SENSE OF HUMOR AND STYLES OF EVERYDAY HUMOROUS CONDUCT

This study systematically examines the relations between the folk conc ept of ''sense of humor'' and the behavioral domain of everyday humoro us conduct. Participants completed our Humorous Behavior e-sort Deck ( HBQD) and a set of self-ratings contributing to an overall sense of hu mor index as well as personality measures including the California Psy chological Inventory and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Our analyses revealed that overall sense of humor subsumed only a delimited and sp ecific set of humor-related behaviors, in particular, socially constru ctive and competent forms of humorous conduct within interpersonal con texts. Results with the HBQD further indicated that overall sense of h umor was positively associated with only two dimensions of humorous co nduct (Socially Warm Versus Cold humorous style and Competent versus I nept humorous style) and unrelated to three others (Reflective versus Boorish, Earthy versus Repressed and Benign versus Mean-spirited humor ous styles). Sense of humor was also found to be linked to socially de sirable behaviors, but only those behaviors associated with social war mth and competence and not the entire range of socially desirable form s of humor. Analysis of the concept of ''sense of humor'' among subsam ples of extraverts and introverts also revealed that although socially constructive uses of humor were important for both psychological type s, humor competence figured more prominently in the introverts' notion of sense of humor. General personality characteristics were only mini mally related to overall sense of humor, but revealed substantial and differentiated correlates to the styles of humorous conduct isolated b y the HBQD. Overall, our findings argue strongly for a comprehensive a pproach to the assessment of individuals' understanding of humor and t heir styles of everyday humorous conduct.