Humor Styles Research Articles

A Study on the Construction of the Mother Figure in the Chinese Comedy Film “Hi, Mom”

After entering the 21st century, the scale and technology of China’s film industry have developed rapidly. In the meantime, Chinese comedy films as an important part of China’s film industry have also received more and more attention. The Chinese comedy film “Hi, Mom” released in 2021 has won numerous awards and reputations for its humorous style and tribute to maternal love. This study takes “Hi, Mom” as a typical case to deeply investigate how the film constructs the image of the mother from multiple dimensions. In addition, under the guidance of Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) theory, this study focuses on five main aspects: plot design, facial expressions, background music, iconic symbols and clothing style of the mother in the film for in-depth analysis and discussion. The main findings of this study provided several new perspectives and findings for other case studies on “Hi, Mom”, and further provided more references for other studies on the theme of “mother image”. The discussion of this study shows the multi-dimensional construction of specific character images by different elements in this film, which settled an important platform for the filming of related theme films in the future.

Humour as Self-Deprecation in Born a Crime: Stories from South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

Born a Crime: Stories from South African Childhood is a captivating memoir penned by a globally acclaimed South African comedian, Trevor Noah, delving into the hardships he and those around him endured during the oppressive Apartheid-era government and colonialism. This article analyzes instances where the comedian author employs a self-deprecating humour style to add depth to his narrative of stories from South African childhood. To conduct this analysis, we adopt cognitive and incongruity theoretical frameworks. Our methodology is qualitative, involving the analysis of selected texts to present thematic data. The findings reveal that the author’s transparency about his life, from the title of the book to his relationships with others, delves into painful details of his childhood experiences during the traumatic history of the nation in which there was oppression. However, he presents these experiences with self- deprecating humour that simultaneously entertains and educates readers about the socioeconomic issues prevalent in South Africa at the time. Noah's storytelling strategy can be understood within the context of comedians' freedom to explore sensitive matters about themselves to entertain their audience.

CUMHURİYET SONRASI 1950 KUŞAĞI İLE ÇAĞDAŞLAŞAN TÜRK GRAFİK MİZAHI ÜZERİNE BİR İNCELEME: TURHAN SELÇUK ÖRNEĞİ

Considering the development of graphic humor in our country, it is seen that it is modernized parallel to the industrial and social developments after the Republic. Especially with İhap Hulusi Görey, the increase in graphic design productions before the state and the establishment of the Poster Workshop, the narrative of the graphic language also affected the art of caricature. In this process, graphic art productions became visible in the country's history. Modern cartoon lines, which began to appear with the works of Cemal Nadir Güler, Necmi Rıza Ayça, Kozma Togo, and Ratip Tahir, attracted attention in the world with Saul Steinberg's modern graphic humor style in the 1950s, and Turhan Selçuk, along with many cartoonists, began to give examples in our country. The word "Graphic Humor," which refers to the graphic values in his lines and the lines that gain meaning with the story of pure lines free from writing, has started to be used more frequently for his works. The artist, whose recognition significantly increased with the comic book "Abdülcanbaz," is one of the rare illustrators who can be recognized by his lines, even if he doesn't sign the works he produces in his style. The artist, whose recognition significantly increased with the comic book "Abdülcanbaz" is one of the rare illustrators that can be recognized by his lines, even if he doesn't sign the works he produces in his style. In addition, the artist, also known internationally, has made a name for himself among the press cartoonists with his lines interpreting social and political determinations. This study uses the systematic data scanning method to examine the artistic life of Turhan Selçuk, Türkiye's pioneering graphic humor artist, as the graphic representative of contemporary lines.

The effect of self-related humor on convergent and divergent thinking

Humour enhances creativity, but the question is whether different types of humour have a similar effect on improving individual creativity. It is evident that negative humour style is negatively related to creativity, while positive humour style is positively related to it. However, no evidence has been found that self-related humour (self-enhancing and self-defeating humour) directly affects creative thinking in the experimental setting. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the effect of self-related humour on convergent and divergent creative thinking. We included 60 (38 male, 22 female) participants and randomly assigned 20 in each condition to conduct this experiment. To evoke humour, we used 12 stimuli (12 self-enhancing jokes, 12 self-defeating jokes, and 12 non-humorous statements) in each condition. Remote Association Task (RAT) was used to measure convergent thinking, and Alternative Uses Task (AUT) was used to measure divergent thinking. We expected that i) people who engage in self-enhancing humour would perform better at convergent thinking tasks than the control group and the self-defeating humour group and ii) people who engage in self-enhancing humour would perform better at divergent thinking tasks than the control group and the self-defeating humour group. Our results supported our hypotheses and suggested that self-enhancing humour induced individual creativity both in convergent or divergent thinking (originality, fluency, flexibility). In contrast, self-defeating humour failed to affect either convergent or divergent thinking.

