Article Version of Record

The relationship between humor styles and forgiveness

Author(s) / Creator(s)

Hampes, William

Abstract / Description

Research has shown that a factor in a victim’s forgiveness of an offender is the victim’s ability to make more positive, or at least less negative, attributions of the offender’s behavior and that perspective-taking can be a factor in facilitating that process. Self-enhancing humor has been found to be positively correlated with perspective-taking empathy and aggressive humor found to be negatively correlated with perspective-taking empathy. Therefore it was predicted that self-enhancing humor would be positively correlated with forgiveness and aggressive humor negatively correlated with forgiveness. The Humor Styles Questionnaire, the Absence of Negative and Presence of Positive subscales of the Forgiveness Scale, and the Forgiveness Likelihood Scale were administered to 112 college undergraduates. Self-enhancing humor was significantly and positively correlated with all of the forgiveness measures, aggressive humor and self-defeating humor were significantly and negatively correlated with some of the forgiveness measures and affiliative humor was not significantly correlated with any of the forgiveness measures. The results were interpreted in terms of previous findings for humor styles, perspective-taking empathy, depression, self-esteem and anxiety. Future research involving the extent to which other personality variables, such as perspective-taking empathy, mediate the relationship between self-enhancing humor and forgiveness was suggested.

Keyword(s)

affiliative humor self-enhancing humor aggressive humor self-defeating humor and forgiveness

Persistent Identifier

Date of first publication

2016-08-19

Journal title

Europe's Journal of Psychology

Volume

12

Issue

3

Page numbers

338–347

Publisher

PsychOpen GOLD

Publication status

publishedVersion

Review status

peerReviewed

Is version of

Citation

Hampes, W. (2016). The relationship between humor styles and forgiveness. Europe's Journal of Psychology, 12(3), 338–347. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1012
  • Author(s) / Creator(s)
    Hampes, William
  • PsychArchives acquisition timestamp
    2018-11-21T09:59:42Z
  • Made available on
    2018-11-21T09:59:42Z
  • Date of first publication
    2016-08-19
  • Abstract / Description
    Research has shown that a factor in a victim’s forgiveness of an offender is the victim’s ability to make more positive, or at least less negative, attributions of the offender’s behavior and that perspective-taking can be a factor in facilitating that process. Self-enhancing humor has been found to be positively correlated with perspective-taking empathy and aggressive humor found to be negatively correlated with perspective-taking empathy. Therefore it was predicted that self-enhancing humor would be positively correlated with forgiveness and aggressive humor negatively correlated with forgiveness. The Humor Styles Questionnaire, the Absence of Negative and Presence of Positive subscales of the Forgiveness Scale, and the Forgiveness Likelihood Scale were administered to 112 college undergraduates. Self-enhancing humor was significantly and positively correlated with all of the forgiveness measures, aggressive humor and self-defeating humor were significantly and negatively correlated with some of the forgiveness measures and affiliative humor was not significantly correlated with any of the forgiveness measures. The results were interpreted in terms of previous findings for humor styles, perspective-taking empathy, depression, self-esteem and anxiety. Future research involving the extent to which other personality variables, such as perspective-taking empathy, mediate the relationship between self-enhancing humor and forgiveness was suggested.
    en_US
  • Publication status
    publishedVersion
  • Review status
    peerReviewed
  • Citation
    Hampes, W. (2016). The relationship between humor styles and forgiveness. Europe's Journal of Psychology, 12(3), 338–347. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1012
  • ISSN
    1841-0413
  • Persistent Identifier
    https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12034/1005
  • Persistent Identifier
    https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.1197
  • Language of content
    eng
  • Publisher
    PsychOpen GOLD
  • Is version of
    https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1012
  • Keyword(s)
    affiliative humor
    en_US
  • Keyword(s)
    self-enhancing humor
    en_US
  • Keyword(s)
    aggressive humor
    en_US
  • Keyword(s)
    self-defeating humor
    en_US
  • Keyword(s)
    and forgiveness
    en_US
  • Dewey Decimal Classification number(s)
    150
  • Title
    The relationship between humor styles and forgiveness
    en_US
  • DRO type
    article
  • Issue
    3
  • Journal title
    Europe's Journal of Psychology
  • Page numbers
    338–347
  • Volume
    12
  • Visible tag(s)
    Version of Record