See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281106748

Flexible Humor Styles and the Creative Mind:

Using a Typological Approach to Investigate the
Relationship Between Hu....

Article in Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts · August 2015

DOI: 10.1037/a0039527

CITATIONS READS

3 257

5 authors, including:

Jen-Ho Chang Hsueh-Chih Chen

Academia Sinica National Taiwan Normal University
17 PUBLICATIONS 48 CITATIONS 56 PUBLICATIONS 318 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Yu-Chen Chan Yulin Chang

National Tsing Hua University National Taiwan Normal University
22 PUBLICATIONS 176 CITATIONS 8 PUBLICATIONS 19 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Experience sampling with elderly persons View project

First Author View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Jen-Ho Chang on 20 August 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the
Arts
Flexible Humor Styles and the Creative Mind: Using a
Typological Approach to Investigate the Relationship
Between Humor Styles and Creativity
Jen-Ho Chang, Hsueh-Chih Chen, Chin-Chun Hsu, Yu-Chen Chan, and Yu-Lin Chang
Online First Publication, July 13, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039527

CITATION
Chang, J.-H., Chen, H.-C., Hsu, C.-C., Chan, Y.-C., & Chang, Y.-L. (2015, July 13). Flexible
Humor Styles and the Creative Mind: Using a Typological Approach to Investigate the
Relationship Between Humor Styles and Creativity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and
the Arts. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039527
 Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts © 2015 American Psychological Association
2015, Vol. 9, No. 4, 000 1931-3896/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039527

Flexible Humor Styles and the Creative Mind: Using a Typological

Approach to Investigate the Relationship Between Humor Styles
and Creativity

Jen-Ho Chang, Hsueh-Chih Chen, Yu-Chen Chan

and Chin-Chun Hsu National Tsing Hua University
National Taiwan Normal University
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

Yu-Lin Chang
National Taiwan Normal University

Previous studies have found little evidence of a link between humor styles and creativity because the
typological approach to humor styles has not been applied. Therefore, our study aimed to use the
typological approach to humor styles to investigate the relationship between different humor styles and
creativity. Two competing hypotheses were examined: the positivity perspective suggests that positive
humor endorsers are more creative, whereas the intrapersonal variability perspective suggests that general
humor endorsers are more creative. A total of 1,252 Mandarin young adolescents participated in the
current study. Via a cluster analysis, they were classified into 4 humor types: general humor endorser,
humor denier, positive humor endorser, and negative humor endorser. Importantly, the results revealed
that general humor endorsers outperformed the other 3 groups in both creative potential and creative
attitudes. The findings supported the intrapersonal variability perspective of creativity: individuals who
hold different or opposing elements within themselves have greater creativity. Implications for research
on humor types and creativity are discussed.

Keywords: creativity, general humor endorser, humor types, Mandarin

Previous studies have linked humor and creativity based on their
similar cognitive processes. For instance, they require the resolu-
tion of incongruous information (Kozbelt & Nishioka, 2010; Mur-
dock & Ganim, 1993; Wyer & Collins, 1992), and they are
correlated with superior verbal ability (Feingold & Mazzella,
1991; Greengross & Miller, 2011). In addition, research studies
have revealed that watching humor films or living in a humorous
Jen-Ho Chang, Hsueh-Chih Chen, and Chin-Chun Hsu, Department of
Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Taiwan Normal Univer-
sity; Yu-Chen Chan, Institute of Learning Sciences, National Tsing Hua
University; Yu-Lin Chang, Department of Educational Psychology and
Counseling, National Taiwan Normal University.
This research is partially supported by the “Aim for the Top University
Project” and “Center of Learning Technology for Chinese” of National
Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), sponsored by the Ministry of Educa-
tion, Taiwan, R.O.C. and the “International Research-Intensive Center of
Excellence Program” of NTNU and Ministry of Science and Technology,
Taiwan, R.O.C. under Grant NSC 103-2911-I-003-301 and 103-2511-S-
003-021-MY3.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Hsueh-
Chih Chen, Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, Na-
tional Taiwan Normal University, 162 Heping East Road Section 1, Taipei,
Taiwan. E-mail: chcjyh@ntnu.edu.tw
environment could facilitate children’s creative performance (Ziv,
1976, 1983), and the effect of humor on creativity could also
extend to adults (Fernández-Abascal & Díaz, 2013; Filipowicz,
2006).
However, most of these studies as mentioned above defined
humor as a unidimensional cognitive ability or an affective state,
ignoring the possibility that different humor styles can influence
creativity differently. In line with this perspective, Martin, Puhlik-
Doris, Larsen, Gray, and Weir (2003) defined four humor styles:
affiliative, aggressive, self-enhancing, and self-defeating humor.
Therefore, Chen, Su, and Ye (2011) recruited 710 young adoles-
cents and investigated their humor styles (Martin et al., 2003),
creative potential (as measured by the modified Torrance Test of
Creative Thinking in Chinese), and creative attitudes (as measured
by the Exercise in Divergent Feeling; Williams, 1980). Unfortu-
nately, none of the humor styles could predict creative potential;
however, affiliative humor was positively correlated with creative
attitudes, and aggressive humor was negatively related with cre-
ative attitudes. This finding seems to show that humor style has
little effect on creative potential or creative attitudes. However,
recent studies have argued that using simple correlations or regres-
sion analysis to investigate the relationships between humor styles
and other outcome variables could eliminate certain information,
ignoring the individual differences between style profiles (Gallo-
way, 2010; Leist & Müller, 2013). Therefore, a typological ap-

