Hostility humor dimensions and their relationship to measures of guilt.

Abstract

The present study was designed to investigate designated humor hostility dimensions and their relationship to measures of guilt. The subjects consisted of 80 college students, 32 males and 48 females ranging in age from 16 to 53. All subjects were administered the IPAT Humor Test -Form A which measures 13 independent humor dimensions and the Mosher Forced Choice Guilt Inventories which contain subscales of Sex Guilt (SG), containing items referring to guilt about commission of sex-related acts, Hostility Guilt (HG), containing items referring to guilt about commission of hostile acts, and Morality-Conscience Guilt (MCG), containing items referring to guilt about commission of acts that violate moral precepts. Results showed that there were significant correlations (p<.05) on 18 separate coefficients obtained with the use of the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient. Significant correlations (p<.05) occurred for males between "unexpected snappy comeback humor" and guilt about conmission of hostile acts, for males between "disgusted sharp-edged retort humor" and guilt about commission of sex-related actions, for males between humor that is "hostile against authority" and guilt about commission of sex-related actions, for males between humor that "evades guilt or embarrassment through rationalization" and guilt about commission of sex-related acts. A significant correlation was obtained by males between "humor with disgusted, sharp-edged retort tones" and guilt about commission of acts violating general moral precepts such as lying, cheating, and stealing, etc. A significant correlation for females occurred between "debonair carefree humor with sexual content" and guilt about convnission of acts violating moral precepts. It was suggested that further study involve examining non-hostilee humor dimensions and guilt about committing acts violating moral precepts for males and comparing the results to the findings in the present study. It was also suggested that since the study was an exploratory one into the area of humor and guilt, it may have some hueristic value.