Benevolent and Corrective Humor, Life Satisfaction, and Broad Humor Dimensions: Extending the Nomological Network of the BenCor Across 25 Countries

Sonja Heintz; Willibald Ruch; Simge Aykan; Ingrid Brdar; Dorota Brzozowska; Hugo Carretero-Dios; Hsueh Chih Chen; Władysław Chłopicki; Incheol Choi; Alberto Dionigi; Róbert Ďurka; Thomas E. Ford; Angelika Güsewell; Robert B. Isler; Alyona Ivanova; Liisi Laineste; Petra Lajčiaková; Chloe Lau; Minha Lee; Stanca Măda; Charles Martin-Krumm; Andrés Mendiburo-Seguel; Ifu Migiwa; Nailya Mustafi; Atsushi Oshio; Tracey Platt; René T. Proyer; Angélica Quiroga-Garza; Tamil Selvan Ramis; Răzvan Săftoiu; Donald H. Saklofske; Olga V. Shcherbakova; Alena Slezackova; Anastasios Stalikas; Ieva Stokenberga; Jorge Torres-Marín; Peter S.O. Wong

doi:10.1007/s10902-019-00185-9

Benevolent and Corrective Humor, Life Satisfaction, and Broad Humor Dimensions: Extending the Nomological Network of the BenCor Across 25 Countries

Sonja Heintz^*, Willibald Ruch, Simge Aykan, Ingrid Brdar, Dorota Brzozowska, Hugo Carretero-Dios, Hsueh Chih Chen, Władysław Chłopicki, Incheol Choi, Alberto Dionigi, Róbert Ďurka, Thomas E. Ford, Angelika Güsewell, Robert B. Isler, Alyona Ivanova, Liisi Laineste, Petra Lajčiaková, Chloe Lau, Minha Lee, Stanca MădaCharles Martin-Krumm, Andrés Mendiburo-Seguel, Ifu Migiwa, Nailya Mustafi, Atsushi Oshio, Tracey Platt, René T. Proyer, Angélica Quiroga-Garza, Tamil Selvan Ramis, Răzvan Săftoiu, Donald H. Saklofske, Olga V. Shcherbakova, Alena Slezackova, Anastasios Stalikas, Ieva Stokenberga, Jorge Torres-Marín, Peter S.O. Wong

^*Corresponding author for this work

Departamento de Psicología

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

23 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Benevolent and corrective humor are two comic styles that have been related to virtue, morality, and character strengths. A previous study also supported the viability of measuring these two styles with the BenCor in 22 countries. The present study extends the previous one by including further countries (a total of 25 countries in 29 samples with N = 7813), by testing the revised BenCor (BenCor-R), and by adding two criterion measures to assess life satisfaction and four broad humor dimensions (social fun/entertaining humor, mockery, humor ineptness, and cognitive/reflective humor). As expected, the BenCor-R showed mostly promising psychometric properties (internal consistency and factorial validity). Consistent with previous studies, benevolent humor correlated positively with life satisfaction in most countries, while corrective humor was uncorrelated with life satisfaction. These relationships were only slightly changed when controlling for social fun/entertaining humor and mockery, respectively. Benevolent humor was mostly positively associated with cognitive/reflective humor, followed by social fun/entertaining humor and mockery. Corrective humor was mostly positively associated with mockery, followed by cognitive/reflective and social fun/entertaining humor, although these relationships differed between the countries. Overall, the present study supports the viability of benevolent and corrective humor, which has yet received insufficient attention in psychology, for cross-cultural investigations and applications of humor, well-being, and morality.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	2473-2492
Number of pages	20
Journal	Journal of Happiness Studies
Volume	21
Issue number	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-019-00185-9
Publication status	Published - 1 Oct 2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We would like to thank Maria Araceli Alvarez-Gasca, Anna Andrzejewska, Ching-Hui Chen, Wojciech Ch?opicki, Piotr Chruszczewski, Noreha Hashim, Elvira De Dios-Hernandez, Joanna Dybiec, Dariusz Ka?u?a, Sarah Kettmann, Maria Mocarz-Kleindienst, Theodoros Kyriazos, Hsiao-Hui Lin, Marhaini Mohd Noor, Andrew R. Olah, Ana Laura Parada-Lopez, Andrejs Andrievs Ramma, Dorota Rygiel, Grzegorz Szpila, Barbara ?piewak, Patricia Vargas-Benitez, Alicja Witalisz, MA and PhD students at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics from Transilvania University of Bra?ov, and the Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University for their additional support in the translation and data collection. We would also like to thank Olenka Dworakowski for her help in analyzing and presenting the results. Finally, we would like to thank Jessica Milner Davis for her insightful comments on previous versions of the manuscript.