1
 2 CHANG, CHEN, HSU, CHAN, AND CHANG
proach with a cluster analysis could capture and represent the distinct
characteristics of different humor styles more completely than the
traditional correlational paradigm. Drawing on the typological per-
spective of humor styles, the present study aimed to investigate
different types of humor styles and creative performance.
Humor Types and Their Possible Link to Creativity
Martin et al. (2003) conducted a systematic review on humor
styles and used a conceptual framework based on two underlying
dimensions to identify four humor styles. The first dimension is
self- versus other-oriented, and the other dimension is positive (or
benevolent) versus negative (or detrimental). Therefore, self-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
enhancing humor is self-orientated and positive, affiliative humor
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
is other-orientated and positive, aggressive humor is self-orientated
and negative, and self-defeating humor is other-orientated and nega-
tive. Previous studies have consistently shown that positive humor
styles (self-enhancing and affiliative) can positively predict personal
well-being and relationship quality, whereas negative humor styles
(self-defeating and aggression) negatively predict well-being and re-
lationship quality (Dyck & Holtzman, 2013; Martin et al., 2003; Yip
& Martin, 2006). In addition, the adaptive effect of self-enhancing and
affiliative humor and the maladaptive effect of self-defeating and
aggressive humor have been found in different cultures and nations,
including Lebanon (Kazarian & Martin, 2004; Taher, Kazarian, &
Martin, 2008), Taiwan (Chan, Chen, Cho, & Martin, 2011), and
Mainland China (Cheung & Yue, 2013; Zhao, Kong, & Wang, 2012).
However, the correlational analysis of humor styles is less
fruitful than the typological approach. The typological approach
means to investigate those underlying combinations from different
humor styles. Therefore, Galloway (2010) performed a cluster
analysis using the Humor Styles Questionnaire by Martin et al.
(2003) and revealed four types of humor styles. The first type
contained general humor endorsers who used all four humor styles
at an above-average level compared with the other participants.
The individuals in the second type, on the contrary, were below
average for all four humor styles and were therefore identified as
humor deniers. The third type participants were identified as
positive humor endorsers because they used the two positive
humor styles (self-enhancing and affiliative humor) more than
average and the two negative humor styles (self-defeating and
aggressive) less than average. The fourth type participants were
identified as negative humor endorsers because they used the
negative styles more than average and the positive styles less than
average. Another study conducted by Leist and Müller (2013) also
replicated three types of humor styles: general humor endorsers,
humor deniers, and positive humor endorsers (which they called
humor enhancers). They found that positive humor endorsers had
the highest well-being and self-esteem, whereas humor deniers had
the lowest and general humor endorsers fell in between.
Based on the recent findings related to humor styles, two pos-
sible hypotheses could explain the relationship between humor
styles and creativity. First, empirical studies have consistently
revealed that inducing a positive affect can improve creative
performance (for a review, see Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2008).
In addition, Fredrickson and her colleagues proposed the broaden-
and-build theory to explain the link between positive affect and
creativity: the influential power of both trait and state positive
affect can broaden an individual’s cognitive scope and capacity
and hence increase an individual’s psychological resources to act
creatively (Fredrickson, 2001, 2013; Fredrickson & Branigan,
2005). Although positive humor styles are not equivalent to pos-
itive affect, empirical studies have consistently found that positive
humor styles are positively related to positive affect and negatively
related to negative affect, whereas negative humor styles are
positively related to negative affect and negatively related to
positive affect (Kazarian & Martin, 2004; Martin et al., 2003; Yip
& Martin, 2006). Therefore, the positivity-to-creativity perspective
predicted that positive humor endorsers might have better creative
performance because they experience more positive affect and
engage in more positive social behaviors than individuals with
other humor styles (Leist & Müller, 2013).
On the other hand, another hypothesis suggests that intraper-
sonal variability can lead to creativity, that is, individuals who hold
opposing or conflicting traits performed more creatively than those
who hold relatively stable or consistent traits (Barron & Har-
rington, 1981). In other words, as indicated by Csikszentmihalyi
(1996), complex personalities enhanced creativity. Furthermore, a
recent study conducted by Kim, Zeppenfeld, and Cohen (2013)
showed that individuals who experienced an internal conflict with
a personal taboo performed more creatively through the process of
sublimation. Therefore, the intrapersonal variability or conflicting
self-concept perspective predicted that general humor endorsers
might perform more creatively because they hold multiple humor
styles, including conflicting or even opposing styles, for instance,
self-defeating humor (self-oriented plus negative) compared with
affiliative humor (other-oriented plus positive), or self-enhancing
humor (self-oriented plus positive) compared with aggressive hu-
mor (other-oriented plus negative).
Overview of the Present Study
Based on the previous finding that humor styles had little to no
effect on creativity, the present study aimed to use a typological
approach to identify different humor types and to investigate their
impacts on creativity. We will investigate the relationship among
four humor styles (i.e., affiliative humor, self-enhancing humor,
aggressive humor, and self-defeating humor) with creative perfor-
mance via the correlational analysis, and then compare individu-
als’ creative performance based on their humor types of cluster
analysis (i.e., general humor endorsers, humor deniers, positive
humor endorsers, and negative humor endorsers). Therefore, our
first aim was to replicate the previous findings on humor styles
clusters (Galloway, 2010; Leist & Müller, 2013). We hypothesized
that there would be three or four humor types, including general
humor endorsers, humor deniers, positive humor endorsers, and
negative humor endorsers. Two competing possible relationships
between humor types and creativity were examined. The positivity
perspective suggests that positive humor endorsers are the most
creative, whereas the intrapersonal variability perspective suggests
that general humor endorsers are the most creative.
Method
Participants
Through the child and family study of the National Science
Council and the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, 1,252 young
 FLEXIBLE HUMOR STYLES AND THE CREATIVE MIND 3

