Year of Peer-Reviewed Total Published Publication Journals Works

Welcome to this special humor issue of Europe’s Journal of Psychology. This August 2010 EJOP issue is devoted to a presentation of contemporary psychological research on humor, with a particular emphasis on work that targets the personality and social aspects of humor, including stress, coping and well-being.
This special issue can be placed into a broader context by noting that we are currently enjoying a psychological renaissance in research on humor. Each year, an increasing number of scientific articles are being published about the psychological aspects of humor. This is clearly seen in Table 1, which provides one rough index of humor publications in psychology over the past thirty years. This was done by searching in PsychINFO, using the term “humor,” across a sequence of one-year time periods (beginning in 1980), and then advancing in five year increments. Thus, starting in 1980, there was a grand total of 47 publications on psychological aspects of humor in all of that year, with 25 of these being in peer-reviewed journals. Moving forward, we begin to see a slow but steady increase in humor research, reaching an overall total of 119 works published in 1995, with the majority of these now in peer-reviewed sources (88).

2 starting in 1980, there w as a grand total of 47 publications on psychological aspects of humor in all of that year, w ith 25 of these being in peer-rev iew ed journals. Moving forw ard, w e begin to see a slow but steady increase in humor research, reaching an ov erall total of 119 w orks published in 1995, w ith the majority of these now in peerrev iew ed sources (88).
What is truly remarkable is w hat has happened to this field since 1995. As w e enter the new millennium, the total number of published w orks on humor has almost doubled to 218 for the year 2000. This doubling continues unabated in the next time period sampled (2005), w ith a total of 461 publications, of w hich the majority are in peer-rev iew ed journals (345). Finally, ev idence from the most recent one year period av ailable (2009) indicates that this interest in the psychological inv estigation of humor still continues at a high rate of enthusiasm, w ith the total number of published w orks now abov e 500, and peer-rev iew ed publications forming almost three-quarters of this total (377).
Giv en this recent exponential grow th in psychological research on humor, it seemed both timely and appropriate to put together a special issue that w ould show case some of this w ork. The goal here w as not to offer a comprehensiv e ov erv iew of all of the psychological w ork on humor (for this, see Martin, 2007); but rather, to offer a snapshot of sev eral contemporary personality and social psychology approaches to humor. This w as done by approaching a number of prominent humor inv estigators in sev eral different countries (Canada, United States, Great Britain, Belgium, Norw ay and Lebanon); and then asking them to prov ide a sample of their w ork that w ould be suitable for a special EJOP issue focusing on personality and social psychological approaches to humor. The responses w ere extremely gratifying, and ultimately resulted in the production of this special humor issue. The entire list of contributors to this special issue, and the titles of their articles are show n in Table 2  Ev en a cursory examination of the titles show n in Table 2 indicates the w ide range of issues that are currently being inv estigated by this group of humor researchers. As can be seen from this Table, and also as show n separately in Table 3 for each article, these topics and issues range from behav ioral genetic analyses of humor and personality to the negativ e effects of certain types of humor on v arious relationships and societal norms. Also of interest are the moderating and mediating effects of humor on stress, coping and health, along w ith the social and interpersonal effects of humor. These inv estigators are also busy mapping out humor stereotypes and implicit theories of humor used for self and others. Furthermore, the links betw een sense of humor and other positiv e personality factors are also being considered, along w ith w ork focusing on measures of humor creativ ity. Finally, some of the w ork reported in this special EJOP issue addresses dev elopmental factors that link childhood upbringing w ith certain humor styles; whereas other research reported here considers the cross-cultural similarities and differences in the effects of humor on social and personal relationships. Ov erall, there certainly is a broad range of topics and issues being examined in this special issue ; and this clearly reinforces the notion that w e are in the midst of a renaissance of humor know ledge and inv estigation. I n addition to presenting an ov erv iew of the main issues examined in each of the articles in this special issue, Table 3 also prov ides a brief summary of the type of humor considered in each article, and the samples that w ere employed. As can be seen in Table 3, the samples in the v arious studies come from a w ide v ariety of different countries, and include not only univ ersity undergraduate students ,

Investigators
Humor  but also married and div orced couples, monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) tw ins, retirees, adolescents, and community-based participants. This breadth of participant characteristics is impressiv e, and indicates the extent to w hich the inv estigators in this special issue hav e already begun to consider the application of contemporary humor theory and research to div erse groups and populations.
I n terms of defining humor, Table 3  When taken together, the v arious approaches to sense of humor represented in this special issue clearly illustrate tw o major points. The first is that sense of humor must be respected as a v ery complex phenomenon that any single humor measure w ill nev er successfully encompass. Secondly, much more research and theorizing is necessary in terms of clearly articulating the v arious facets of sense of humor. While measures such as the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) and Sense of Humor Questionnaire (SHQ) hav e both prov ided considerable clarification in terms of measuring the v arious facets of sense of humor, further w ork is still required.

Concluding Comments
As you read through the articles presented in this special humor issue of EJOP, I hope you find them to be informativ e and enlightening, and perhaps spark an interest in research studies that you may now w ish to conduct in the humor domain. I t is also important to reiterate once more that this special issue prov ides a snapshot of sev eral contemporary approaches to humor research w ith a personality and social psychological flav our, and thus should not be taken as an exhaustiv e examination of Europe's Journal of Psychology 8 all the different approaches to the psychological inv estigation of humor. There are other models and approaches that hav e not been represented in this special issue, but also w arrant full consideration as the field progresses and mature.
Finally, I w ould like to thank all of the contributors to this special issue for their assistance, patience, and co-operation throughout the entire editorial process. The contributors w ere extremely responsiv e to the v arious publication deadlines, and as such, made my job as the editor of this special issue just a little bit easier! Last, but not least, I w ould like to offer considerable thanks to the chief editor of EJOP, Vlad Glăv eanu, w ho has fully supported and assisted me w ith this project from the outset.