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Although humor is considered to be a construct that exists across cultures and nations, there is some evidence that cultures and nations may differ in their self-reported sense of humor and use of humor. However, little research exists. In the current study, we investigated whether differences or similarities existed in British, American and Australian men and women's sense of humor, measured via the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (MSHS). It was found that British respondents' attitudes toward humorous people were significantly more negative than were those of Australian participants. American participants reported using humor more frequently in social situations than did British participants. As predicted, self-reported humor production was greater in men than women, but no interaction with culture was found. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.
Humor is one of the features of human interaction that makes us human. We use humor to grease the wheels of social interaction, to influence others, to make others happy, to sell products, to alienate and mock out-groups and to feel a sense of belonging to our in-group (Martin, 2006).
Humor also appears to be a universal phenomenon, playing an important role in contexts as varied as business negotiation, workplace interaction (Adelsward & Oberg, 1998; Vuorela, 2004), international media (Johnsen, 1999) and advertising (Weinberger & Gulas, 1992). However, although the use may be universal, there is some evidence that national and cultural differences exist in the qualitative and quantitative use of humor and how this is expressed (Ruch & Forabosco, 1996). For example, the use of humour in advertising in terms of the degree of use and the product sold has been found to differ between North American, Chinese and French magazines (Laroche, Nepomuceno, Huang & Richard, 2011) and humor in US TV commercials has been found to be more affiliative, aggressive and self-defeating than humor in Mexican TV commercials which are characterized by a comparatively greater use of self-enhancing humor (Cruthirds, Wang, Wang & Wei, 2011). Hungarian participants have been found to prefer jokes featuring ethnic stereotypes more than do English or English-Hungarian bilingual speakers (Erodi & Lajiness-O'Neill, 2012) and American respondents have been found to prefer and appreciate aggressive humor more than do Belgian or Hong Kongese participants (Castell & Goldstein, 1977). Men in...