www.ejop.org Searching for the Sense of Humor: Stereotypes of Ourselv es and Others

Researchers have made consistent claims that people do not have an awareness of their humor competence and that the vast majority of people claim to have an above-average sense of humor. In this study, we examined whether people’s self reports of humor competence matched an independent measurement of sense of humor. We also investigated participants’ self-reported personality characteristics to see if they attributed to themselves the same characteristics that participants in earlier research attributed to hypothetical others that shared their level of humor competence. Participants completed the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (MSHS) and inventories based on the Big Five model of personality. The results revealed that participants had a realistic view of their humor competence. Their self-perceived humor competence correlated reliably with their scores on the MSHS. In addition, they characterized themselves on the personality inventories in the way that previous research participants evaluated others. Participants’ self-reports matched the stereotypes they had of imaginary others for extraversion and neuroticism, but not for agreeableness and openness. The findings suggest that people hold implicit theories of the link between humor and personality and apply it reliably both to themselves and to others. Results are discussed in terms of the need to study humor as multidimensional construct and in light of expectations of evolutionary theory.

Tw o statements about humor appear incontrov ertible.First, humor is a social lubricant.Second, hav ing a good sense of humor is a social characteristic that people prize in themselv es and others.Buss (1988) has show n that humor is highly desirable in mate selection and that people perceiv e it to be a highly effectiv e strategy in mate attraction.There also seems to be a consistent relation betw een humor and intelligence (How rigan & MacDonald, 2008).
Possession of a good sense of humor (SoH) is so important to one"s self concept that, according to declarations of researchers, just about ev erybody believ es that their sense of humor is at least av erage (Allport, 1961;Lefcourt & Martin, 1986).There appear to be no reports that people are w illing to state that they are truly deficient in humor, although people low er in SoH than their peers may be aw are of it and prov ide data consistent w ith it (Kruger & Dunning, 1999).
Various personality characteristics hav e been associated w ith high or low lev els of humor.These associations reflect the positiv e v iew of the SoH.For example, Cann and Calhoun"s (2001) participants characterized a hypothetical other regarding personality based on w hether that hypothetical person had a poor, av er age, or good sense of humor.Systematic differences appeared as a function of putativ e SoH, w ith a better SoH being related to more positiv e social traits.
People imagined as hav ing a good sense of humor benefit from a halo effect.They are also perceiv ed as more pleasant and interesting but less complaining or shallow (Cann & Calhoun, 2001).Beyond this, Cann and Calhoun explored different characteristics of the NEO-FFI factors as associated w ith lev el of SoH.Again, high lev els of SoH w ere related to high scores on positiv e factors like agreeableness, and low levels of SoH correlated w ith higher lev els of neuroticism.I t is important to remember that Cann and Calhoun tested participants" reactions to hypothetical others, so it is not clear that the stereotypes their participants reported are consistent w ith personality dimensions of actual people.
I n terms of actual relations betw een sense of humor and personality characteristics in real people, the correlational findings are mixed.Ruch and Carrell (1998) found a fairly strong relation betw een trait cheerfulness and SoH.Further, Thorson and Pow ell (1993c) hav e found correlations betw een SoH and deference (negativ e) and exhibition (positiv e), and Kelly (2002) discov ered a correlation (negativ e) betw een worry and SoH, although the magnitude of these correlations w as quite modest.
Other personality traits show little connection to SoH, such as achiev ement or aggression (Thorson & Pow ell, 1993a).The lack of a relation here is not particularly Stereotypes and Sense of Humor 269 surprising, giv en that sense of humor seems to consist of a relativ ely small number of components (Ruch & Carrell, 1998;Thorson & Pow ell, 1993a) that are probably psychologically unrelated to traits like achiev ement.
Regarding neuroticism on NEO-FFI measurements, there appears to be an inconsistent relation betw een neuroticism scores and lev el of SoH (e.g., Köhler. & Ruch, 1996).Part of this inconsistency may result from an interaction betw een type of humor and neuroticism.Gallow ay and Chirico (2008) predicted that neuroticism scores and joke ratings w ould be related differently, depending on type of joke.
Because anxiety is a component of neuroticism and because nov elty is associated w ith anxiety, people w ho scored high on the neuroticism dimension w ould be less likely to enjoy jokes that inv olv e novelty, that is, nonsense jokes.The researchers hypothesized, and found, that as neuroticism increases, liking of nonsense humor decreases relativ e to liking of incongruity-resolution humor.
