Creativity and Humor

By Academic Press

Creativity and Humor provides an overview of the intersection of how humor influences creativity and how creativity can affect humor. The book's chapters speak to the wide reach of creativity and humor with different topics, such as play, culture, work, education, therapy, and social justice covered. As creativity and humor are individual traits and abilities that have each been studied in psychology, this book presents the latest information.

• Explains how, and why, humor enhances creativity
• Explores the thought processes behind producing humor and creativity
• Examines how childhood play is the basis for both creativity and humor
• Discusses cross-cultural differences in humor and creativity
• Reviews creativity and humor in politics, teaching and relationships

• Language: English
• Publisher: Academic Press
• Release date: Sep 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9780128138038

Book preview

assistance.

Chapter 1

Humor Production and Creativity

Overview and Recommendations

Willibald Ruch and Sonja Heintz,    Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland

Abstract

This chapter focuses on humor production as the humor aspect that is proposed to be closest to creativity. First, approaches to humor production in the literature are reviewed and an overview of relevant elements is presented. Second, measures of humor production are reviewed (in self-reports, other-reports, and performance tests), and recommendations for future developments are given. The Cartoon Punch Line Production Test (CPPT; Köhler & Ruch, 1993) for measuring both the quantity and quality of humor creation is discussed in more detail, along with some yet unpublished research. Finally, the overlap between humor production and creativity is presented both from a theoretical and empirical point of view, and future research directions are suggested.

Keywords

Humor; creativity; humor production; assessment; CPPT; divergent thinking; habit; ability

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Richard Bruntsch, Liliane Müller, René T. Proyer, Gabriella Sebök, Alicia Shannon, Mira Stüssi, and Lisa Wagner for their help in the studies with the CPPT and the CPPT-K. We would also like to thank Andrés Mendiburo-Seguel for his comments on earlier versions of this chapter.

Humor has been studied in various disciplines for more than 100 years. Humor can be defined as an umbrella term incorporating all kinds of comical phenomena, including different contents of humor (such as word plays, sexual, or aggressive contents), different kinds of humorous materials (like jokes, cartoons, memes, or videos), and different humor domains (i.e., comprehension, appreciation, and production). Delineating the three humor domains in more detail, humor comprehension deals with how humor is understood: Do people understand the punch line(s) of a joke? How and how quick do they understand them? Humor appreciation focuses on the liking and disliking of humorous materials. Finally, humor production entails either newly creating humor (humor creation) or reproducing humor (humor reproduction; by telling rehearsed or well-known jokes or sayings). This chapter focuses on humor production as it is the humor domain theoretically and empirically most closely related to creativity (see Galloway, 1994; McGhee, 1980; O’Quin & Derks, 1997).

Humor Production

Humor production plays a central role in our everyday lives. For example, humor is often shown in social situations and can help to brighten the mood, to reduce tensions, and to create social bonds (Janes & Olson, 2015; Martineau, 1972). Despite its relevance, humor production has been rarely studied, especially in comparison to the sense of humor or humor appreciation. Additionally, most studies used different terminologies and measurements of humor production, impairing comparisons among the findings. Thus, we discuss approaches and the terminology of humor production to delineate how the construct has been conceptualized in the literature, and then present one model of humor production. Where available, results of empirical studies are taken into account. Given the many gaps still existing in the area, however, some exploratory ideas are presented, and open questions and important venues for future research are highlighted throughout the section.

Approaches and Terminology of Humor Production

Humor production has been termed differently throughout the literature, and sometimes the identical term was used, albeit with different (more narrow or wide) meanings. Thus, we first introduce the terminology of humor production employed in this chapter. We use humor production as the overarching term, which comprises humor creation and humor reproduction. Both aspects can be subdivided into quality (i.e., how well humor is created or reproduced) and quantity (i.e., how often humor is created or reproduced), as well as into typical behavior (habit) and maximal behavior (ability). Table 1.1 shows the resulting eight aspects of humor production.

Table 1.1

It should be noted that some of the eight aspects of humor production depicted in Table 1.1 are not meant to be distinct categories, but rather dimensions (i.e., there is a continuum between the typical and maximal behavior of humor production and from creation to reproduction). Also each of these aspects contains several stages, as outlined in section Models of Humor Production. Table 1.2 presents an overview of the terms used in central articles and chapters on humor production, as well as the terminology employed in this chapter.