adolescents were recruited from 22 junior high schools. They
ranged from grade seven to grade nine, with a mean age of 13.01,
SD ⫽ 0.78. Of the participants, 49% were female, and all of them
were Chinese. Each young adolescent provided information about
demographics, humor styles, creative potential, and creative atti-
tudes as described below.
Measurement
Humor Styles Questionnaire. Martin et al. (2003) developed
32 items to assess four styles of humor (eight items for each style):
affiliative (e.g., I do not have to work very hard at making other
people laugh, I seem to be a naturally humorous person), self-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
present study also showed acceptable internal consistency for each
scale (Cronbach’s ␣s ⫽ .72 – .82), as shown in Table 1.
New version of the Chinese Creative Thinking Test. We
used the new version of the Chinese Creative Thinking Test to
assess the young adolescents’ creative potential. This creative
potential test was conducted by Wu et al. (1998) based on the
Torrance Creativity Thinking Test – Figural (Torrance, 1974) and
modified for a Chinese version, and has been widely used in
Chinese society for identifying creative students (Wu & Albanese,
2010). We used this figure-drawing test rather than verbal based
test because previous studies revealed that figure-drawing test has
been shown to be less biased in terms of language and verbal
ability (Kim, 2006; Torrance, 1977). The test included 27 versions

enhancing (e.g., If I am feeling depressed, I can usually cheer

of different size and boldface of the same Chinese character “人”
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

myself up with humor), aggressive (e.g., If someone makes a

mistake, I will often tease them about it), and self-defeating humor
(e.g., I often try to make people like or accept me more by saying
something funny about my own weaknesses, blunders, or faults).
The items are scored on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 ⫽ com-
pletely disagree to 7 ⫽ completely agree. The Chinese version,
which has the same factor structure, was translated by Chan et al.
(2011) and demonstrated good test-rest reliability after three weeks
(rs ⫽ .83 ⫺ .84, ps ⬍ .001) and acceptable internal consistency
(Cronbach’s ␣s ⫽ .73 – .88). In addition, consistent with the
results obtained by Martin et al. (2003), affiliative and self-
enhancing humor were positively correlated with extraversion and
openness to experience, whereas aggressive and self-defeating
humor were negatively correlated with emotional stability and
conscientiousness (Chan et al., 2011). In addition, several studies
have been revealed that HSQ was less influenced by the Chinese
culture and participants’ age, and also widely applied in Chinese
society (Cheung & Yue, 2013; Zhao, Kong, & Wang, 2012). The
(means human; see Figure 1). The participants were given exactly
10 min to complete as many drawings as possible. Four indexes
were assessed: (a) fluency (the number of responses), (b) flexibil-
ity (the number of categories of responses), (c) originality (unusual
responses), and (d) elaboration (the number of added ideas). The
scores for the new version of the Chinese Creative Thinking Test
were derived from the standardized grading norms by Wu et al.
(1998) and showed high test–retest reliability after four months
(rs ⫽ .42 – .60, ps ⬍ .001) and high interrater reliability (rs ⬎ .94,
ps ⬍ .001). In addition, these subscales were positively correlated
with the Torrance Creativity Thinking Test – Figural (rs ⫽ .39 –
.75, ps ⬍ .001) in a sample of 2,300 child and adult participants
(Wu et al., 1998). The present study also found acceptable internal
consistency for each scale (correlations between two independent
rater ⫽ .85 – .98), as shown in Table 1.
Exercise in Divergent Feeling. We used the Exercise in Di-
vergent Feeling to assess the young adolescents’ creative attitudes.