Funding Information:
Funding was provided by University of Rijeka (Grant No. uniri-drustv-18-27), Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (Grant No. 11160661), Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (Grant No. IUT 22-5), European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Grant No. TK 145 Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies), Center for Social Sciences at Seoul National University (Center for Happiness Studies), The Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan (Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences and the Chinese Language and Technology Center of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU)). Acknowledgements

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Springer Nature B.V.

Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Social Sciences (miscellaneous)

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10.1007/s10902-019-00185-9

Cite this

Heintz, S., Ruch, W., Aykan, S., Brdar, I., Brzozowska, D., Carretero-Dios, H., Chen, H. C., Chłopicki, W., Choi, I., Dionigi, A., Ďurka, R., Ford, T. E., Güsewell, A., Isler, R. B., Ivanova, A., Laineste, L., Lajčiaková, P., Lau, C., Lee, M., ... Wong, P. S. O. (2020). Benevolent and Corrective Humor, Life Satisfaction, and Broad Humor Dimensions: Extending the Nomological Network of the BenCor Across 25 Countries. Journal of Happiness Studies, 21(7), 2473-2492. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-019-00185-9

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title = "Benevolent and Corrective Humor, Life Satisfaction, and Broad Humor Dimensions: Extending the Nomological Network of the BenCor Across 25 Countries",

abstract = "Benevolent and corrective humor are two comic styles that have been related to virtue, morality, and character strengths. A previous study also supported the viability of measuring these two styles with the BenCor in 22 countries. The present study extends the previous one by including further countries (a total of 25 countries in 29 samples with N = 7813), by testing the revised BenCor (BenCor-R), and by adding two criterion measures to assess life satisfaction and four broad humor dimensions (social fun/entertaining humor, mockery, humor ineptness, and cognitive/reflective humor). As expected, the BenCor-R showed mostly promising psychometric properties (internal consistency and factorial validity). Consistent with previous studies, benevolent humor correlated positively with life satisfaction in most countries, while corrective humor was uncorrelated with life satisfaction. These relationships were only slightly changed when controlling for social fun/entertaining humor and mockery, respectively. Benevolent humor was mostly positively associated with cognitive/reflective humor, followed by social fun/entertaining humor and mockery. Corrective humor was mostly positively associated with mockery, followed by cognitive/reflective and social fun/entertaining humor, although these relationships differed between the countries. Overall, the present study supports the viability of benevolent and corrective humor, which has yet received insufficient attention in psychology, for cross-cultural investigations and applications of humor, well-being, and morality.",

author = "Sonja Heintz and Willibald Ruch and Simge Aykan and Ingrid Brdar and Dorota Brzozowska and Hugo Carretero-Dios and Chen, {Hsueh Chih} and W{\l}adys{\l}aw Ch{\l}opicki and Incheol Choi and Alberto Dionigi and R{\'o}bert {\v D}urka and Ford, {Thomas E.} and Angelika G{\"u}sewell and Isler, {Robert B.} and Alyona Ivanova and Liisi Laineste and Petra Laj{\v c}iakov{\'a} and Chloe Lau and Minha Lee and Stanca M{\u a}da and Charles Martin-Krumm and Andr{\'e}s Mendiburo-Seguel and Ifu Migiwa and Nailya Mustafi and Atsushi Oshio and Tracey Platt and Proyer, {Ren{\'e} T.} and Ang{\'e}lica Quiroga-Garza and Ramis, {Tamil Selvan} and R{\u a}zvan S{\u a}ftoiu and Saklofske, {Donald H.} and Shcherbakova, {Olga V.} and Alena Slezackova and Anastasios Stalikas and Ieva Stokenberga and Jorge Torres-Mar{\'i}n and Wong, {Peter S.O.}",

