Humour appreciation and needs: Evidence from questionnaire, self-, and peer-rating data

Abstract

Research on the relationship between humour appreciation and needs was traditionally restricted to the investigation of the significance of humour content. The present study extends this scope by relating needs to appreciation of humour structure and to liking of humour in general. Instruments allowing a more comprehensive assessment of both needs and humour appreciation were administered to subjects in two samples (n = 108 and 156) of adults. The 3 WD humour test measures funniness and aversiveness of three humour types (i.e. incongruity-resolution, nonsense, and sexual humour). A list of 14 needs was assessed via questionnaire (Personality Research Form), self-ratings and six peer-ratings. The results confirm that need for order is related to humour structure. In particular, liking of order correlates positively with funniness of incongruity-resolution based humour (containing fully resolvable incongruities) and disliking lack of order predicts aversiveness of nonsense humour (which generally provides no complete resolution of the incongruity). Certain aspects of need for play are predictive of appreciation of nonsense and sexual humour but not of incongruity-resolution humour. The main results are independent of the methods used to assess the need structure.