Research on English Translation of Movie Subtitles - Based on the Analysis of the Movie “Mulan”

The English translation of movie subtitles is vital for cross-cultural communication in films. Analyzing the translation of the movie "Mulan" allows for an understanding of the challenges faced in conveying cultural elements, character traits, and plot nuances. This research explores effective translation strategies and techniques, considering factors like humor, slang, and language styles. Evaluating audience feedback further enhances subtitle quality. By focusing on "Mulan," this study aims to improve the accuracy, readability, and naturalness of English movie subtitle translations. This study is based on the film "Mulan" and explores the English translation of film subtitles. Firstly, the background and content of the film are introduced to provide the context for the research. Subsequently, the study focuses on translation strategies for film subtitles and the societal issues present within them, such as gender inequality and stereotyping of women. By analyzing examples of direct translation, adaptation, and subtitles that showcase gender inequality, the challenges and solutions in the translation process are revealed. Based on this analysis, some translation approaches are proposed with the aim of conveying the theme of gender inequality in the film more effectively and reducing the emphasis on female stereotypes. Through the analysis and discussion of this study, theoretical and practical guidance is provided for film subtitle translation and serves as a reference for translating films that address societal issues.

Phraseological units in written humorous stories. Phraseology and styles of humor in childhood

Phraseological units in written humorous stories. Phraseology and styles of humor in childhood

Do humour styles moderate the association between hopelessness and suicide ideation? A comparison of student and community samples.

Research has found that humour styles can moderate the relationship between various facets of mental health and well-being. Most of these studies have used college student samples, however, and the generalizability of these findings has not been firmly established. This study examined how humour styles moderate the relationship between hopelessness and suicide ideation in both student and community samples. Community participants from the U.S. and Canada (n = 554) and student participants from a Canadian university (n = 208) completed several self-report measures including the Humor Styles Questionnaire. Analyses revealed differences in humour styles between the samples, as well as differences in humour styles between men and women. Regression analyses showed that self-defeating humour moderated the relationship between hopelessness and suicide ideation for student participants but not for community participants. Conversely, self-enhancing humour moderated the relationship between hopelessness and suicide ideation for community participants but not for student participants. These results suggest that high levels of self-defeating humour and self-enhancing humour may be uniquely maladaptive for these respective samples. These and other findings point to the necessity of recruiting diverse samples to better understand the beneficial and detrimental associations between humour styles and mental health. The potential to use measures of humour style as a tool to help identify at-risk individuals and to inform the development of intervention programs is discussed.

The Analysis of the Relationship between Humor Styles of Counselor Candidates and Their Skills of Coping Through Humor and Problem-Solving

The Analysis of the Relationship between Humor Styles of Counselor Candidates and Their Skills of Coping Through Humor and Problem-Solving

Language Style in Advertising: A Study of the Print Media

This study investigates the language style of English commercial advertisements in the print media. The study seeks to find out the kinds of language and style mostly used in English advertisement; this is because previous studies in stylistics have concentrated on the literary approach to stylistics. This study finds this technique very one-sided and subsequently proposes a dual approach to the analysis of the language style of advertisement. The research employs William Well’s stylistic theory as a theoretical construct. The analyses used the descriptive approach. The research used note taking as the instrument to elicit data. We found out that the personification style is mostly used and the occurrence in our corpus is about four times; it is followed by alliteration style which occurs in three advertisements and assonance style which occurs twice in our corpora. The next is the use of simile, anastrophe, apostrophes, asyndeton, poly-asyndeton, and chiasmus styles which appeared once in the advertisements. The advertisements also used narrative style, dramatic style, newsy style, dialogue style, and humorous style. The study concludes that in the use of personification and alliteration styles, the creators of the advertisements mostly seek to use simple and interesting style to create pleasant, mellifluous, captivating sentences, which will persuade, influence, and capture the readers’ attention to patronize their products.

