• Sonja Heintz
  • Willibald Ruch
  • Simge Aykan
  • Ingrid Brdar
  • Dorota Brzozowska
  • Hugo Carretero-Dios
  • Hsueh Chih Chen
  • Władysław Chłopicki
  • Incheol Choi
  • Alberto Dionigi
  • Róbert Ďurka
  • Thomas E. Ford
  • Angelika Güsewell
  • Robert B. Isler
  • Alyona Ivanova
  • Liisi Laineste
  • Petra Lajčiaková
  • Chloe Lau
  • Minha Lee
  • Stanca Măda
  • Charles Martin-Krumm
  • Andrés Mendiburo-Seguel
  • Ifu Migiwa
  • Nailya Mustafi
  • Atsushi Oshio
  • Tracey Platt
  • René T. Proyer
  • Angélica Quiroga-Garza
  • Tamil Selvan Ramis
  • Răzvan Săftoiu
  • Donald H. Saklofske
  • Alena Slezackova
  • Anastasios Stalikas
  • Ieva Stokenberga
  • Jorge Torres-Marín
  • Peter S.O. Wong

Benevolent and corrective humor are two comic styles that have been related to virtue, morality, and character strengths. A previous study also supported the viability of measuring these two styles with the BenCor in 22 countries. The present study extends the previous one by including further countries (a total of 25 countries in 29 samples with N = 7813), by testing the revised BenCor (BenCor-R), and by adding two criterion measures to assess life satisfaction and four broad humor dimensions (social fun/entertaining humor, mockery, humor ineptness, and cognitive/reflective humor). As expected, the BenCor-R showed mostly promising psychometric properties (internal consistency and factorial validity). Consistent with previous studies, benevolent humor correlated positively with life satisfaction in most countries, while corrective humor was uncorrelated with life satisfaction. These relationships were only slightly changed when controlling for social fun/entertaining humor and mockery, respectively. Benevolent humor was mostly positively associated with cognitive/reflective humor, followed by social fun/entertaining humor and mockery. Corrective humor was mostly positively associated with mockery, followed by cognitive/reflective and social fun/entertaining humor, although these relationships differed between the countries. Overall, the present study supports the viability of benevolent and corrective humor, which has yet received insufficient attention in psychology, for cross-cultural investigations and applications of humor, well-being, and morality.

Original languageEnglish
Number of pages20
JournalJournal of Happiness Studies
Early online dateOct 2019
DOIs
StatePublished - 2019

    Scopus subject areas

  • Social Sciences (miscellaneous)

    Research areas

  • BenCor, Cross-cultural comparisons, Humor, Life satisfaction, PERSONALITY, INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES, STYLES, MENTAL-HEALTH, SATIRE, SENSE, CULTURE, NATIONS

ID: 49649012