Table 1.2

As shown in Table 1.2, the terms as well as the definitions and meanings attached to humor production varied widely across the different approaches. While humor production was the most commonly used term, the definition of humor production differed across each approach. Comparing the terminology used in these approaches to the definitions of the eight aspects in humor production proposed in Table 1.1, the following observations can be made. First, most of the approaches captured maximal humor creation (i.e., the ability to newly create humor). Second, several approaches (Crawford & Gressley, 1991; Koppel & Sechrest, 1970; Long & Graesser, 1988; Nusbaum & Silvia, 2017) emphasize the importance of creating humor spontaneously and on the spot, which is also interpreted as an ability component of humor creation. Third, several approaches regard humor as created in social contexts in which it can be recognized and appreciated by others. However, humor can also be communicated when one is alone, for example, by writing down a funny story or by recording a video for others to see later on.

Models of Humor Production

Only a few theoretical approaches aimed at delineating different components of humor production. In the following, the multidimensional model of wittiness (Feingold & Mazzella, 1993) is presented. Although not much research has explicitly incorporated this model in their approach to assessing humor production, it shows gaps that can be filled in future research in the area, also in relation to the interplay between humor production and creativity.

Feingold and Mazzella’s (1993) model delineates three stages (or model components) involved in the process of producing humor as a habit and ability. In the first stage, one must be motivated to produce humor (humor motivation). In the second stage, one must be able to produce humor (by either reproducing or by creating humor; humor cognition). In the third stage, the produced humor must be communicated (humor communication). In this stage, they distinguish between oral humor production in social settings and written humor production when the person is alone. Their model describes the process of typical humor production as well as maximal humor production. Maximal humor production requires that the three stages are often experienced and that the humor cognition and communication are of high quality. When considering the eight aspects of humor production, humor motivation only entails typical and quantitative components (i.e., how often one is typically motivated to produce humor), while humor cognition and communication can be both typical and maximal as well as differ in quantity and quality. Using newly developed tests to measure each of the three stages of humor production (see Tables 1.3 and 1.5 for details on the tests), Feingold and Mazzella (1993) found that the three stages could be distinguished from one another, with only medium positive correlations between humor motivation and communication. Criterion validities were established between humor motivation and communication with a one-item self-rating of wittiness (large positive correlations) as well as between humor cognition and humor production tests (large correlations).

Table 1.3

Feingold and Mazzella (1993) also commented on the interplay of traits and states in humor production (p. 441): Witty people are high in each of the three traits associated with the corresponding stages in the process model. However, whether witty behavior is displayed by anyone at a particular time and place is influenced by the social situation in which the person is embedded. Indeed, the motivation and communication of humor is dependent on many context factors, such as the social context (being alone or being with friends, family, or strangers), the type of situation (a party, a work meeting, or a funeral), and one’s mood (e.g., whether one is cheerful, serious, or grumpy). At the trait level, they argue that humor motivation and communication might be more influenced by habits (e.g., one’s level of sociability), while humor cognition might be more influenced by abilities (e.g., intelligence, divergent thinking). These notions were empirically supported (Feingold & Mazzella, 1993): Humor motivation and communication correlated positively with sociability (which was uncorrelated with humor cognition), and humor cognition correlated positively with a vocabulary aptitude test (which was uncorrelated with humor motivation and communication). Thus, communicating the created humor is influenced by many variables that go beyond either the habit or the ability to create humor (i.e., humor cognition). To avoid confounds, it is thus important to separate the different stages of humor production outlined in the model.

These three components of humor production represent an initial step to more holistically understand the process of humor production. Humor research at that time was not much interested in humor production, and hence this approach did not receive the attention it deserved. Thus, further theoretical and empirical work is needed to test their model, refine it where needed, and to develop it further; that is, to include further aspects that might be relevant for humor production. For example, the interplay between states and traits as well as the temporal sequence of the three stages has not yet been tested.

