THE SITUATIONAL HUMOR RESPONSE QUESTIONNAIRE (SHRQ) AS A TEST OF SENSE OF HUMOR - A VALIDITY STUDY IN THE FIELD OF HUMOR APPRECIATION

The Situational Humour Response Questionnaire [SHRQ, Martin & Lefcourt (1984) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 145-155] measures the propensity to smile and laugh in a variety of daily life situations. Since the SHRQ is regarded as a test of "sense of humour", its validity in the field of humour appreciation was investigated. Two student samples (N = 105 and 101) from Indiana answered the SHRQ and rated the funniness and aversiveness of one of two sets of 35 jokes and cartoons taken from Form A and Form B of the 3-WD Humour Test [Ruch (1983) Humour Test 3-WD (Form A, B and K). Unpublished Manuscript]. Product-moment correlations between the SHRQ and humour appreciation was computed at the level of funniness and aversiveness for individual items, for humour categories as well as for total scores. Contrary to expectations, the SHRQ did not correlate with any level of 3-WD Humour Test scores suggesting that these two tests apparently tap totally different domains of humour. It may be that the SHRQ measures laughter that is only partially accompanied by the humour experience with that experience being more fully measured in the 3-WD Test. It appears that the SHRQ fails to fulfil the criterion that a test of "sense of humour" should be able to account for individual differences in humour appreciation. A hypothesis is proposed suggesting that the relationship between the SHRQ and humour appreciation might be mediated by social factors.