The present research is based on Cann and Calhoun"s (2001) inv estigation of ev aluations of personality characteristics of hypothetical others w ith v arying lev els of SoH.As noted abov e, these researchers measured reactions to imagined people.
The present research w ill replicate their design in the sense of relating personality characteristics to SoH.I n our study, though, rather than responding about the stereotypes that people hav e about imagined others, participants w ill connect the personality traits to an actual person--themselv es.As such, w e w ill address the question of w hether people w ith poor, typical, or good SoH show the same patterns in ev aluating themselv es that Cann and Calhoun"s participants rev ealed in ev aluating others.
The answ er to this question w ill prov ide insight in to the w ay people conceiv e of their ow n sense of humor and its relation to their personality.Giv en that personality researchers accept the v alidity of self-report measures, if our participants show the same pattern of association betw een lev el of SoH and personality in themselv es as Cann and Calhoun"s participants did of others, it could mean that people apply the same implicit theory of humor and personality to themselv es that they do to others.
One potential implication here is that participants w ould need to hav e some selfknow ledge of their humor competence.Researchers hav e posited, how ev er, that people do not hav e v ery good insight into their SoH (e.g., Kruger & Dunning, 1999;Lefcourt & Martin, 1986).Thus, if low SoH people attributed to putativ e others with low SoH the same personality characteristics that they themselv es show ed, it w ould imply that these people had some reliable lev el of insight into their ow n SoH.I n fact, Kruger and Dunning reported a significant correlation betw een self reports of participants" humor competence and independently generated measures of such competence.On the other hand, if people hav e v ery limited insight into their humor competence, the relation betw een SoH and personality traits w ould be w eak or nonexistent.
One goal here is to see w hether our participants apply the same criteria to themselv es that Cann and Calhoun"s participants applied to imagined others in their stereotypes regarding personality and humor.Further, w e might see w hether the stereotypes are at all v eridical.That is, do the connections betw een participants" ow n SoH and their personalities resemble the stereotypical connections of Cann and Calhoun"s participants?
I n the present research, w e w ill measure participants" SoH in tw o w ays.The first is based on one question on a ten-point scale: How good is your sense of humor?This measurement is quite subjectiv e and not tied directly to any behav iors.The second w ay w ill inv olve Thorson and Pow ell"s (1993a, b) Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (MSHS).The MSHS is psychometrically v alidated and w ill constitute w hat w e w ill refer to as an objective measurement of SoH.I t is true that the MSHS inv olv es self report, but it has acceptable psychometric properties and consists of items that are somew hat tied to descriptions of behav iors (e.g., Other people tell me I say funny things).So for conv enience of description, we w ill refer to MSHS scores as objective rather than w ith more cumbersome terminology like psychometrically derived.A second, subjectiv e single-question measurement w ill ask participants how funny they think they are.
The MSHS appears to hav e broad utility, as show n w ith Portuguese students (Jose, Parreira, Thorson, & Allw ardt, 2007), w ith Spanish students (Carbelo-Baquero, Alonso-Rodriguez, Valero-Garces, & Thorson, 2006), and w ith regionally div erse samples w ithin the United States (Romero, Alsua, Hinrichs, & Pearson, 2007) .Thorson, Pow ell, Sarmany-Schuller, and Hampes (1997) also documented the w ide range of demographic samples to w hich it has been administered successfully.Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that the sample in this study is appropriate for its use.
Of particular interest in the present study are both the total SoH score and the subscale scores of the MSHS that Thorson and Pow ell (1993) identified: humor production, coping w ith humor, attitudes tow ard the use of humor, and humor appreciation (p.802).Giv en that humor is a complex construct, it seems reasonable to believ e that there are multiple components to it.Research has supported the existence of the dimensions posited by Thorson and Pow ell.For example, Romero et al. (2007) hav e documented different demographic v ariables that correlate w ith the subscales of the MSHS.Further, Carbelo-Baquero et al., 2006) hav e used the subscales to distinguish humor patterns across Spanish and American samples, w ith the former using coping humor and the latter producing more humor.The different dimensions of the MSHS hav e also show n links to personality characteristics among an American sample; for instance, the humor creation and the coping subscales of the MSHS correlate reliably to hope, as measured by the Hope Scale (Cann & Etzel, 2008).
