Humor ability, unwillingness to communicate, loneliness, and perceived stress: testing a security theory. : An article from: Communication Studies [HTML]

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This digital document is an article from Communication Studies, published by Central States Communication Association on June 22, 2004. The length of the article is 10238 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.From the author: The purpose of this study was to develop and test a theory of the laughter-humor link in interpersonal communication. The basic premise of the theory is that a sense of security underlies the ability to encode humor in everyday conversation. It was hypothesized that communication-related security (i.e., willingness to communicate) predicts humor ability, which in turn negatively predicts loneliness and perceived stress. Undergraduates completed a survey including the following scales: Unwillingness-to-Communicate, Humor Orientation, Coping Humor, revised UCLA Loneliness, and Perceived Stress. Regression analyses confirm that willingness to communicate predicted humor orientation, while humor orientation mediated the relationship between willingness to communicate and coping humor. Humor orientation negatively predicted loneliness and perceived stress, although in both cases willingness to communicate mediated the relationships. The discussion highlights methodological limitations (e.g., use of self-report) and reiterates the need for interaction- and context-based studies of the laughter-humor relationship.Citation Details
Title: Humor ability, unwillingness to communicate, loneliness, and perceived stress: testing a security theory.
Author: Nathan Miczo
Publication: Communication Studies (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 2004
Publisher: Central States Communication Association
Volume: 55 Issue: 2 Page: 209(18)Distributed by Thompson Gale

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As members of a gregarious species (Huxley, 1960), human beings must find ways to develop and manage their interpersonal relationships. Laughter and humor are important parts of that quest, being beneficial both for the health of the individual (Galloway & Cropley, 1999; Martin, 2001) and the individual's bonds (Graham, 1995; Hampes, 1992). Considering the prevalence of these conceptually distinct but practically inseparable phenomena, there is a curious paucity of theorizing about their link as it applies to interpersonal relationships. The theories that do exist offer rather curious predictions when applied to the interpersonal context. Superiority theories (Gruner, 1997) would predict that we enjoy seeing our partners derogated and demeaned; incongruity, theories (Katz, 1993) would predict that we enjoy puzzling over...


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