Table 1
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations Between the Measured Variables (N ⫽ 1,252)

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Humor styles
1. Affiliative .79
2. Self-enhancing .35ⴱⴱ .82
3. Aggressive ⫺.08ⴱ ⫺.12ⴱⴱ .80
4. Self-defeating .10ⴱⴱ .11ⴱⴱ .18ⴱⴱ .72

New version of the Chinese Creative Thinking Test

5. Fluency .11ⴱⴱ .10ⴱⴱ ⫺.05 .07ⴱ .98
6. Flexibility .13ⴱⴱ .12ⴱⴱ ⫺.05 .09ⴱ .75ⴱⴱ .97
7. Originality .05 .09ⴱ ⫺.06ⴱ .10ⴱⴱ .70ⴱⴱ .58ⴱⴱ .94
8. Elaboration .02 .05 ⫺.08ⴱ ⫺.03 .28ⴱⴱ .23ⴱⴱ .32ⴱⴱ .85

Exercise in Divergent Feeling

9. Curiosity .14ⴱⴱ .19ⴱⴱ ⫺.06ⴱ .05 .16ⴱⴱ .15ⴱⴱ .13ⴱⴱ .06ⴱ .80
10. Imagination .14ⴱⴱ .22ⴱⴱ ⫺.06ⴱ .15ⴱⴱ .21ⴱⴱ .22ⴱⴱ .18ⴱⴱ .08ⴱ .56ⴱⴱ .81
11. Complexity .19ⴱⴱ .22ⴱⴱ ⫺.07ⴱ .09ⴱ .17ⴱⴱ .17ⴱⴱ .15ⴱⴱ .07ⴱ .48ⴱⴱ .54ⴱⴱ .70
12. Risk taking .16ⴱⴱ .22ⴱⴱ ⫺.10ⴱⴱ .05 .15ⴱⴱ .17ⴱⴱ .13ⴱⴱ .08ⴱ .47ⴱⴱ .52ⴱⴱ .52ⴱⴱ .65

Mean 5.24 4.51 3.21 3.35 12.73 8.65 9.07 3.82 3.52 3.22 3.52 3.53
SD 1.06 1.03 0.95 1.05 5.58 3.57 6.14 4.41 0.73 0.73 0.58 0.55
Note. Diagonals are Cronbach’s ␣ coefficients for the Humor styles and Exercise in Divergent Feeling, and correlations between two independent raters
for the new version of the Chinese Creative Thinking Test.
ⴱ
p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01.
 4 CHANG, CHEN, HSU, CHAN, AND CHANG

positively correlated with all of the subscales on the Exercise in

Figure 1. Examples of the different size and boldface Chinese character
from the new version of the Chinese Creative Thinking Test.
Williams (1980) created the Exercise in Divergent Feeling to
assess four types of creative attitudes: curiosity (13 items; e.g., I
would like to know what other people think), imagination (13
items; e.g., If the final page of a storybook is missing, I will make
up the story’s ending myself), complexity (12 items; e.g., I like
unusual things), and risk taking (12 items; e.g., Trying a new game
or activity is an interesting thing). The items are scored on a
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Divergent Feeling, whereas aggressive humor was negatively cor-
related with all of the subscales on the Exercise in Divergent
Feeling. Self-defeating humor was positively correlated with the
imagination and complexity subscales. In addition, eight multiple
regressions with humor style as independent variables, and cre-
ative potential and attitudes as dependent variables are presented in
Table 2. Corresponding to Chen et al.’s (2011) findings, humor
styles had little effect on creative potential (all absolute values of
␤ less than .1) and a moderate effect on creative attitudes. There-
fore, the results provided possible line to investigate the link
between humor types and creativity for further analysis.

5-point scale ranging from 1 ⫽ completely disagree to 5 ⫽ Cluster Analysis of the Humor Styles Questionnaire
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

completely agree. This scale is a commonly used test for assessing

creative attitude (Claxton, Pannells, & Rhoads, 2005; Cropley,
2000). The Chinese translation was created by Lin and Wang
(1994) that established its good internal consistency (Cronbach’s
␣s ⫽ .77 – .88) and test–retest reliability for young adolescents
after three months (rs ⫽ .49 – .81, ps ⬍ .001), and showed good
predicted value for identifying creative students. A recent study
conducted by Chan, Chen, and Lavallee (2013) also revealed good
reliability and validity in Chinese participants. The present study
also found acceptable internal consistency for each scale (Cron-
bach’s ␣s ⫽ .65 – .81), as shown in Table 1.
Results
We first examined correlations of all measures, and focused on
the relationships among four humor styles (i.e., affiliative humor,
self-enhancing humor, aggressive humor, and self-defeating hu-
mor) with creative potential and creative attitude. Second, we
investigated different humor types (Galloway, 2010; i.e., general
humor endorsers, humor deniers, positive humor endorsers, and
negative humor endorsers) via cluster analysis, and then compared
the creative potential and creative attitude based on different
humor types.
The means, standard deviations, and correlations between the
measurement variables are presented in Table 1. With regard to
creative potential, the correlational analysis revealed that the stron-
gest relationship was observed between the affiliative humor style
and flexibility, r ⫽ .13, p ⬍ .001. Most of the correlations were
low or nonsignificant (rs ⫽ ⫺.08 – .13). On the other hand,
creative attitudes and affiliative and self-enhancing humor were
As suggested in previous studies using the Humor Styles Ques-
tionnaire in cluster analyses (Galloway, 2010; Leist & Müller,
2013), we standardized the humor style scales with z-scores and
then conducted a k-means cluster analysis to identify categories of
individual humor styles. Consistent with Galloway’s (2010) find-
ings, four clusters were revealed: general humor endorsers (N ⫽
266, 21.4%, high in each humor style), humor deniers (N ⫽ 257,
20.5%, low in each humor style), positive humor endorsers (N ⫽
337, 26.9%, high in the self-enhancing and affiliative humor
styles, but low in the aggressive and self-defeating humor styles),
and negative humor endorsers (N ⫽ 392, 31.3%, high in the
aggressive and self-defeating humor styles, but low in the self-
enhancing and affiliative humor styles), as shown in Figure 2. The
clusters did not differ in age, F(3, 1248) ⫽ 1.98, p ⫽ .12, but they
did differ in gender composition, ␹2 ⫽ 28.45, df ⫽ 3, p ⬍ .001. In
alignment with Galloway’s (2010) findings, general humor deniers
(60% female) and positive humor endorsers (57% female) had
greater proportions of females, whereas general humor endorsers
(47% female) and negative humor endorsers (42% female) had
lower proportions of females. However, gender and age did not
interact with the other variables. When gender and age were
included as covariates in subsequent analyses, the results did not
change. Therefore, we omitted gender and age from subsequent
analyses.
Humor Types and Creative Potential
Four analysis of variance (ANOVAs) to assess creativity poten-
tial using each index from the new version of the Chinese Creative