I n addition, the different dimensions of the MSHS may hav e some predictiv e pow er regarding issues of stress.For instance, Moran and Hughes (2006) reported that people w ith high humor production scores on the MSHS show ed low er stress than people w ho tended not to produce humor.Furthermore, people scoring high on the liking of humor scale show ed some higher stress scores than those w ho produced humor, a finding that Cann and Etzel (2008) also reported.
These dimensions can prov ide a more fine-grained analysis of the structure of the SoH.Thus, possible reasons for the inconsistent relation betw een neuroticism scores and SoH (e.g., Deaner & McConatha, 1993;Köhler, & Ruch,1996) might emerge if some, but not all, dimensions of humor relate to neuroticism.How rigan and MacDonald (2008) and others hav e also show n a correlation betw een SoH and extrav ersion.The latter trait is embedded in the total MSHS score, but the extrav ersion is likely to correlate w ith humor production, w hereas it may not relate to the use of humor for coping or to humor appreciation.I t should be noted that the MSHS may show some instability in its factors.Factors associated w ith relativ ely few items on the 24-item scale can be unreliable (Kirsch & Kuiper, 2003).Thus, some items may tap a giv en underlying dimension and, depending on the sample, also show an association w ith different factors.I n addition, as Kirsch & Kuiper pointed out, the MSHS and other humor scales tend to focus more on the positiv e aspects of humor (e.g., coping) than on negativ e aspects (e.g., mean-spirited humor).Thus, MSHS may be useful for studyin g v arious dimensions of humor w hile remaining silent on others.
A second component of our study inv olv es w hether people are w illing or able to report their lev el of SoH accurately.Claims persist that they cannot or w ill not (Allport, 1961;Cann & Calhoun, 2001;Kruger & Dunning, 1999).I f people cannot report their ow n SoH accurately, their stereotypes of imagined others may reflect a comparison of their self image to the hypothetical other, believ ing themselv es to be abov e av erage.As such, Cann and Calhoun"s participants might hav e been assuming that their SoH is abov e av erage and, consistent w ith the need to hold a positiv e self image, might hav e rated positiv ely others like them (i.e., people w ith abov e-av erage SoH) and more negativ ely people not like them (i.e., people w ith below -av erage SoH).
Unfortunately, the oldest report that describes ev erybody"s belief that he or she is abov e av erage prov ides sketchy detail about the phenomenon.Allport"s (1961) claim referred to an unpublished study in w hich 94% of people claimed to hav e SoH that w as abov e av erage (p.292-293); the methodology is unknow n.
I n contrast, Lefcourt and Martin (1986) prov ided the important elements of their research methodology.They used a fiv e-point scale on w hich participants responded.The researchers reported that, in response to the item How would you rate yourself in terms of your likelihood of being amused and of laughing in a wide variety of situations?(p.27), 94% of participants reported being at or abov e av erage, the same percentage as in Allport"s w ork.
Additional w ell-documented ev idence suggesting a disconnect betw een a person"s beliefs and the reality about his or her SoH inv olved low SoH participants show ing poor lev els of agreement w ith the judgment of actual comedians about funniness of jokes (Kruger & Dunning, 1999).I n that research, the inv estigators assessed SoH based on the correlation betw een funniness ratings by participants and by comedians: A low correlation w as equated w ith poor SoH in that one w ould expect professional comedians to hav e a good SoH and be able to differentiate reliably stimuli that w ere funny and those that w ere not.
Their results rev eal one of the difficulties in measuring the funniness of jokes and relating it to SoH.When Kruger and Dunning intercorrelated the ratings of the funniness of jokes by comedians, there w as a clear positiv e relationship (r = .72),but the relation w as far from perfect because of the complexities inv olv ed in judging humor.I n fact, the ratings of one comedian correlated negativ ely w ith the ratings of the others.I t might also hav e been the case that the comedians recognized the humor as coming from a particular source.The researchers chose w ell-know n comedians (e.g., Woody Allen, Al Franken), w hose w ork other professional comedians might recognize.For instance, the stimulus w ith the highest rating w as "If a kid asks w here rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God is crying."An d if he asks w hy God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is "probably because of something you did.""I t w ould not be surprising that professional comedians w ould recognize this humor as one of Jack Handy"s "Deep Thoughts".The expectation of funniness may hav e been raised for those stimuli, a process that could lead to elev ated ratings (e.g., Wimer & Beins, 2008) both by comedians and by participants w ith a good SoH w ho might be somew hat familiar w ith the comedians.
