ABSTRACT
Humor tests have a long tradition in psychology and have served different functions. First, it was recognized that humor is an important part of the human personality, and instruments measuring this trait had to be constructed. A second use emerged after discovering the close connection between an individual’s humor and personality. In this tradition, appreciation of humor served as an “objective” test of personality. Under the guise of assessing one’s sense of humor, the scores were also used to draw inferences about an individual’s location on personality dimensions like intelligence, extraversion, or anxiety. Third, tests were used to establish taxonomies of humor and to test their validity. For example, it was investigated whether the categories used are exhaustive and stable across cultures. Fourth, humor inventories were constructed to test existing theories of humor. For example, if a theory assumes that repressed drives find relief in humor, typically the constructed inventories contain categories of sexual and aggressive humor. Studies then examined whether arousal of the motive leads to enhanced appreciation of the respective humor category, or whether appreciation of humor of a certain category leads to reduction of the respective drive. Fifth, humor inventories were used to test theories of personality or of other factors influencing appreciation of humor. If one, for example, assumes that sensation seeking predicts the liking of stimuli of different intensity, complexity, novelty, or incongruity in general, the validity of the model underlying this trait is tested in the realm of humor by choosing humor categories that vary along these parameters. Sixth, humor inventories were used to test general theories in the field of humor appreciation. In this context, humor tests served to examine the roles of autonomic arousal and cognition in the genesis of emotions, the functional specialization of the hemispheres, or the effects of crowding on mood. Finally, humor tests were used in emotion research as induction methods for studying smiling–laughter and positive emotions, such as exhilaration or joy. In this approach the emotional responses to humor are the main focus, and items from humor tests are used in order to have a representative set of stimuli.
