The German version of the Humor Styles Questionnaire: Psychometric properties and overlap with other styles of humor
Author(s) / Creator(s)
Ruch, Willibald
Heintz, Sonja
Abstract / Description
The Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin et al., 2003) is one of the most frequently used questionnaires in humor research and has been adapted to several languages. The HSQ measures four humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating), which should be adaptive or potentially maladaptive to psychosocial well-being. The present study analyzes the internal consistency, factorial validity, and factorial invariance of the HSQ on the basis of several German-speaking samples combined (total N = 1,101). Separate analyses were conducted for gender (male/female), age groups (16–24, 25–35, >36 years old), and countries (Germany/Switzerland). Internal consistencies were good for the overall sample and the demographic subgroups (.80–.89), with lower values obtained for the aggressive scale (.66–.73). Principal components and confirmatory factor analyses mostly supported the four-factor structure of the HSQ. Weak factorial invariance was found across gender and age groups, while strong factorial invariance was supported across countries. Two subsamples also provided self-ratings on ten styles of humorous conduct (n = 344) and of eight comic styles (n = 285). The four HSQ scales showed small to large correlations to the styles of humorous conduct (-.54 to .65) and small to medium correlations to the comic styles (-.27 to .42). The HSQ shared on average 27.5–35.0% of the variance with the styles of humorous conduct and 13.0–15.0% of the variance with the comic styles. Thus–despite similar labels–these styles of humorous conduct and comic styles differed from the HSQ humor styles.
Keyword(s)
Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) German adaptation reliability factorial validity factorial invariance styles of humorous conduct comic stylesPersistent Identifier
Date of first publication
2016-08-19
Journal title
Europe's Journal of Psychology
Volume
12
Issue
3
Page numbers
434–455
Publisher
PsychOpen GOLD
Publication status
publishedVersion
Review status
peerReviewed
Is version of
Citation
Ruch, W., & Heintz, S. (2016). The German version of the Humor Styles Questionnaire: Psychometric properties and overlap with other styles of humor. Europe's Journal of Psychology, 12(3), 434–455. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Ruch, Willibald
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Heintz, Sonja
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PsychArchives acquisition timestamp2018-11-21T09:59:46Z
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Made available on2018-11-21T09:59:46Z
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Date of first publication2016-08-19
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Abstract / DescriptionThe Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin et al., 2003) is one of the most frequently used questionnaires in humor research and has been adapted to several languages. The HSQ measures four humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating), which should be adaptive or potentially maladaptive to psychosocial well-being. The present study analyzes the internal consistency, factorial validity, and factorial invariance of the HSQ on the basis of several German-speaking samples combined (total N = 1,101). Separate analyses were conducted for gender (male/female), age groups (16–24, 25–35, >36 years old), and countries (Germany/Switzerland). Internal consistencies were good for the overall sample and the demographic subgroups (.80–.89), with lower values obtained for the aggressive scale (.66–.73). Principal components and confirmatory factor analyses mostly supported the four-factor structure of the HSQ. Weak factorial invariance was found across gender and age groups, while strong factorial invariance was supported across countries. Two subsamples also provided self-ratings on ten styles of humorous conduct (n = 344) and of eight comic styles (n = 285). The four HSQ scales showed small to large correlations to the styles of humorous conduct (-.54 to .65) and small to medium correlations to the comic styles (-.27 to .42). The HSQ shared on average 27.5–35.0% of the variance with the styles of humorous conduct and 13.0–15.0% of the variance with the comic styles. Thus–despite similar labels–these styles of humorous conduct and comic styles differed from the HSQ humor styles.en_US
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Publication statuspublishedVersion
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Review statuspeerReviewed
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CitationRuch, W., & Heintz, S. (2016). The German version of the Humor Styles Questionnaire: Psychometric properties and overlap with other styles of humor. Europe's Journal of Psychology, 12(3), 434–455. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116
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ISSN1841-0413
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Persistent Identifierhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12034/1014
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Persistent Identifierhttps://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.1206
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Language of contenteng
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PublisherPsychOpen GOLD
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Is version ofhttps://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116
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Keyword(s)Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ)en_US
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Keyword(s)German adaptationen_US
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Keyword(s)reliabilityen_US
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Keyword(s)factorial validityen_US
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Keyword(s)factorial invarianceen_US
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Keyword(s)styles of humorous conducten_US
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Keyword(s)comic stylesen_US
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Dewey Decimal Classification number(s)150
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TitleThe German version of the Humor Styles Questionnaire: Psychometric properties and overlap with other styles of humoren_US
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DRO typearticle
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Issue3
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Journal titleEurope's Journal of Psychology
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Page numbers434–455
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Volume12
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Visible tag(s)Version of Record