Further, the differences in types of humor and people"s preferences for them are alw ays problematic and can lead to uncertainty in measurement.For instance, Kruger and Dunning did not indicate a gender breakdow n among their participants.
Giv en that more w omen participate in psychology studies and that w omen tend to show higher neuroticism scores than men (e.g., Buchanan, Johnson, & Goldberg, 2005), the nature of the humor in that study might hav e had an effect on the outcome.So the correlation they reported relating assessment of one"s SoH may hav e underestimated the participants" ability to do so.
Our methodology is similar to that of Cann and Calhoun (2001) regarding the nature of our stimuli.We assessed participants" lev els of traits from the so-called Big Fiv e, as measured by scales dev eloped by the I nternational I tem Personality Pool (http://ipip.ori.org/ipip/).Unfortunately, for technical reasons, measurements of conscientiousness failed to record.I n addition, w e obtained self-reports on 36 personality characteristics that Cann and Calhoun measured (e.g., friendly, interesting, complaining, passiv e).Those researchers identified the characteristics on tw o orthogonal dimensions: desirability (high or low ) and control (high or low ).
The difference betw een their study and ours is that our analysis w ill inv estigate w hether participants w ith a good sense of humor w ill show the same characteristics that Cann and Calhoun"s participants env isioned in a person w ith a good sense of humor.That is, do people attribute the same stereotypical characteristics associated w ith a good sense of humor in others to themselv es?Similarly, do those w ith a poor sense of humor do so?Kruger and Dunning (1999) reported that their participants" self-ratings of humor compared to their peer group correlated significantly w ith those researchers" objectiv e measurement of SoH.We are looking at w hether participants are aw are of their level of SoH as measured on a Likert-type scale w ithout reference to a peer group.Prev ious self-measurements of SoH may hav e relied on less specific measurements giv en the report that 94% of participants believ ed that they w ere abov e av erage (Allport, 1961).I n addition, it is not clear how participants differ in their answ ers if they compare themselv es to a peer group as opposed to simply assessing themselv es v ia a number on a more abstract Likert-type scale.

Method Participants
We tested 109 v olunteers from psychology courses.They receiv ed extra credit for their participation.There w ere 75 w omen and 33 men.The sample comprised 97 w hite participants, 6 black participants, 4 Asian Americans, and 2 w ho did not indicate race or ethnicity.

Materials
We used measures of the Big Fiv e personality traits from the Collaboratory prov ided by the Oregon Research I nstitute (http://ipip.ori.org/ipip/).They included 10-item scales for neuroticism w ith an acceptable lev el of reliability (α = .86),extrav ersion (α = .86),and openness (α = .82);w e used the 20-item scale agreeableness (α = .85)because its reliability w as comparable to that of the other scales.
I n addition, our participants completed the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (MSHS; Thorson and Pow ell, 1993a), a 24-item self-report inv entory w ith statements like My clever sayings amuse others and Humor is a lousy coping mechanism (rev erse scored).Responses to items on this inv entory are on a scale of 1 (Very inaccurate) to 5 (Very accurate).For data analysis to replicate Cann and Calhoun"s approach, w e created three lev els of SoH: low , medium, and high.Our cutoffs for inclusion in the three groups inv olv ed a breakdow n into three groups w ith approximately equal numbers of participants based on scores on the MSHS.
Next, participants rated themselv es on the set of 36 adjectiv es that Cann and Calhoun (2001, p. 122)  After completing informed consent forms, they rated themselv es on measures of neuroticism, extrav ersion, agreeableness, and openness.Subsequent to those ratings, participants completed the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale, then rated themselv es on the 36 adjectiv es that differed in control and desirability.