Table 2
Humor Styles as Predictors of the Creative Potential and Attitude (N ⫽ 1,252)

New version of the Chinese Creative Thinking Test Exercise in Divergent Feeling
IV/DV Fluency Flexibility Originality Elaboration Curiosity Imagination Complexity Risk taking

Affiliative .07ⴱ .09ⴱ .01 .01 .07ⴱ .06ⴱ .13ⴱⴱ .08ⴱ

Self-enhancing .07ⴱ .08ⴱ .07ⴱ .04 .16ⴱⴱ .18ⴱⴱ .16ⴱⴱ .18ⴱⴱ
Aggressive ⫺.05 ⫺.05 ⫺.07ⴱ ⫺.07ⴱ ⫺.04 ⫺.06ⴱ ⫺.05 ⫺.08ⴱ
Self-defeating .07ⴱ .08ⴱ .10ⴱⴱ ⫺.03 .04 .14ⴱⴱ .07ⴱ .04
F 7.09ⴱⴱ 9.41ⴱⴱ 6.57ⴱⴱ 2.67ⴱ 15.39ⴱⴱ 23.77ⴱⴱ 23.11ⴱⴱ 20.11ⴱⴱ
R2 .022 .029 .021 .008 .047 .071 .069 .061
Adj R2 .019 .026 .018 .005 .044 .068 .066 .058
ⴱ ⴱⴱ
p ⬍ .05. p ⬍ .01.
 FLEXIBLE HUMOR STYLES AND THE CREATIVE MIND 5

1 humor deniers and the negative endorsers, whereas the humor

deniers, the positive humor endorsers, and the negative endorsers
Z-Score of humor styles

0.6 did not differ from each other. With regard to imagination, there
were significant group differences, F(3, 1248) ⫽ 15.85, p ⬍ .001,
0.2 ␩p2 ⫽ .04. The post hoc analysis showed that the general humor
endorsers had higher imagination scores than the other three
General humor Humor deneier Positive humor Negative humor
-0.2
endorser endorser endorser
groups, and the other three groups did not differ from each other.
With regard to complexity, significant group differences were
-0.6 revealed, F(3, 1248) ⫽ 18.13, p ⬍ .001, ␩p2 ⫽ .04. The post hoc
analysis showed that the general humor endorsers had higher
-1 complexity scores than the other three groups, and the positive
Affiliative Self-enhancing Aggressive Self-defeating humor endorsers had higher complexity scores than the negative
humor endorsers. The humor deniers did not differ from the
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Figure 2. Humor styles (z-scores) in the four clusters. positive humor endorsers or the negative humor endorsers. With
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

