and self-enhancing. Further, the HSQ scales predicted about two-thirds of the reliable variance in the conceptualizations in multiple regression analyses, so they represented several conceptual elements. Overall, these findings do only lend partial support for the convergence of the HSQ with the original conceptualization of the humor styles. If replicable, this implicates that either the constructs and model of the humor styles need to be adjusted or newly developed, or the HSQ does.