Reciprocity between Humor
and Peer Victimization
Dr Claire Fox1, Dr Simon Hunter2, Dr Siân Jones3
1Keele University, 2University of Strathclyde,
3Oxford Brookes University
Contact: [email protected]
Humor Styles Questionnaire (Adult)
• Four dimensions:
– Self-enhancing (e.g. ‘My humorous outlook on life keeps me from getting
too upset or depressed about things’)
– Aggressive (e.g. ‘If someone makes a mistake I often tease them about it’)
– Affiliative (e.g. ‘I enjoy making people laugh’)
– Self-defeating (e.g. ‘I often try to make people like me or accept me more
by saying something funny about my own weaknesses, blunders or faults’)
• Data supports the reliability and validity of the HSQ (Martin et al,
2003; Martin, 2007)
• Much stronger correlations between humor styles and
psychological adjustment…..
Humor and psychosocial adjustment in
adults
• Adaptive forms of humor negatively correlated with
depression/anxiety and positively correlated with selfesteem and life satisfaction
• Self-defeating humor – opposite effects (Martin et al., 2003;
Kuiper et al., 2004)
• Maladaptive forms of humor – negative impact on
interactions with others (Kuiper et al., 2010; Ziegler-Hill et al., 2013)
Humor and psychosocial adjustment in
children
• Links between humor and social competence (Masten,
1986; Sherman, 1988)
• Klein and Kuiper (2006):
– Children who are bullied at a disadvantage with
respect to the development of humor competence
– Gravitate to self-defeating humor
– Self-defeating humor as a risk factor for
victimisation
• Interpersonal risk model
PV
Kochel et al. (2012)
Adjustment problems
• Symptoms driven model
Adjustment problems
PV
• Transactional model
PV
Adjustment problems
Reciprocity - Peer Victimization and Humor
Peer victimization
More self-defeating
Less affiliative
Less self-enhancing
ESRC Humor and Bullying Study
• Short-term longitudinal design
• Participants (Time 1) N = 1234:
– Gender: 599 male and 620 female (15 missing)
– Age: 11-13 years, mean age = 11.68(SD= .64)
• Measures:
– Peer nomination inventory
• Peer nominations of 4 types of victimisation
– Self-report questionnaires:
• Child HSQ (Fox et al., 2013)
• Self-report victimisation questionnaire to measure 3 types (Owens et al.,
2005)
Results
• Peer victimization (SR and PN) positively correlated with SD
humor and negatively correlated with Aff humor at T1 and T2
• PN of peer victimization negatively correlated with selfenhancing humor at T1 and T2
• Analytic approach:
– Cross-lagged measurement models
• Self-report of humor styles
• SR of peer victimization
• PN of peer victimization
– Combined cross-lagged measurement models
• SR of peer victimization and humor styles
• PN of peer victimization and humor styles
Table 1: Cross-lagged measurement models
χ2
df
χ2/df
CFI
RMSEA
Model 1: SR peer victimization
2964.68***
575
5.16
.87
.058
Model 2: Model 1 with constraints
2112.18***
563
3.75
.92
.047
Model 3: PN of peer victimization
68.11***
15
4.54
.99
.054
Model 4: SR of humor styles
2515.22***
1029
2.44
.91
.034
Model 5: Model 4 with constraints
2350.82***
1023
2.30
.92
.032
Model
***p < .001. SR = Self-report. PN = Peer-nomination
Table 2: Full cross-lagged models combining peer victimization and humor styles
Model
Model 6: SR peer victimization and
χ2
df
χ2/df
CFI
RMSEA
6924.25***
3298
2.10
.91
.030
2927.54***
1406
2.08
.93
.030
humor
Model 7: PN peer victimization and
humor
***p < .001. SR = Self-report. PN = Peer-nomination
Figure 1: Schematic of structural model for self-reported peer victimization
and humor styles. Only significant paths shown.
Figure 2: Schematic of structural model for peer nominated peer victimization
and humor styles. Only significant paths shown
Summary of findings
• Evidence of a vicious cycle between peer victimization and the
use of adaptive and maladaptive humor styles
• Peer victimization appears to increase future use of selfdefeating humor and decrease the use of affiliative humor
• At the same time, greater use of self-defeating humor
increases the risk of later peer victimization, while greater use
of affiliative humor reduces the risk of later victimization
• Support for Klein and Kuiper’s (2006) predictions
• And experimental studies that have examined the impact of
the four humor styles on others
Conclusions
• For many years, young people have been encouraged to use
humor as a way of dealing with the bullies, most notably by
‘fogging’
• However, our evidence suggests this can lead to negative
outcomes, whereas taking an approach based on affiliative
humor is more likely to lead to positive outcomes
• Is it possible to teach children to use the more adaptive styles
of humor and discourage use of aggressive and SD humor?
Further information
http://esrcbullyingandhumourproject.wordpress
.com/
Twitter @Humour_Bullying
Email: [email protected]
Acknowledgements
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ESRC
Rod Martin
Sirandou Saidy Khan and Hayley Gilman
Lucy James and Katie Wright-Bevans
Teachers, parents and children
Thank you for listening