regard to risk taking, significant group differences were revealed,

F(3, 1248) ⫽ 18.19, p ⬍ .001, ␩p2 ⫽ .04. The post hoc analysis
Thinking Test. Bonferroni post hoc tests with ␣ ⫽ .05 were used
showed that the general humor endorsers had higher risk-taking
to correct the error probability for the number of compared groups,
scores than the other three groups, and the positive humor endors-
as indicated in Table 3. The results revealed group differences in
ers had higher risk-taking scores than the humor deniers and the
fluency, F(3, 1248) ⫽ 35.86, p ⬍ .001, ␩p2 ⫽ .08, flexibility, F(3,
negative humor endorsers. However, the humor deniers and the
1248) ⫽ 30.06, p ⬍ .001, ␩p2 ⫽ .07, originality, F(3, 1248) ⫽
negative humor endorsers did not differ from each other.
35.31, p ⬍ .001, ␩p2 ⫽ .08, and elaboration, F(3, 1248) ⫽ 17.78,
The findings on the relationship between humor styles and
p ⬍ .001, ␩p2 ⫽ .04. The post hoc analysis showed general humor
creative attitudes also supported the intrapersonal variability per-
endorsers outperformed the other three groups on all four indexes;
spective: the general humor endorsers had higher creative attitude
the other three groups did not differ with regard to fluency,
scores than the other three types. However, the findings partially
flexibility, or originality. For elaboration only, the post hoc anal-
supported the positivity perspective on creativity: the positive
ysis revealed that positive humor endorsers performed better than
humor endorsers had the second-highest scores for creative atti-
negative humor endorsers. The findings on the impact of humor
tudes. We will illustrate this result in more detail in the discussion
types on creative potential supported the intrapersonal variability
section.
perspective: general humor endorsers outperformed the other three
types.
Discussion
Humor Types and Creative Attitudes
A relationship between humor styles and creativity was revealed
We conducted four ANOVAs to assess creative attitudes using using a typological approach. Previous research studies have
each subscale on the Exercise in Divergent Feeling. Bonferroni mainly focused on the direct effect of humor styles on creativity,
post hoc tests with ␣ ⫽ .05 were used to correct the error proba- finding little connection between humor styles and creativity.
bility for the number of compared groups, as indicated in Table 3. Using the recent humor styles typology approach (Galloway, 2010;
The results revealed group differences in curiosity, F(3, 1248) ⫽ Leist & Müller, 2013), we first confirmed four types of humor
7.54, p ⬍ .001, ␩p2 ⫽ .02. The post hoc analysis showed that the styles in a large sample of young adolescents, including general
general humor endorsers had higher curiosity scores than the humor endorsers, humor deniers, positive humor endorsers, and

Table 3
Performance on the New Version of the Chinese Creative Thinking Test and Exercise in
Divergent Thinking Among Different Humor Types

Humor types
General humor Positive humor Negative humor
Measure endorsers Humor deniers endorsers endorsers

