Biomaterial Database

Relation between humor and empathic concern. 2001

W P Hampes

Department of Social and Behavioral Studies, Black Hawk College, 6600 34th Avenue, Moline, IL 61265-5899, USA. hampesw@bhc1.bhc.edu

A series of studies have shown that humor is associated with close interpersonal relationships and effective in reducing stress, which in turn enhances empathy. Therefore, it was hypothesized that humor and empathic concern would be positively correlated. The Empathic Concern subscale of the Empathy Questionnaire, the Coping Humor Scale, the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale, and the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire were given to 124 subjects. Scores on the Empathic Concern subscale were significantly correlated with those on each of the humor scales. Types of humor may be an important variable in the relationship between empathic concern and humor. Both humor and empathic concern are associated for people with emotional intelligence who use these to interact effectively with other individuals. As such, it was suggested that exploration would yield a relation between humor and emotional self-awareness, which is also associated with emotional intelligence.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D007360	Intelligence	The ability to learn and to deal with new situations and to deal effectively with tasks involving abstractions.
D008297	Male		Males
D008875	Middle Aged	An adult aged 45 - 64 years.	Middle Age
D011795	Surveys and Questionnaires	Collections of data obtained from voluntary subjects. The information usually takes the form of answers to questions, or suggestions.	Community Survey,Nonrespondent,Questionnaire,Questionnaires,Respondent,Survey,Survey Method,Survey Methods,Surveys,Baseline Survey,Community Surveys,Methodology, Survey,Nonrespondents,Questionnaire Design,Randomized Response Technique,Repeated Rounds of Survey,Respondents,Survey Methodology,Baseline Surveys,Design, Questionnaire,Designs, Questionnaire,Methods, Survey,Questionnaire Designs,Questionnaires and Surveys,Randomized Response Techniques,Response Technique, Randomized,Response Techniques, Randomized,Survey, Baseline,Survey, Community,Surveys, Baseline,Surveys, Community,Techniques, Randomized Response
D004645	Empathy	An individual's objective and insightful awareness of the feelings and behavior of another person. It should be distinguished from sympathy, which is usually nonobjective and noncritical. It includes caring, which is the demonstration of an awareness of and a concern for the good of others. (From Bioethics Thesaurus, 1992)	Caring,Compassion
D005260	Female		Females
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000293	Adolescent	A person 13 to 18 years of age.	Adolescence,Youth,Adolescents,Adolescents, Female,Adolescents, Male,Teenagers,Teens,Adolescent, Female,Adolescent, Male,Female Adolescent,Female Adolescents,Male Adolescent,Male Adolescents,Teen,Teenager,Youths
D000328	Adult	A person having attained full growth or maturity. Adults are of 19 through 44 years of age. For a person between 19 and 24 years of age, YOUNG ADULT is available.	Adults
D000339	Affect	The feeling-tone accompaniment of an idea or mental representation. It is the most direct psychic derivative of instinct and the psychic representative of the various bodily changes by means of which instincts manifest themselves.	Mood,Affects,Moods