Humor Study in Hong Kong

Abstract

This paper focuses on reviewing the literatures regarding a rather new research topic –

“humor”, followed by examining the effect of gender and inter-correlations among the 4

humor styles suggested by Martin Rod (2003), namely affiliative humor, self-enhancing

humor, aggressive humor and self-defeating humor. Besides, a new attempt on finding out

the relationship among the 4 humor styles and variables of creativity, namely, novelty,

diversity and divergent thinking will be investigated. Information concerning humor such as

the perception of importance of humor in life, self-rating of humor, important traits necessary

for ideal personality and creativity will also be collected.

The current survey-based research employed two sets of instruments for measurement:

Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) and Cross Cultural (Chinese) Personality Assessment

Inventory-2 (CPAI-2). 103 university students (60 males & 40 females) from City University

of Hong Kong participated in the research, in which 30 minutes were given to them to fill in

the questionnaires. Results showed that there was statistically significant difference between the means of aggressive humor style for male and female students; while both sexes do not perceive themselves humorous, even thought they think it is important. Besides, “humorous” were not valued as important trait for ideal personality and creativity by the Hong Kong students.