Keywords

Anxiety; Wit and humor; stress

Abstract

In utilizing humorous intervention within the psychotherapeutic milieu, researchers have indicated that there is a relationship between an individual's sense of humor and stressful emotions, specifically anxiety. However, the nature of this relationship is uncertain. While some scientists propose a direct relationship between humor and anxiety, others hypothesize an inverse relationship. This study was designed to investigate this relationship, hypothesizing that the greater an individual's sense of humor, the more likely the individual would experience anxiety in social situations. The subjects were 143 male and female undergraduates. These volunteers were administered the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire (SHRQ) and the Interaction and Audience Anxiousness Scales (IAS and AAS). Pearson Product - Moment correlation coefficients were computed to analyze sense of humor (SHRQ scores) and social anxiety (IAS & AAS scores). The findings revealed a significant negative correlation between sense of humor and social anxiety, i.e., the greater the sense of humor, the lower the anxiety in social situations. Discussion of the results center on the alternative explanations of this relationship.

Notes

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Graduation Date

1988

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Guest-Houston, Sandra

Degree

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree Program

Clinical Psychology

Format

PDF

Pages

69 p.

Language

English

Rights

Public Domain

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

Identifier

DP0023889

Accessibility Status

Searchable text

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