Chinese Creative Thinking Test

Fluency 15.79 (5.85) 12.24 (5.74) 12.12 (5.04) 11.59 (5.02)
Flexibility 10.44 (3.61) 8.18 (3.62) 8.44 (3.33) 7.99 (3.30)
Originality 12.42 (7.14) 8.69 (6.00) 8.05 (5.36) 8.02 (5.42)
Elaboration 5.44 (5.54) 3.94 (4.60) 3.43 (3.89) 3.00 (3.50)
Exercise in Divergent thinking
Curiosity 3.69 (0.72) 3.42 (0.70) 3.55 (0.77) 3.45 (0.71)
Imagination 3.48 (0.70) 3.14 (0.77) 3.22 (0.72) 3.11 (0.70)
Complexity 3.72 (0.52) 3.49 (0.54) 3.57 (0.53) 3.41 (0.55)
Risk taking 3.73 (0.56) 3.41 (0.57) 3.56 (0.60) 3.44 (0.55)
Note. The standard deviations are provided in parentheses.
 6 CHANG, CHEN, HSU, CHAN, AND CHANG
negative humor endorsers. Second, our study revealed that general
humor endorsers outperformed the other three groups in both
creative potential and creative attitudes. This finding supported the
intrapersonal variability perspective of creativity (Barron & Har-
rington, 1981; Csikszentmihalyi, 1996), which holds that opposing
elements within individuals could have beneficial effects on cre-
ativity. On the other hand, the positivity perspective suggested that
positive traits or attitudes could also influence creativity. In our
study on creative potential, the positive humor endorsers only
performed better than the negative humor endorsers on the elab-
oration dimension. In terms of creative attitudes, the positive
humor endorsers had the second-highest scores, above the humor
deniers and the negative humor endorsers. Although the positive
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
humor endorsers had better well-being than the individuals with
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
other humor styles (Galloway, 2010; Leist & Müller, 2013), our
findings showed that the effect on creativity mainly appeared in
creative attitudes rather than in creative potential. Creativity seems
to be more strongly related to an internal conflict state with
multiple elements than a positive state. In other words, diverse or
flexible styles could be more essential for creativity than positive
mood or traits.
General Humor Endorsers: Self-Integration and
Psychological Flexibility
In addition, based on theory, the effect of the humor endorser
style on creativity could also be linked to self-integration and
psychological flexibility. Self-integration means that individuals
can hold positive and negative self-identities or self-knowledge
spontaneously (e.g., I am a bad person and also a good person)
within themselves (for reviews, see Weinstein, Przybylski, &
Ryan, 2013; Zeigler-Hill & Showers, 2007). Compared with self-
compartmentalization, which entails holding either positive or
negative self-identities or self-knowledge, integration is associated
with better adjustment to stressful events (Zeigler-Hill & Showers,
2007), more intrinsic motivation, and less defensiveness (Wein-
stein, Deci, & Ryan, 2011). Interestingly, a mind that adapts to a
changeable world and intrinsic motivation for engaging in life
activities are central elements for enhancing creativity (de Jesus,
Rus, Lens, & Imaginário, 2013; Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009).
Although general humor endorsers hold different or even opposing
humor styles, they may experience integration rather than internal
conflicts. Therefore, this self-integration process enables them to
act creatively.
On the other hand, the psychological flexibility perspective
proposed that individuals who hold multiple strategies or attitudes
and can switch or shift based on various situational demands
demonstrate better psychological adjustment than those who use
few strategies or fixed simple strategies (Cheng, 2001; Kashdan &
Rottenberg, 2010). These shifting and switching processes play an
important role in increasing creativity (Barron & Harrington, 1981;
Runco, 2004). Therefore, the general humor endorsers, with var-
ious humor styles, can use different humor styles in different
situations, shifting and switching processes that enhance creativity.
In summary, the general humor endorser, self-integration, psy-
chological flexibility, and creativity could be related. In addition,
self-integration and psychological flexibility might account for the
relationship between the general humor endorser style and creativ-
ity. Future studies are needed to test these ideas and to understand
the relationship between humor styles and creativity more clearly.
Limitations and Future Research
Although the present study found that general humor endorsers
had both better creative potential and more creative attitudes than
those with other humor styles, some limitations in our study
underscore the importance of future investigations. Our study
mainly focused on standardized measurements for measuring cre-
ative potential and creative attitudes. However, these paper-pencil
tasks might not fully capture real-world creative performance.
Therefore, a longitudinal follow-up investigation on the actual
creative performance of these young adolescents could reveal
more detail about how general humor endorsers use their multiple
styles to enhance their creativity. In addition, other forms of
creativity tests could be included in further studies. For instance,
research conducted by Lin, Hsu, Chen, and Wang (2012) showed
that gender and personality traits could relate with different cre-
ativity measurements, specifically that females had superior per-
formance on divergent thinking test than males, whereas males had
superior performance on insight problem test than females. There-
fore, further studies could also test the relationships between
humor types with other forms of creativity measurements.
In sum, our findings extended the research on humor styles and
creativity from a correlational approach to a cluster approach with
a large sample of young adolescents, and revealed that the general
humor endorser has a beneficial effect on both creative potential
and creative attitudes in which supported the intrapersonal vari-
ability perspective on creativity. Further studies could investigate
the impact of humor types on creativity based on different forms of
creative performance to provide a more global picture of their
relationships and underlying mechanisms.
References
Baas, M., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Nijstad, B. A. (2008). A meta-analysis of
25 years of mood-creativity research: Hedonic tone, activation, or reg-
ulatory focus? Psychological Bulletin, 134, 779 – 806. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1037/a0012815
Barron, F., & Harrington, D. M. (1981). Creativity, intelligence, and
personality. Annual Review of Psychology, 32, 439 – 476. http://dx.doi
.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.32.020181.002255
Chan, Y. C., Chen, H.-C., Cho, S.-L., & Martin, R. A. (2011). Develop-
ment of a traditional Chinese version of the Humor Styles Questionnaire
[in Chinese]. Psychological Testing, 58, 207–234.
Chan, Y. C., Chen, H.-C., & Lavallee, J. (2013). The impact of geloto-
phobia, gelotophilia and katagelasticism on creativity. Humor: Interna-
tional Journal of Humor Research, 26, 609 – 628. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1515/humor-2013-0037
Chen, H. C., Su, C.-L., & Ye, J.-R. (2011). A study on the types of humor
appreciation, humor styles, creative ability, and creative tendency [in
Chinese]. Journal of Chinese Creativity, 2, 53–78.
Cheng, C. (2001). Assessing coping flexibility in real-life and laboratory
settings: A multimethod approach. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 80, 814 – 833. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.80.5
.814
Cheung, C. K., & Yue, X. D. (2013). Humor styles, optimism, and their
relationships with distress among undergraduates in three Chinese cities.
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 26, 351–370. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1515/humor-2013-0015
 FLEXIBLE HUMOR STYLES AND THE CREATIVE MIND
Claxton, A. F., Pannells, T. C., & Rhoads, P. A. (2005). Developmental
trends in the creativity of school-age children. Creativity Research
Journal, 17, 327–335. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15326934crj1704_4