note = "Funding Information: We would like to thank Maria Araceli Alvarez-Gasca, Anna Andrzejewska, Ching-Hui Chen, Wojciech Ch?opicki, Piotr Chruszczewski, Noreha Hashim, Elvira De Dios-Hernandez, Joanna Dybiec, Dariusz Ka?u?a, Sarah Kettmann, Maria Mocarz-Kleindienst, Theodoros Kyriazos, Hsiao-Hui Lin, Marhaini Mohd Noor, Andrew R. Olah, Ana Laura Parada-Lopez, Andrejs Andrievs Ramma, Dorota Rygiel, Grzegorz Szpila, Barbara ?piewak, Patricia Vargas-Benitez, Alicja Witalisz, MA and PhD students at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics from Transilvania University of Bra?ov, and the Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University for their additional support in the translation and data collection. We would also like to thank Olenka Dworakowski for her help in analyzing and presenting the results. Finally, we would like to thank Jessica Milner Davis for her insightful comments on previous versions of the manuscript. Funding Information: Funding was provided by University of Rijeka (Grant No. uniri-drustv-18-27), Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Cient{\'i}fico y Tecnol{\'o}gico (Grant No. 11160661), Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (Grant No. IUT 22-5), European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Grant No. TK 145 Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies), Center for Social Sciences at Seoul National University (Center for Happiness Studies), The Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan (Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences and the Chinese Language and Technology Center of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU)). Acknowledgements Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019, Springer Nature B.V. Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",

year = "2020",

month = oct,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1007/s10902-019-00185-9",

language = "English",

volume = "21",

pages = "2473--2492",

journal = "Journal of Happiness Studies",

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Heintz, S, Ruch, W, Aykan, S, Brdar, I, Brzozowska, D, Carretero-Dios, H, Chen, HC, Chłopicki, W, Choi, I, Dionigi, A, Ďurka, R, Ford, TE, Güsewell, A, Isler, RB, Ivanova, A, Laineste, L, Lajčiaková, P, Lau, C, Lee, M, Măda, S, Martin-Krumm, C, Mendiburo-Seguel, A, Migiwa, I, Mustafi, N, Oshio, A, Platt, T, Proyer, RT, Quiroga-Garza, A, Ramis, TS, Săftoiu, R, Saklofske, DH, Shcherbakova, OV, Slezackova, A, Stalikas, A, Stokenberga, I, Torres-Marín, J & Wong, PSO 2020, 'Benevolent and Corrective Humor, Life Satisfaction, and Broad Humor Dimensions: Extending the Nomological Network of the BenCor Across 25 Countries', Journal of Happiness Studies, vol. 21, no. 7, pp. 2473-2492. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-019-00185-9

TY - JOUR

T1 - Benevolent and Corrective Humor, Life Satisfaction, and Broad Humor Dimensions

T2 - Extending the Nomological Network of the BenCor Across 25 Countries

AU - Heintz, Sonja

AU - Ruch, Willibald

AU - Aykan, Simge

AU - Brdar, Ingrid

AU - Brzozowska, Dorota

AU - Carretero-Dios, Hugo

AU - Chen, Hsueh Chih

AU - Chłopicki, Władysław

AU - Choi, Incheol

AU - Dionigi, Alberto

AU - Ďurka, Róbert

AU - Ford, Thomas E.

AU - Güsewell, Angelika

AU - Isler, Robert B.

AU - Ivanova, Alyona

AU - Laineste, Liisi

AU - Lajčiaková, Petra

AU - Lau, Chloe

AU - Lee, Minha

AU - Măda, Stanca

AU - Martin-Krumm, Charles

AU - Mendiburo-Seguel, Andrés

AU - Migiwa, Ifu

AU - Mustafi, Nailya

AU - Oshio, Atsushi

AU - Platt, Tracey

AU - Proyer, René T.

AU - Quiroga-Garza, Angélica

AU - Ramis, Tamil Selvan

AU - Săftoiu, Răzvan

AU - Saklofske, Donald H.

AU - Shcherbakova, Olga V.