Results
Subjective and Objective Measures of Humor When our participants indicated on a 10-point scale how funny they thought they w ere and how much of a SoH they possessed, the results show ed, predictably, that they tended not to rate themselv es as being at the v ery low end of the scale.But the 10-point scale gav e them the psychological space to indicate that they believ ed themselv es to be low relativ e to others.I n fact, for both funniness and SoH, the data are reasonably w ell distributed.Although it is not surprising that people did not rate themselv es as being entirely humorless, few people rated themselv es at the highest lev els for either characteristic.The patterns appear in Figures 1 and 2. These data belie the claim that people are not aw are of their humorous aspects.I n fact, both Lefcourt and Martin (1986) and Kruger and Dunning (1999) reported significant correlations betw een inv entory items or other external measures of sense of humor and self-ratings.The present data resulting from a 10-point scale show s that people are clearly not obliv ious to their relativ e standing regarding humor competence.I n fact, if one were to ignore self ratings of three and low er, an area on the scale that is sparsely populated, one has a typical sev en-point Likert-type scale w ith ratings along the entire scale.
Particularly for SoH, people are reluctant to place themselv es at the v ery bottom of the scale.But they are w illing to admit that they are not at the top of the scale.
Using our objectiv e measure of SoH, the MSHS, w e grouped participants as being low , medium, or high in SoH to match the categories that Cann and Calhoun used for the assessment of hypothetical others.W hen w e analyzed our participants" self reports about sense of humor, there w as remarkable agreement betw een the participants" self perceptions and the objectiv e measurements for their responses to both self assessments, "How funny do you think you are?" and "How w ould you rate your sense of humor?"We factor analyzed the 24 items from the MSHS into its components.The factor analysis w ith Varimax rotation rev ealed fiv e components w ith eigenv alues greater than 1.00.Although our sample size w as on the low er bound for analyzing a 24-item instrument, our factors w ere similar enough to those of Thorson and Pow ell (1993a) that w e are comfortable using the factors that emerged from the analysis.Together, they accounted for 67.04% of the v ariance.
All coefficients but one w ere abov e .5; the single exception w as .45.Table 1 giv es examples of some of the MSHS items associated w ith the fiv e factors.
There is good consistency regarding participants" v iew s of their ow n humor competence and its objectiv e measurement on the MSHS.Reinforcing these results is the significant correlation betw een self reports of being funny and the MSHS score, r(107) = .71,p < .01.The correlation betw een the self report and the humor production factor on the MSHS w as ev en higher, r(107) = .77,p < .01.
With respect to the self report of hav ing a good sense of humor, participants" self ratings correlated significantly w ith MSHS scores, r(107) = .44,p < .01.The phrase sense of humor appears to mean something different than being funny, giv en this low er correlation w ith MSHS score and w ith the ev en low er correlation betw een selfreported SoH and MSHS score on the production factor, r( 107

Personality Characteristics and Humor
When w e analyzed our data using the same nominal groupings that Cann and Calhoun did (low , av erage, and high in SoH) w hen their participants env isioned a hypothetical other, there w ere some similarities in the patterns of results.For some personality characteristics, our participants rated their ow n personality the same w ay Cann and Calhoun"s participants rated a hypothetical other.Our participants attributed extrav ersion to themselv es just as Cann and Calhoun"s participants attributed extrav ersion to the hypothetical other, w ith low -SoH participants show ing significantly low er lev els of extrav ersion than medium or high, F(2, 103) = 6.03, p < .01,partial η 2 = .10.
With respect to neuroticism, a margi nally significant effect show ed that our participants w ith low and medium SoH w ere about equal, w ith high SoH participants hav ing low er lev els of neuroticism, F(2, 103) = 2.40, p = .10,partial η 2 = .04.This marginal effect replicates that of Cann and Calhoun.
Our pattern of results regarding openness show s some similarity w ith the prev ious research, w ith the highest lev els of openness associated w ith high-SoH participants, F(2, 103) = 3.05, p = .05,partial η 2 = .06,although the lev els for low and medium participants is rev ersed here compared to Cann and Calhoun.Finally regarding this set of characteristics, w e found no differences across humor lev els regarding agreeableness, F < 1. Cann and Calhoun found increasing lev els of agreeableness attributed to others as their putativ e lev el of SoH increased.Summary data from our study appear in Table 2.These results are intriguing in that the attribution of some personality characteristics is similar regardless of w hether one is ev aluating a hypothetical other w ith, for instance,

Extrav ersion
an abov e-av erage SoH or a high-SoH person is ev aluating himself or herself.Such attributions occurred both for positiv e traits (i.e., extrav ersion and openness) and a negativ e trait (i.e., neuroticism).