Aggressive Humor and Social Connectedness: The Moderating Roles of Subjective Social Status and Gender

Aggressive humor has been conceived as a maladaptive humor style that jeopardizes social relationships. However, past studies have yielded inconsistent findings regarding the detrimental effects of aggressive humor on social relationships. This study attempts to advance the existing literature by examining the gender difference in the moderating role of subjective social status in the association between aggressive humor and social connectedness. Participants were 228 (53.1% female) adults aged from 18 to 53 years (M = 23.19, SD = 6.43). The hypothesized moderated moderation effect was significant, suggesting that gender significantly moderated the moderating effect of subjective social status on the association between aggressive humor and social connectedness. Subjective social status significantly moderated the association between aggressive humor and social connectedness for men but not for women. For men, aggressive humor was negatively associated with social connectedness when subjective social status was low or medium, but the association was not significant when subjective social status was high. For women, aggressive humor was not associated with social connectedness regardless of subjective social status. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Exploring the interplay between frontline employees’ humour styles in service encounters

ABSTRACT One question that needs to be asked in understanding the consequences of humour in service encounters is whether the prevalent bivariate approaches capture the full range of humour consequences. Therefore, this study examines the influence of frontline employees’ (FLEs) combined use of affiliative and self-defeating humour on customers’ perceptions of service quality in 268 service encounters. Bivariate results show that the positive effect of affiliative humour is much stronger than the negative effect of self-defeating humour. On the contrary, response surface analyses show that bad may be stronger than good. FLEs’ humour use is particularly advantageous with customers who appreciate humour, while for those who do not, there is an optimal margin effect when affiliative humour exceeds self-defeating humour.

Positive and negative aspects of employing humour in psychotherapy

The purpose of this article is to analyse the phenomenon of humour in therapy. Rod Martin [1] defines humour as a fundamentally positive emotion referred to as amusement, triggered by cognitive processes of appreciation of perceived amusing stimuli and non-threatening, funny incongruence, accompanied by specific facial and vocal expressions of laughter. Humour in therapy can play a significant role. It might be a form of therapy, one of the therapist’s competences, as well as a therapy technique. Notwithstanding the multiple qualities of humour, we need to recognise the risks involved in utilising it in the therapeutic process. In fact, the lack of ambiguity in the humorous message is likely to lead to misunderstandings between the patient and therapist. The patient may not have a clear comprehension of the humorous message and may not perceive the message to be humorous. They may also consider the humorous message inappropriate. Furthermore, humour is not a homogeneous phenomenon. There are styles of humour that are adaptive in nature, such as: affiliative humour and self-enhancing humour, and styles of humour that are non-adaptive, such as aggressive humour and self-defeating humour. The variability of humour styles in therapists and patients also needs to be addressed, as not all styles are suitable for therapy – they can disrupt relationships or impair patients’ self-esteem.

Yes, I Will Say Something: How Humor Influences Intention to Intervene and How Social Marketing Can Help!

Problematic and risky behaviors such as drunk driving, drug taking, and binge drinking are often undertaken in social situations where a bystander could intervene. To date, research has examined neither social marketing’s effect on interveners nor the mechanisms by which that might work. On the basis of reader response theory, we introduce a new concept, comedic reproducibility, defined as the perception that one can reuse stimuli to elicit mirth in others, and we study its role in humorous social advertising for intervening intentions. Our research reports two studies. In Study 1, we explore the route by which affiliative humor style affects intention to intervene via a mediation effect of intervening anxiety. We also examine the interactive influence of comedic reproducibility of the ad and audience affiliative humor style on intervening anxiety. In Study 2, we examine the direct effects of comedic reproducibility on intention to intervene. Results demonstrate that social advertising messages perceived as comedically reproducible provide audiences with a tool they can use in conjunction with their affiliative humor style to stop their friends from behaving dangerously. The findings can be used by social marketers to create and pretest the effectiveness of comedically reproducible campaigns that target intervening.

The Effect of Humor Styles on Anxiety Performance in Basketball Learning Practices

Every sport requires players to practice constantly to develop skills and the zeal to become a perfect player increases based on the players’ anxiety-performance level. This makes humor styles of players a significant counterweight to the severity associated with anxiety-performance in basketball learning practices. As a result, the study aimed to examine the effect of players’ humor styles on anxiety performance in learning practices. A quantitative research method was used and questionnaire was distributed to the participants with 201 data was collected. Data collected were analyzed using correlational and factors covariance analyses. The results indicate that there is a statistically significant relationship between players’ humor styles and anxiety-related performance in learning physical practices. This suggests that humor styles can counterbalance the severity of anxiety-related performance in basketball learning practices. Overall, this study provides insight into how sports psychologists can identify optimal humor styles for players’ worry, somatic, and concentration disruption anxiety performance. Thus, this study presented both the theoretical and educational implications.