AU - Slezackova, Alena

AU - Stalikas, Anastasios

AU - Stokenberga, Ieva

AU - Torres-Marín, Jorge

AU - Wong, Peter S.O.

N1 - Funding Information: We would like to thank Maria Araceli Alvarez-Gasca, Anna Andrzejewska, Ching-Hui Chen, Wojciech Ch?opicki, Piotr Chruszczewski, Noreha Hashim, Elvira De Dios-Hernandez, Joanna Dybiec, Dariusz Ka?u?a, Sarah Kettmann, Maria Mocarz-Kleindienst, Theodoros Kyriazos, Hsiao-Hui Lin, Marhaini Mohd Noor, Andrew R. Olah, Ana Laura Parada-Lopez, Andrejs Andrievs Ramma, Dorota Rygiel, Grzegorz Szpila, Barbara ?piewak, Patricia Vargas-Benitez, Alicja Witalisz, MA and PhD students at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics from Transilvania University of Bra?ov, and the Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University for their additional support in the translation and data collection. We would also like to thank Olenka Dworakowski for her help in analyzing and presenting the results. Finally, we would like to thank Jessica Milner Davis for her insightful comments on previous versions of the manuscript. Funding Information: Funding was provided by University of Rijeka (Grant No. uniri-drustv-18-27), Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (Grant No. 11160661), Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (Grant No. IUT 22-5), European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Grant No. TK 145 Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies), Center for Social Sciences at Seoul National University (Center for Happiness Studies), The Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan (Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences and the Chinese Language and Technology Center of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU)). Acknowledgements Publisher Copyright: © 2019, Springer Nature B.V. Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2020/10/1

Y1 - 2020/10/1

N2 - Benevolent and corrective humor are two comic styles that have been related to virtue, morality, and character strengths. A previous study also supported the viability of measuring these two styles with the BenCor in 22 countries. The present study extends the previous one by including further countries (a total of 25 countries in 29 samples with N = 7813), by testing the revised BenCor (BenCor-R), and by adding two criterion measures to assess life satisfaction and four broad humor dimensions (social fun/entertaining humor, mockery, humor ineptness, and cognitive/reflective humor). As expected, the BenCor-R showed mostly promising psychometric properties (internal consistency and factorial validity). Consistent with previous studies, benevolent humor correlated positively with life satisfaction in most countries, while corrective humor was uncorrelated with life satisfaction. These relationships were only slightly changed when controlling for social fun/entertaining humor and mockery, respectively. Benevolent humor was mostly positively associated with cognitive/reflective humor, followed by social fun/entertaining humor and mockery. Corrective humor was mostly positively associated with mockery, followed by cognitive/reflective and social fun/entertaining humor, although these relationships differed between the countries. Overall, the present study supports the viability of benevolent and corrective humor, which has yet received insufficient attention in psychology, for cross-cultural investigations and applications of humor, well-being, and morality.

AB - Benevolent and corrective humor are two comic styles that have been related to virtue, morality, and character strengths. A previous study also supported the viability of measuring these two styles with the BenCor in 22 countries. The present study extends the previous one by including further countries (a total of 25 countries in 29 samples with N = 7813), by testing the revised BenCor (BenCor-R), and by adding two criterion measures to assess life satisfaction and four broad humor dimensions (social fun/entertaining humor, mockery, humor ineptness, and cognitive/reflective humor). As expected, the BenCor-R showed mostly promising psychometric properties (internal consistency and factorial validity). Consistent with previous studies, benevolent humor correlated positively with life satisfaction in most countries, while corrective humor was uncorrelated with life satisfaction. These relationships were only slightly changed when controlling for social fun/entertaining humor and mockery, respectively. Benevolent humor was mostly positively associated with cognitive/reflective humor, followed by social fun/entertaining humor and mockery. Corrective humor was mostly positively associated with mockery, followed by cognitive/reflective and social fun/entertaining humor, although these relationships differed between the countries. Overall, the present study supports the viability of benevolent and corrective humor, which has yet received insufficient attention in psychology, for cross-cultural investigations and applications of humor, well-being, and morality.

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Benevolent and Corrective Humor, Life Satisfaction, and Broad Humor Dimensions: Extending the Nomological Network of the BenCor Across 25 Countries

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