Elements of sensation seeking and their relationship with two aspects of humour appreciation—perceived funniness and overt expression

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Abstract

The relationship between sensation seeking and the variables of perceived funniness of humour and overt expression of humour was investigated. The Arnett Inventory of Sensation Seeking [AISS; Arnett, Personality and Individual differences 16 (1994) 289] and two experimental variants of the Situational Humour Response Questionnaire (Martin & Lefcourt, 1984) were administered to 186 students aged between 18 and 47 years. Results revealed that, compared to low sensation seekers, high sensation seekers reported perceiving a variety of situations as being more funny and displaying more overt expression of humour in those situations. Additionally, partial correlation analyses indicated that self-assessments of overt expression of humour were significantly related to scores on the intensity sub-scale of the AISS but not with scores on the novelty sub-scale. The situation was reversed for perceived funniness, with a significant partial correlation between scores on that sub-scale and those on the novelty sub-scale but no partial correlation between intensity and perceived funniness. It was concluded that perceiving events as being funny offered sensation seekers a novel source of stimulation and that displaying overt expression of humour offered sensation seekers an additional mode of experiencing intense stimulation.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants consisted of 186 students aged between 18 and 47 years. The sample contained 117 females (M=20.9 years, S.D.=4.6) and 69 males (M=22.6 years, S.D.=5.0). The majority of participants were first and second year university students mainly recruited from an Australian University's psychology participant pool. These participants received credit points towards their semester psychology mark for volunteering to participate in the study. Other participants were recruited by advertising for

Results

The scores derived for the two adapted questionnaires were examined using SPSS RELIABILITY ANALYSIS. It was ascertained that the Perceived Funniness of Humour Questionnaire (PFQ) obtained a Cronbach's alpha of 0.78, and the Overt Expression Questionnaire (OEQ), a Cronbach's alpha of 0.75, indicating that both questionnaires had moderate to high internal reliability, comparable with the original SHRQ from which they were derived.

The relationship between perceived funniness and overt expression

Discussion

The results suggest some interesting possibilities in the way sensation seeking and humour are related. The significant correlations between both of Arnett's (1994) dimensions of sensation seeking, novelty and intensity, and both assessments of humour, perceived funniness and overt expression, confirm that sensation seeking and a humour appreciation are closely related. However, the precise manner in which the two dimensions of sensation seeking are linked to humour appreciation suggests some

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