Cropley, A. J. (2000). Defining and measuring creativity: Are creativity
tests worth using? Roeper Review, 23, 72–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/
02783190009554069
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of
discovery and invention. New York, NY: Harper Collins.
de Jesus, S. N., Rus, C. L., Lens, W., & Imaginário, S. (2013). Intrinsic
motivation and creativity related to product: A meta-analysis of the
studies published between 1990 –2010. Creativity Research Journal, 25,
80 – 84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2013.752235
Dyck, K. T. H., & Holtzman, S. (2013). Understanding humor styles and
well-being: The importance of social relationships and gender. Person-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
ality and Individual Differences, 55, 53–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
.paid.2013.01.023
Feingold, A., & Mazzella, R. (1991). Psychometric intelligence and verbal
humor ability. Personality and Individual Differences, 12, 427– 435.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(91)90060-O
Fernández-Abascal, E. G., & Díaz, M. D. M. (2013). Affective induction
and creative thinking. Creativity Research Journal, 25, 213–221. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2013.783759
Filipowicz, A. (2006). From positive affect to creativity: The surprising
role of surprise. Creativity Research Journal, 18, 141–152. http://dx.doi
.org/10.1207/s15326934crj1802_2
Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive
psychology. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. Amer-
ican Psychologist, 56, 218 –226. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X
.56.3.218
Fredrickson, B. L. (2013). Positive emotions broaden and build. In E. A.
Plant & P. G. Devine (Eds.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychol-
ogy (Vol. 47, pp. 1–53). Burlington, VT: Academic Press.
Fredrickson, B. L., & Branigan, C. (2005). Positive emotions broaden the
scope of attention and thought-action repertoires. Cognition and Emo-
tion, 19, 313–332. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699930441000238
Galloway, G. (2010). Individual differences in personal humor styles:
Identification of prominent patterns and their associates. Personality and
Individual Differences, 48, 563–567. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid
.2009.12.007
Greengross, G., & Miller, G. (2011). Humor ability reveals intelligence,
predicts mating success, and is higher in males. Intelligence, 39, 188 –
192. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2011.03.006
Kashdan, T. B., & Rottenberg, J. (2010). Psychological flexibility as a
fundamental aspect of health. Clinical Psychology Review, 30, 865– 878.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2010.03.001
Kaufman, J. C., & Beghetto, R. A. (2009). Beyond big and little: The four
c model of creativity. Review of General Psychology, 13, 1–12. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0013688
Kazarian, S. S., & Martin, R. A. (2004). Humour styles, personality, and
well-being among Lebanese university students. European Journal of
Personality, 18, 209 –219. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/per.505
Kim, E., Zeppenfeld, V., & Cohen, D. (2013). Sublimation, culture, and
creativity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105, 639 – 666.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0033487
Kim, K. H. (2006). Can we trust creativity tests? A review of the Torrance
Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). Creativity Research Journal, 18,
3–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15326934crj1801_2
Kozbelt, A., & Nishioka, K. (2010). Humor comprehension, humor pro-
duction, and insight: An exploratory study. Humor: International Jour-
nal of Humor Research, 23, 375– 401. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/humr
.2010.017
Leist, A. K., & Müller, D. (2013). Humor types show different patterns of
self-regulation, self-esteem, and well-being. Journal of Happiness Stud-
ies, 14, 551–569. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10902-012-9342-6
View publication stats
7
Lin, C., & Wang, M. (1994). The creativity assessment packet. Taipei,
Taiwan: Psychology Inc.
Lin, W.-L., Hsu, K.-Y., Chen, H.-C., & Wang, J.-W. (2012). The relations
of gender and personality traits on different creativities: A dual-process
theory account. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 6,
112–123. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0026241
Martin, R. A., Puhlik-Doris, P., Larsen, G., Gray, J., & Weir, K. (2003).
Individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psycholog-
ical well-being: Development of the Humor Styles Questionnaire. Jour-
nal of Research in Personality, 37, 48 –75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
S0092-6566(02)00534-2
Murdock, M. C., & Ganim, R. M. (1993). Creativity and humor: Integra-
tion and incongruity. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 27, 57–70.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.1993.tb01387.x
Runco, M. A. (2004). Creativity. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 657–
687. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.141502
Taher, D., Kazarian, S. S., & Martin, R. A. (2008). Validation of the Arabic
humor styles questionnaire in a community sample of Lebanese in
Lebanon. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 39, 552–564. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1177/0022022108321177
Torrance, E. P. (1974). Torrance tests of creativity thinking. Lexington,
MA: Personnel Press.
Torrance, E. P. (1977). Discovery and nurturance of giftedness in the
culturally different. Reston, VA: Council on Exceptional Children.
Weinstein, N., Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2011). Motivational determi-
nants of integrating positive and negative past identities. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 527–544. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1037/a0022150
Weinstein, N., Przybylski, A. K., & Ryan, R. M. (2013). The integrative
process: New research and future directions. Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 22, 69 –74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/
0963721412468001
Williams, F. E. (1980). Creativity assessment packet. East Aurora, NY:
DOK.
Wu, J.-J., & Albanese, D. (2010). Asian creativity, chapter one: Creativity
across three Chinese societies. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 5, 150 –
154. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2010.10.002
Wu, J.-J., Chen, F. Y., Kuo, C. C., Lin, W. W., Lau, S. H., & Chen, Y. H.
(1998). New test of creative thinking. Taipei, Taiwan: Ministry of
Education.
Wyer, R. S., Jr., & Collins, J. E., II (1992). A theory of humor elicitation.
Psychological Review, 99, 663– 688. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-
295X.99.4.663
Yip, J. A., & Martin, R. A. (2006). Sense of humor, emotional intelligence,
and social competence. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 1202–
1208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2005.08.005
Zeigler-Hill, V., & Showers, C. J. (2007). Self-structure and self-esteem
stability: The hidden vulnerability of compartmentalization. Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 143–159. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/
0146167206294872
Zhao, J., Kong, F., & Wang, Y. (2012). Self-esteem and humor style as
mediators of the effects of shyness on loneliness among Chinese college
students. Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 686 – 690. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.12.024
Ziv, A. (1976). Facilitating effects of humor on creativity. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 68, 318 –322. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-
0663.68.3.318
Ziv, A. (1983). The influence of humorous atmosphere on divergent
thinking. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 8, 68 –75. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1016/0361-476X(83)90035-8
Received February 9, 2014
Revision received February 9, 2015
Accepted June 8, 2015 䡲