A network analysis of relationships between the work as meaning inventory (WAMI-U) and the humor styles in university students: Enhancing prevention in decent education

Rooted in the decent education as a precursor to decent work, this study investigated via network analysis the relationship between the work as meaning inventory for university students (WAMI-U) (positive meaning, meaning-making through study, greater good motivations) and the humor styles questionnaire (HSQ) (health-promoting styles: affiliative humor, self-enhancing humor; health-endangering styles: aggressive humor, self-defeating humor) in 371 Italian university students. Central nodes and bridge nodes between WAMI-U and HSQ were calculated. Positive meaning, meaning-making through study (WAMI-U), and self-enhancing humor (HSQ) had high centrality. Affiliative humor, self-enhancing humor (HSQ), and positive meaning (WAMI-U) had bridge function. The high centrality and bridge function of self-enhancing with all dimensions of WAMI-U, followed by the bridge function of affiliative humor in relation to meaning-making through study (WAMI-U) confirmed them as health-promoting styles. Negative associations between maladaptive humor styles and positive meaning (WAMI-U) confirmed their standard as health-endangering styles. Implications for research and prevention are discussed.

The relationship between nursıng students' humor styles and perceived care behaviors

The relationship between nursıng students' humor styles and perceived care behaviors

Factor invariance of the Humor Styles Questionnaire and its relationship with the HEXACO personality model in a Spanish community sample

The cross-cultural factor invariance of the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) structure, and its relationships with the HEXACO personality model were analyzed in a large Spanish community sample. The effect of age, gender, and social position on the observed relationships was also investigated. The four-factor structure of the HSQ was largely invariant compared to the original one. Males and younger participants score higher on all four domains of the HSQ, but no relevant effect of social position is observed. The HEXACO-60 dimensions and facets predicted between 17% and 32% of the HSQ domains. Results and discussion broadly support that the HEXACO personality model can be used as an adequate personality framework for the research and understanding of humor styles.

Emotion Regulation Strategies in Educational, Work and Sport Contexts: An Approach in Five Countries.

One of the greatest challenges in the domain of emotional regulation is comprehending the functionality of strategies and their utilization in various social contexts. In this sense, this study analyzes differences in the use and efficacy of regulation strategies, particularly of interpersonal strategies like altruism, social support, negotiation, mediation, regulation, and rituals, in samples of workers (N = 687) and students (N = 959) from Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Spain, and Uruguay, and athletes (N =144) from Spain. Participants answered questions pertaining to measures of affect or emotional regulation (MARS and ERQ self-regulation scales and EROS heteroregulation), as well as questions of a wellbeing scale (PHI) and questions related to emotional creativity (ECI), humor styles (HSQ), and adjustment to stress. Athletes reported less emotional discharge, use of humor, and affection, and greater confrontation and use of rituals than students and workers. A congruent relationship was found between the use of functional strategies (like direct coping, distraction, reevaluation, and active physiological regulation) and adjustment to stress, well-being, and creativity. Seeking social support, negotiation, and, to an extent, altruism, confirmed their predicted adaptive character. Mediation and delegation did not confirm their predicted adaptive character. Rumination, social comparison, rituals, confrontation, and suppression were maladaptive for workers and students, but the first four strategies were functional for athletes, who display a higher self-control and a more team-oriented and competitive emotional culture. Finally, the results show that adaptive regulation strategies mediate the relationship between well-being and adjustment to stress.

Administrators’ Humor Styles and Teachers’ Thriving at Work in a Chinese University: Inputs for a School Wellness Program

This study is a quantitative, non- experimental correlational research that tries to determine the relationship between school administrators’ humor styles and teachers’ thriving at work in a Chinese university with a purpose of developing a school wellness program. The date gathered from the questionnaires is to be analyzed by quantitative survey tools, ensuring the study to explore the correlation of the research variables. The findings of the study have theoretical and practical implications for better utilizing administrators’ humor styles and enhancing teachers’ thriving at work, which can become the inputs of a school wellness program. The school wellness program developed aims to integrate health literacy into the comprehensive development of a university by taking the well-being and wellness of teachers and students as the goal, and adapting to the basic requirements of the construction of a healthy China.

The Humor Styles Questionnaire: a critique of scale construct validity and recommendations regarding individual differences in style profiles

Abstract This paper examines the construct validity of the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) – that is, whether scores on the scale adequately reflect adaptive or maladaptive humor use which is causally related to psychosocial well-being, and considers how research on distinct groups of people defined in terms of their style profiles can clarify the nature of the styles. A number of concerns about scale content are raised, including that coverage of relevant issues and wording of some scale items are problematic; rating scales used to assess humor use require revision; the extent of influence of non-humor components of the items is unclear; and the items associated with any style do not accurately indicate its motivation. Findings concerning style profiles indicate the same style can perform different functions for different people (relationship/stimulation seeking, or self-defense) and also differ from those typically observed in studies of HSQ convergent, divergent, and criterion validity. Further research should take into account the methodological issues discussed and focus on the style profiles and humor content and structure preferences of humor users and their audiences. Reasons to view the styles as predictive of but not causally related to psychosocial well-being are also provided.