I n addition to analyzing ov erall humor competence, w e inv estigated the relation betw een subcomponents of humor, as identified in the factor analysis of the MSHS data, and the elements of the Big Fiv e personality theory.The patterns of correlation appear in Table 3.I nterestingly, ov erall humor competence did not correlate w ith neuroticism for either funniness or SoH, r = -.06 and .04,both ps > .56.Nor w as there a relation betw een funniness or SoH and openness, r = .08and .03,both ps > .41. (For all analyses, df = 107.) Self-reported funniness and extrav ersion w ere significantly correlated, r = .35,p < .01,w hereas SoH w as marginally related, r = .18,p = .06.Agreeableness and funniness w ere not significantly correlated, r = .11,but agreeableness and SoH w ere, r = .20,p = .04.These latter tw o patterns suggest that the psychological processes associated w ith funniness and SoH may ov erlap but that they also hav e discrete components.

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A breakdow n of MSHS factors and their associations rev ealed that certain personality characteristics are correlated w ith different traits.For instance, humor production correlated significantly w ith extrav ersion, but not w ith any other traits.Table 3. Correlations betw een personality traits and components of sense of humor These correlations prov ide an interesting look at the v arious components of humor and the traits associated w ith them.Participants w ith high extrav ersion scores produce humor, but their extrav ersion does not predict anything about the other components of humor.Similarly, participants scoring high on neuroticism show discomfort w ith humor, agreeing that statements like I'm uncomfortable when everyone is cracking jokes describe them accurately.

Extrav ersion
Another pattern of interest concerns openness.There is a direct relation betw een one"s lev el of openness and the tw o components of humor, use of coping humor and humor appreciation.Openness does not correlate w ith negativ e responses to humor, discomfort or how useful humor is for coping.As such, openness relates to positiv e reactions to humor but not to negativ e responses.This prov ides an interesting contrast to the decreasing comfort w ith humor as neuroticism increases w ithout a concomitant relation to responses to positiv e use of coping humor.
I n addition, agreeableness is not associated w ith humor production, but it is w ith acceptance of and appreciation of humor.This is not surprising giv en that agreeableness in our measurements w as associated w ith a positiv e outlook, w hich could reasonably include appreciating the v alue of humor and its ameliorativ e social effects.
Finally, the ratings of the adjectiv es that v aried in control and in desirability did not v ary systematically w ith humor lev el, as in Cann and Calhoun"s study.We presented all adjectiv es in each category together, w hich w e think simply led to higher ratings for high desirability adjectiv es and low er ratings for low desirability adjectiv es w ithout differentiating across humor lev els.Thus, w e w ill not discuss this analysis further.

Discussion
The tw o most interesting and important findings in this research are that (a) people do know their lev el of humor competence and w ill report it w ith reasonable accuracy and (b) people attribute some traits to themselv es that they attribute to a hypothetical other w ho possesses the same lev el of humor competence as they do.
As noted abov e, a recurrent theme in discussing humor competence is that people believ e that they show high lev els of sense of humor and that they report their lev els inaccurately (Allport, 1961;Kruger & Dunning, 1999;Lefcourt & Martin, 1986).This theme persists in spite of reports correlations betw een self-perceived SoH and some objectiv e measures of SoH (Kruger & Dunning;1999;Lefcourt & Martin, 1986).
One of the difficulties in measuring personality and humor is the subjectiv ity that is necessarily inv olv ed.There is no objectiv e metric for identifying constructs of funniness of jokes (Wimer & Beins, 2008), so using responses to jokes as a measurement of a person"s sense of humor is reasonable, but not perfect.Similarly, measuring a person"s self perception of humor has its limitations because such measurement implies that people are able and w illing to monitor the effect that their humor production has on those around them.Our data reflect the importance of the particular measurements used and the need to attend to the multidimensional nature of humor.
I n this study, w e extended the scale of possible responses from the typical fiv e as used by Lefcourt & Martin to a ten-point scale.Know ing that people are unw illing to characterize themselv es as completely dev oid of humor competence, w e reasoned that by extending the scale, w e w ould allow people to av oid assigning extremely low v alues to their lev el of humor but, at the same time, they might still be able to position themselv es w ith relativ e accuracy.Our results justified that approach.Using a ten-point scale appears in a psychological sense to be the same as using a sev enpoint scale on w hich there are three fictitious (i.e., unused) points.Participants tended not to self rate w ith v ery low numbers w hen reporting their SoH, although they w ere w illing to admit being low on the funniness scale.I t appears that people differentiate betw een hav ing a good SoH, w hich is highly desirable, and being funny, w hich is also desirable but not absolutely critical.
