Psychometric Comparisons of Benevolent and Corrective Humor across 22 Countries: The Virtue Gap in Humor Goes International

Sonja Heintz¹, Willibald Ruch¹, Tracey Platt², Dandan Pang¹, Hugo Carretero-Dios³, Alberto Dionigi⁴, Catalina Argüello Gutiérrez³, Ingrid Brdar⁵, Dorota Brzozowska⁶, Hsueh-Chih Chen⁷, Władysław Chłopicki⁸, Matthew Collins⁹, Róbert Ďurka¹⁰, Najwa Y El Yahfoufi¹¹, Angélica Quiroga-Garza¹², Robert B Isler¹³, Andrés Mendiburo-Seguel¹⁴, TamilSelvan Ramis¹⁵, Betül Saglam¹⁶, Olga V Shcherbakova¹⁷, Kamlesh Singh¹⁸, Ieva Stokenberga¹⁹, Peter S O Wong²⁰, Jorge Torres-Marín²¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Personality and Assessment, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
² Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing, Institute of Psychology, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, United Kingdom.
³ Department of Methodology of Behavioral Sciences, Faculty of Psychology, Centro de Investigación Mente, Cerebro, y Comportamiento, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
⁴ Federazione Nazionale Clown Dottori (FNC), Cesena, Italy.
⁵ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia.
⁶ Institute of English, Faculty of Philology, University of Opole, Opole, Poland.
⁷ College of Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁸ Department of English Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland.
⁹ School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom.
¹⁰ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Letters, Catholic University in Ružomberok, Ružomberok, Slovakia.
¹¹ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon.
¹² Departamento Académico de Psicología, Universidad de Monterrey, San Pedro Garza García, Mexico.
¹³ School of Psychology, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.
¹⁴ Facultad de Educación, Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago, Chile.
¹⁵ Department of Psychology, HELP University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
¹⁶ Psychology Department, Üsküdar University, Istanbul, Turkey.
¹⁷ Faculty of Psychology, Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
¹⁸ Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India.
¹⁹ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education, Psychology and Art, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia.
²⁰ Centre for Fundamental and Liberal Education, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus, Malaysia.
²¹ Department of Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Centro de Investigación Mente, Cerebro y Comportamiento, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.

PMID: 29479326
PMCID: PMC5812205
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00092

Psychometric Comparisons of Benevolent and Corrective Humor across 22 Countries: The Virtue Gap in Humor Goes International

Sonja Heintz et al. Front Psychol. 2018.

. 2018 Feb 9:9:92.

doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00092. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Personality and Assessment, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
² Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing, Institute of Psychology, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, United Kingdom.
³ Department of Methodology of Behavioral Sciences, Faculty of Psychology, Centro de Investigación Mente, Cerebro, y Comportamiento, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
⁴ Federazione Nazionale Clown Dottori (FNC), Cesena, Italy.
⁵ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia.
⁶ Institute of English, Faculty of Philology, University of Opole, Opole, Poland.
⁷ College of Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁸ Department of English Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland.
⁹ School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom.
¹⁰ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Letters, Catholic University in Ružomberok, Ružomberok, Slovakia.
¹¹ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon.
¹² Departamento Académico de Psicología, Universidad de Monterrey, San Pedro Garza García, Mexico.
¹³ School of Psychology, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.
¹⁴ Facultad de Educación, Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago, Chile.
¹⁵ Department of Psychology, HELP University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
¹⁶ Psychology Department, Üsküdar University, Istanbul, Turkey.
¹⁷ Faculty of Psychology, Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
¹⁸ Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India.
¹⁹ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education, Psychology and Art, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia.
²⁰ Centre for Fundamental and Liberal Education, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus, Malaysia.
²¹ Department of Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Centro de Investigación Mente, Cerebro y Comportamiento, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.

PMID: 29479326
PMCID: PMC5812205
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00092

Abstract

Recently, two forms of virtue-related humor, benevolent and corrective, have been introduced. Benevolent humor treats human weaknesses and wrongdoings benevolently, while corrective humor aims at correcting and bettering them. Twelve marker items for benevolent and corrective humor (the BenCor) were developed, and it was demonstrated that they fill the gap between humor as temperament and virtue. The present study investigates responses to the BenCor from 25 samples in 22 countries (overall N = 7,226). The psychometric properties of the BenCor were found to be sufficient in most of the samples, including internal consistency, unidimensionality, and factorial validity. Importantly, benevolent and corrective humor were clearly established as two positively related, yet distinct dimensions of virtue-related humor. Metric measurement invariance was supported across the 25 samples, and scalar invariance was supported across six age groups (from 18 to 50+ years) and across gender. Comparisons of samples within and between four countries (Malaysia, Switzerland, Turkey, and the UK) showed that the item profiles were more similar within than between countries, though some evidence for regional differences was also found. This study thus supported, for the first time, the suitability of the 12 marker items of benevolent and corrective humor in different countries, enabling a cumulative cross-cultural research and eventually applications of humor aiming at the good.

Keywords: cross-cultural comparisons; humor; measurement invariance; positive psychology; virtue.

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Figures

**Figure 1**
Two-dimensional plot derived from multidimensional scaling of the 12 BenCor items.

**Figure 2**
Comparisons of the 12 BenCor items within samples sharing the same language. The upper panel depicts English-speaking samples **(A)**, the middle panel depicts German-speaking samples **(B)**, and the lower panel depicts Spanish-speaking samples **(C)**.

**Figure 3**
Means with 95% confidence intervals of benevolent and corrective humor **(A)**, the benevolent humor items **(B)**, and the corrective humor items **(C)** for each of six age groups.

See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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Psychometric Comparisons of Benevolent and Corrective Humor across 22 Countries: The Virtue Gap in Humor Goes International

Affiliations

Psychometric Comparisons of Benevolent and Corrective Humor across 22 Countries: The Virtue Gap in Humor Goes International

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Figures

References

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

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Miscellaneous