An overview of the different elements entailed in humor production is proposed in Table 1.3, which draws from both humor and creativity research as well as from personality psychology. Drawing from current approaches to personality traits, four aspects (the so-called ABCD) of traits can be distinguished (Wilt & Revelle, 2015): Affect, (observable) behavior, cognition, and desire/motivation. Applying the ABCD to humor production, one can distinguish between the affect associated with humor production (e.g., positive emotions such as amusement, or negative emotions such as disgust), their observable behavior (i.e., the humor productions that are uttered verbally, written, drawn, or displayed; similar to humor communication), their cognition (i.e., the cognitive process underlying the humor productions; similar to humor cognition), and their desire/motivation (why the humor is produced, similar to humor motivation).

Regarding the desire or motivation underlying humor production, Long and Graesser (1988) differentiated between the terms humor, jokes, and wit, which could be broadly mapped to humor production, humor reproduction, and humor creation. They emphasize the social and discourse functions that humor creation has, and they presented a none-exhaustive taxonomy of nine different functions (e.g., self-disclosure, social control, ingratiation, cleverness, establishing common ground, and social play). They also elaborated that One advantage to using wit as a plan to satisfy social goals is that it can be used to embarrass, cajole, influence, request, or persuade, and yet carries with it a message that the remark is not serious (p. 52). Long and Graesser (1988) also presented a categorization of 11 intentions or styles in humor creation, which can be mapped to all ABCD dimensions. They included evaluative categories (irony, sarcasm, overstatement, and understatement), which should serve to express an opinion, and categories that serve the purpose of entertainment (e.g., self-deprecation, teasing, clever replies, double entendres, novel transformations of known expressions, and puns).

Furthermore, humor production should distinguish different modalities (verbal, written, figural, and physical) in which humor can be expressed, as these modalities might generate variance and contribute to how humor production tests are different. The approach to humor production by Feingold and Mazzella (1993) was restricted to the written modality. However, humor cannot only be written down, it can also be told (as mostly the case in social interactions), drawn (such as in cartoons and animated pictures), or it can be expressed facially and with gestures. Table 1.3 gives an overview of these elements of humor production, distinguishing typical and maximal humor production, humor reproduction and creation, the different modalities, and the ABCD factors. This overview should help (1) to serve as a comprehensive framework of relevant elements entailed in humor production, (2) to categorize existing humor production measures (as is done in the following sections), and (3) to point to areas that are yet understudied in humor production research and for which little or no theories/models exist yet.

Regarding the elements entailed in Table 1.3, it should be noted that they are neither dichotomous nor separate categories. For example, one might tell a known joke (humor reproduction) with slight novel adaptations to the current situation (humor creation), drawing on both processes simultaneously or in a sequence. Similarly, one might create a humor product that consists of both written and figural modalities (such as a captioned cartoon or meme) or of verbal and physical modalities (making funny faces while making funny sounds). Additionally, the quantity and quality of producing humor should be positively correlated, as they should strengthen one other. That is, someone who is good at producing humor might be encouraged to produce it more often, and frequently producing humor might at the same time serve as an exercise to gradually achieve a better quality. Empirical findings support this notion (see section Performance Tasks of Humor Production).

Measures of Humor Production

Three methods of assessing humor production can be distinguished: Self-report questionnaires, other-reports (sociometry or behavior observations), and performance tests. Ideally, measures should be thoroughly psychometrically tested and the convergence with other measures should be investigated (for details, see Ruch & Heintz, 2014a, 2014b). In the following, an overview of the humor production measures and scales of each method are given, and one measure, the Cartoon Punch Line Production Test (CPPT and its short version, the CPPT-K), is presented in more detail.

Self-Reports of Humor Production

Table 1.4 shows the overview of self-report measures and scales of humor production. Most self-reports capture the quantity or both the quantity and quality of humor production, with very few focusing on the quality. Similarly, most questionnaires assess the habit of humor production, while some capture both habit and ability. Also, most scales assess the tendency to produce humor in general, without distinguishing among creation and reproduction. Only the competent style of humorous conduct (from the Humorous Behavior Q-Sort Deck/HBQD; Craik, Lampert, & Nelson, 1996) and the comic style wit (from the Comic Styles Markers; Ruch, 2012; Ruch, Heintz, Platt, Proyer, & Wagner, 2018) emphasize skilled quick-wittedness in creating novel humor. The most frequent modality was verbal, and no questionnaire assessed the figural or the written modality. Only the HBQD and the Comic Styles Markers also entail separate scales for humor production that incorporates the physical modality (e.g., jests, clownish behavior), namely the socially warm style of humorous conduct and the comic style fun.

Table 1.4