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When w e examined participants" scores on the MSHS in relation to their self-reported SoH and lev el of funniness, w e found impressiv e correlations.The correlation betw een the humor production factor of the MSHS and the self rating of funniness w as .765,w hich w ould account for ov er 58% of the v ariance in that relation.This figure is v ery high for measurements of such a complex psychological construct.
The aforementioned research implies that some cognitiv e characteristics are associated w ith recognition of one"s humor competence.Kuiper, McKenzie, and Belanger (1995) show ed that humorous people w ere able to change their perspectiv es w hen contexts changed; they called for recognition of the multidimensional nature of humor as it related to indiv idual differences.Other researchers hav e taken their cues from Kuiper et al. in the realm of personality characteristics (e.g., Craik, Lampert, & Nelson, 1996;Köhler, & Ruch, 1996).
The research addressing the association of humor and personality characteristics is very complex and sometimes inconsistent.For example, neuroticism sometimes correlates w ith SoH (e.g., Deaner & McConatha, 1993), but sometimes it does not (e.g., Köhler, & Ruch,1996).I n the present research, neuroticism did not correlate w ith ov erall SoH as measured by the MSHS, but higher scores on neuroticism are associated w ith greater lev els of discomfort w ith expressions of humor.As Köhler & Ruch (1996) pointed out, measures of neuroticism focus on qualities like shyness and mood changes; further, Gallow ay and Chirico (2008) pointed out that people high in neuroticism dislike the anxiety of some humor (e.g., nonsense humor), so it is no surprise that humor production is unrelated to neuroticism score in our data.Thus, the nature of the measurement appears to be crucial in establishing any connection among these v ariables, as suggested by Kuiper at al. (1995).This suggestion is further supported by our finding that the relations betw een total MSHS scores and personality scores are not as strong as the relations betw een subcomponents of the MSHS and personality scores.Looking back at Lefcourt and Martin"s (1986) report that 94% of participants w ere at or abov e av erage in humor, one can ask w hether the question to w hich they referred may relate to humor appreciation or coping more than to other subcomponents of humor.
I n fact, Dew itte and Verguts (2001) show ed that w hat constitutes a "good joker" inv olv es tw o components, frequent joking and attention to the effects of that joking.
Self-monitoring seems to be a critical element in becoming a good joker because a degree of sensitiv ity to listener reactions helps fine tune one"s humor skills.As such, the importance of self monitoring may explain w hy openness and agreeableness are reliably associated w ith SoH: Both of these characteristics relate to paying attention to context.

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The importance of separating the components of humor is clear in our data regarding openness and agreeableness.MSHS ov erall scores correlate significantly w ith agreeableness scores but not w ith openness as show n in Table 3.A breakdow n into the components of humor, on the other hand, rev eals an interesting relation betw een neuroticism scores and the comfort w ith humor subcomponent of the MSHS.The lack of an ov erall correlation betw een MSHS score and neuroticism score fails to rev eal that those high in neuroticism feel discomfort around the expres sion of humor, a finding also reported by Köhler, & Ruch (1996).
Extrav ersion is reliably associated w ith humor production, although it is not clear that extrav ersion is association w ith being a good joker.I f an extrav ert is low in social sensitiv ity, the person may tell jokes frequently, but not w ell because the person has not used cues from the audience to refine his or her ability, as Dew itte and Verguts noted.
Thus, ev en though there may be no ev eryday, objectiv e metric for measuring humor or one"s sense of humor, those high in self-monitoring may pick up reliable cues from those around them.I n fact, Turner (1980) found that research participants rated high self monitors as being w ittier; participants similarly rated cartoon captions produced by that group as funnier than captions produced by low self monitors.I t is possible that those low er in sensitiv ity to pick up on social cues may constitute the group that sees itself, erroneously, as abov e av erage in funniness; they observ e themselv es telling jokes, but they do not register the lack of success in their performance.This research also prov ided reason that people hav e at least some ability to recognize their humor competence.
