Humor at work: validation of the short work-related Humor Styles Questionnaire (swHSQ)
Authors
Scheel, Tabea E.
Gerdenitsch, Cornelia
Korunka, Christian
Department
Lebenswissenschaftliche Fakultät
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Abstract
As part of daily interactions humor is an integral element of work relationships with consequences for well-being or turnover intentions. However, its adequate assessment in the work context has yet to be improved. While the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin et al. 2003. Individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: Development of the Humor Styles Questionnaire. Journal of Research in Personality 37. 48–75) covers adaptive and maladaptive functions of humor styles, it assesses humor in general life. With the adaption of the HSQ, that is, the short (12-item) and workrelated version of the HSQ (swHSQ), we provide an efficient tool for the assessment of individual humor styles in the work context. We validated and tested the swHSQ in two Austrian-German and one U.S. sample and analyzed its structure and impact by means of confirmatory factor analyses as well as regression analyses. The swHSQ seems valid and reliable (α between 0.62 and 0.86) in a German and an English version, thus representing an efficient selfreport tool for field research. Evidence for construct validity is provided with regard to humor styles’ associations with optimism, occupational self-efficacy, irritation, and job satisfaction. While the positive (affiliative, self-enhancing) humor styles showed expected relationships with the outcomes, patterns of relationships of the negative styles suggest intercultural differences in workplace humor. Thus, self-defeating but not aggressive humor seems impactful in the Austrian-German sample, while the contrary was found in the U.S. sample.
Description
This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.
Keywords
humor styles, scales validation, job satisfaction, irritation, cross-cultural
Dewey Decimal Classification
400 Sprache, 150 Psychologie
References
Publisher DOI: 10.1515/humor-2015-0118
Citation
Scheel, Tabea E., Gerdenitsch, Cornelia, Korunka, Christian.(2016). Humor at work: validation of the short work-related Humor Styles Questionnaire (swHSQ). Humor : international journal of humor research, 29(3). 439-465. 10.1515/humor-2015-0118