Are more humorous children more intelligent? A case from Turkish culture

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ARSLAN D., SAK U., ATEŞGÖZ N. N.

HUMOR-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMOR RESEARCH, cilt.34, sa.4, ss.567-588, 2021 (AHCI) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 34 Sayı: 4
  • Basım Tarihi: 2021
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1515/humor-2021-0054
  • Dergi Adı: HUMOR-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMOR RESEARCH
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, IBZ Online, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, Linguistic Bibliography, Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, Psycinfo, Sociological abstracts
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.567-588
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: children, correlation, humor ability, intelligence, regression, EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, CHINESE, CREATIVITY, ABILITY, COMPREHENSION, CHILDHOOD, AMERICAN, STUDENTS, STYLES, IMPACT
  • Anadolu Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between intelligence and humor ability in a Turkish sample. The sample included 217 middle-school students with a wide range of intelligence measured by a Turkish intelligence test (ASIS). Humor ability was measured using the Humor Ability Assessment Form. Students were instructed to write captions for 10 cartoons that were as funny and relevant as possible. Seven experts rated the funniness of the captions and their relevance to the cartoons, yielding a total of 30,380 ratings (217 students x 10 cartoons x two criteria x seven experts). The findings showed that both general intelligence and the second-level components (verbal ability, visual-spatial ability, and memory) had high correlations with humor ability. Intelligence explained 68% of the variance in humor ability. Among the third-level factors, verbal analogical reasoning was the primary predictor of humor ability (beta = 0.325, p < 0.001). Humor ability scores significantly differed across intelligence clusters, implying that highly humorous children may be highly intelligent.