Another aspect of our research addressed the degree to w hich participan ts" self perceptions tended to match their perceptions of people w ho w ere like them in terms of lev el of humor competence.Cann and Calhoun reported on stereotypes that people hav e of others w ith below av erage, typical, and abov e av erage senses of humor; w e investigated w hether participants attributed to themselv es the same characteristics that Cann and Calhoun"s participants attributed to an imaginary other.Our results rev ealed that there w ere similarities betw een self ratings of participants w ith a giv en lev el of humor competence and Cann and Calhoun"s reports of ratings of hypothetical others.This comparability suggests that the attributions accorded to others w ho may hav e, for example, a v ery good sense of humor are actually shared by people w hose objectiv ely determined sense of humor is good.
Perceptions of one"s humor lev el may not be perfect, nor are objectiv e measurements, but there is an element of v eridicality to both.Cann and Calhoun reported that imaginary others w ith a good sense of humor w ere v iew ed as being more intelligent than those w ith a poor sense of humor.As How rigan and MacDonald ( 2008) hav e show n, there is a reliable correlation betw een intelligence and humor and betw een extrav ersion and humor (the latter being a consistent finding).So there is little surprise to see some correlation betw een intelligence and extrav ersion.Nor is it a surprise that people w ould correctly perceiv e this link.
One might suspect that spotting positiv e traits like intelligence (and their correlates) might be matched by the ability to spot undesirable traits.Our results match those of Cann and Calhoun regarding neuroticism.Our participants attributed to themselv es the same lev el of neuroticism that Cann and Calhoun"s participants attributed to imaginary others w hen the lev el of humor competence of our participants matched that of Cann and Calhoun"s imaginary other.
I n contrast, our participants did not show different lev els of openness or agreeableness as a function of lev el of humor competence.This lack of an effect probably w ould not surprise either How rigan and MacDonald (2008) or Buss (1988), w ho adv anced their arguments in the context of ev olutionary psychology, specifically mate selection.Higher lev els of humor are associated w ith "a positiv e grow th-oriented fashion w ith a v ariety of life circumstances and situations" (Kuiper et al., 1995, p. 371).One can imagine that neither openness nor agreeableness per se w ould be ev olutionarily related to mate selection in the same w ay as intelligence, w hich may be reliably associated w ith perceptions of humor competence through the related v ariable of extrav ersion.I t w ould be useful to explore the possible connection betw een perceptions of intelligence, humor, and extrav ersion.
I n conclusion, our data support the contention that people are good, but not perfect, in assessing their lev el of humor competence.Further, w hen they assess the humor competence of others (see Cann and Calhoun, 2001), they may be using their ow n self perceptions as a basis in ev aluating others.Thus, some of the humor stereotypes of others that Cann and Calhoun reported may hav e their root in veridical self perceptions.The importance of humor in social situations and the ability to recognize traits that co-occur w ith high lev els of humor competence are not unexpected w hen v iew ed w ithin the context of ev olutionary psychology.Finally, in assessing personality characteristics associated w ith humor competence, it is important to treat humor as the multidimensional construct that it is.
used.The adjectiv es reflected traits that represented high or low desirability and high or low control.High desirability-high control adjectiv es included w ords like friendly and pleasant.High desirability-low control w ords included interesting and imaginative.The low desirability-high control w ords inv olv ed w ords such as complaining and cold; low -desirability-low control included w ords such as passive and restless.Participants self-rated these on the same scale of 1 (Not at all like me) to 9 (Completely like me) that Cann and Calhoun used.Procedure Participants reported to the laboratory and completed the study in groups either on a computer or on paper.They sat in nonadjacent seats to minimize the likelihood Stereotypes and Sense of Humor 275 that responses w ould be influenced by others w ho might see how they rated themselv es on the v arious characteristics.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Frequency of occurrence of self rated funniness on a scale of 1 ( Not very funny) to 10 Very funny)

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Self-reported humor lev els as a function of lev el of humor competence as measured by the MSHS

Table 1 .
) = .42,p<.01.Examples of items from the MSHS(Thorson & Pow ell, 1993a) associated w ith the fiv e factors resulting from a factor analysis of participant responses I n general, there is a stronger relation betw een MSHS score w ith its components and belief in one"s funniness than belief in one"s SoH.So either the MSHS is a better measure of funniness as people characterize it, or SoH is a more global construct that goes beyond the factors of the MSHS.Still, the MSHS does more than an adequate job of dealing w ith both perceiv ed funniness and SoH.

Table 2 .
Mean self ratings of personality characteristics according to lev el of sense of humor as measured by the MSHS