The structure of a sense of humor as a property of personality

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The structure of a sense of humor as a property of personality

Kateryna Kolesnykova

Ushinsky South-Ukrainian national pedagogical University, Odessa, Ukraine

The actual questions of humor are defined as the ability of a person to identify, fix and comprehend the comic in the surrounding reality and emotionally react to it. In general, the concept of a sense of humor provides for a complex of perceptual, cognitive, emotional, physiological and behavioral processes. The individual characteristics of the cognitive sphere, the repetition of emotional processes, temperamental and characterological characteristics are only a small fraction of the determinants of humor.

Key words: research, concept, mechanism, phenomenon, property, humor, comprehension.

К. Колесникова, Структура почуття гумору як властивості особистості / Державний заклад, Південноукраїнський Національний Педагогічний Університет імені К.Д. Ушинського, Україна, Одеса

Актуальні питання гумору визначають здатність людини ідентифікувати, фіксувати та осмислювати комічне в навколишній дійсності та емоційно реагувати на нього. Загалом поняття почуття гумору передбачає комплекс перцептивних, когнітивних, емоційних, фізіологічних та поведінкових процесів. Індивідуальні особливості когнітивної сфери, повторення емоційних процесів, темпераментні та характерологічні характеристики - це лише мала частка визначальних факторів гумору.

Ключові слова: дослідження, концепція, механізм, феномен, властивість, гумор, осмислення.

Formulation of the problem. Humor often occurs in stressful or unpleasant situations when people experience negative emotions such as fear, sadness or anger. However, the perception of funny and meaningless elements allows them to look at the situation from another angle and prevent negative experiences. This type of humor is especially noticeable in the ability to laugh at their own shortcomings [5]. sense humor personality

In the psychological literature there are very different approaches to understanding the essence of the phenomenon of "sense of humor", just as ambiguous different researchers interpret the structure of humor. It should be noted that there are a small number of studies that would be aimed at studying the sense of humor as a property of the individual. But the structure of humor is insufficiently researched and described, its components and features of manifestation are not clearly allocated. Therefore, there is a need to explain and describe a set of different levels of humor. First of all, it is necessary to consider the existing basic theoretical approaches to the structure of the sense of humor [3].

The economic approach is characterized by a person's understanding as a set of components managed by unconscious processes, only in a small degree by the controlled person. The basic principles of the consideration of humor in this approach are laid by Sigmund Freud. At the heart of understanding and producing humor by man in this case lies a mechanism for obtaining satisfaction from the economy of mental energy in the process of displacement distinguish unconscious impulses that complicate the mental functioning of man [1].

Humor, the manifestation of which is closely related to the emotional state of the subject, is a convenient aspect of psychodiagnostics. The urgency of developing methods of implicit diagnosis is due not only to considerations of lack of reliability of explicit diagnosis, but also to the fact that people tend to demonstrate different levels of detection of the same personality traits in different life situations. Researchers point out that the variety of intra¬individual differences, the forms of behavior of one subject in different situations, which correspond to the content of a certain level of stable personality trait, sometimes exceeds the differences detected by typological research.

Thus, the variability of the manifestation of opposite signs of a particular personality trait, which can be operationalized by analyzing different styles and forms of humor, may indicate the level of psychological health.

Selected "positive" traits were correlated with six virtues, the criteria for which were not only the presence of these virtues in different cultures of the world, including Confucian, Taoist, Buddhist, Hindu, Athenian, Jewish, Christian, Muslim and other in determining the successful functioning of man as a subject of life. The experience of empirical research and theoretical hypotheses, which have been formulated and partially tested in numerous cross-cultural studies by representatives of positive psychology, shows that human observance of certain universal virtues, which include wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, moderation and transcendence. that a person, if he adheres to these virtues, forms certain positive personality traits, the consequent effect of the detection of which is a person's sense of psychological well-being and psychological health [3].

Based on the above criteria, it can be considered practical and sufficiently theoretically sound to assume the possibility of taking into account the styles and forms of humor for implicit diagnosis of psychological health, well-being and optimal functioning [2].

Among the above-mentioned virtues, transcendence is singled out, which is interpreted as the presence of a person's ideas about the meaning of life and a sense of his own connection with the world around him. According to the hypothesis of the developers of psychodiagnostic tools for assessing the presence of positive values and relevant personality traits, which is called "Values in action", human adherence to the value of transcendence ensures the formation of such positive qualities as appreciation of beauty and outstanding achievements, gratitude, hope, humor and spirituality. Thus, humor is seen as a form of positive human functioning and a sign of psychological health, because, as empirical research has shown, adherence to values makes a person happy, prosperous and healthy [4].

