A behavioral genetic study of humor styles in an Australian sample

H M Baughman; E A Giammarco; Livia Veselka; Julie A Schermer; Nicholas G Martin; Michael Lynskey; Phillip A Vernon

doi:10.1017/thg.2012.23

A behavioral genetic study of humor styles in an Australian sample

H M Baughman, E A Giammarco, Livia Veselka, Julie A Schermer, Nicholas G Martin, Michael Lynskey, Phillip A Vernon

Addictions

University of Western Ontario

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The present study investigated the extent to which individual differences in humor styles are attributable to genetic and/or environmental factors in an Australian sample. Participants were 934 same-sex pairs of adult twins from the Australian Twin Registry (546 monozygotic pairs, 388 dizygotic pairs) who completed the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ). The HSQ measures four distinct styles of humor - affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating. Results revealed that additive genetic and non-shared environmental factors accounted for the variance in all four humor styles, thus replicating results previously obtained in a sample of twins from the United Kingdom. However, a study conducted with a U.S. sample produced different results and we interpret these findings in terms of cross-cultural differences in humor.

Original language	English
Article number	N/A
Pages (from-to)	663-667
Number of pages	5
Journal	TWIN RESEARCH AND HUMAN GENETICS
Volume	15
Issue number	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/thg.2012.23
Publication status	Published - Oct 2012

Keywords

Adult
Australia
Female
Genetics, Behavioral
Humans
Individuality
Male
Questionnaires
Social Perception
Twins, Dizygotic
Twins, Monozygotic
Wit and Humor as Topic

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10.1017/thg.2012.23

Cite this

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AU - Giammarco, E A

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AU - Lynskey, Michael

AU - Vernon, Phillip A

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KW - Female

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KW - Individuality

KW - Male

KW - Questionnaires

KW - Social Perception

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KW - Twins, Monozygotic

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A behavioral genetic study of humor styles in an Australian sample

Abstract

Keywords

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