This initial positivity of human realization of humor in the process of life in accordance with the theory of positive psychology is provided by the fact that to identify positive personality traits was used a set of criteria, which include, in particular, the following:

1) the trait must be positive;

2) it should be perceived as a moral value;

3) the content of the property, which is considered as a positive (healthy) personality trait, should not contain implications of the possibility of humiliation of others;

4) the presence of the opposite property in content and the ability to consider this property as a construct that resembles a truly established psychological trait;

5) similarity of character traits that appear in traditional classifications;

6) the presence of samples and higher forms of feature detection;

7) the potential probability of the trait being absent;

8) the presence of detection rituals.

Along with transcendence as one of the positive personality traits, among other positive values are wisdom, courage, humanity, justice and moderation, other conditions that have been shown to lead to psychological health and spirituality. At the transcendental level, man as a subject of activity acts as capable of spirituality and even beyond adaptive activity. That is, the affiliation of humor in terms of classification of positive psychology to the positive features makes it quite legitimate the prospect of developing tools to operationalize the detection of forms of humor for the implicit diagnosis of mental health [3].

Modern explanatory psychological dictionary offers the following definition of this phenomenon. A sense of humor means a person's ability to notice comic aspects in phenomena, responding emotionally to them. It is inextricably linked with the ability to detect contradictions in the observed phenomena, for example, to notice and sometimes exaggerate the manifestations of positive or negative traits in a person, attempts to exaggerate a person's own significance and inappropriate behavior, and others. At the same time, it is emphasized that there is a certain friendliness towards the objects of humor, which seem to be subjected to emotionally colored criticism. A sense of humor is correlated with the presence of a positive ideal in his subject, without which it degenerates into negative phenomena - vulgarity, cynicism, etc [7].

The psychological function of humor as a means of relieving stress and overcoming troubles is perhaps the most common. Researchers have traditionally noted the role of humor in overcoming stress and trouble. In the course of evolution, people probably began to use playful humor as a means of cognitive control of many of the events and situations that threatened their well-being, turning them into something frivolous and ridiculous. Humor can help a person change his view of a stressful situation, overestimating it from a new and less threatening point of view. As a result of this humorous reassessment, the situation becomes less stressful and more manageable [8].

The transition from the classical type of scientific knowledge to the increasingly complete and multifaceted consideration of the specifics of man as a unique object of knowledge of psychological science requires new research methods. One of such methods is the implicit diagnosis of personality, the use of which can be considered one of the most characteristic features of the modern post-classical perspective of psychology [5]. Among the implicit methods of studying personality, the method of applying procedural models to study human attitudes to social objects, components of human self-consciousness (self-concept, self-esteem), attitudes, skills and experience is rapidly developing.

Humor, the manifestation of which is closely related to the emotional state of the subject and the personal attitude of man to himself, the world and others, is already widely recognized as a convenient aspect of implicit psychodiagnostics. The theoretical analysis of psychological factors of human use of different styles and forms of humor, given in the first section of the work, allowed us to draw the following conclusions [7].

1. Humor can be used by a person completely spontaneously and unconsciously, reflecting the system of attitudes towards himself, others and the world as a whole.

2. Humor is recognized as a form of diagnosis of both dynamic states of man and his stable personal qualities.

3. Humor is considered by positive psychologists as a form of manifestation of optimal human functioning and a sign of psychological health.

4. The peculiarities of the manifestation of humor is associated not only with the ability to identify differences in the level of positivity (optimality) of human functioning, but also the ability to diagnose various deviations in personal health or threats to such deviations. Different styles and forms of humor, as established, naturally associated with stable global dispositional personality traits, as well as with other psychological phenomena: self¬esteem, attitudes toward themselves, others and the world, self-confidence I insecurity, etc [4].

Based on the above, it can be considered sufficiently theoretically sound and practically appropriate to assume the possibility of taking into account the styles and forms of humor for implicit diagnosis of psychological health, well¬being and optimal functioning. However, this conclusion is mostly based on the reconstruction of mainly ideographic research, which practically does not take into account an important aspect of determining human behavior - the system of its values and character traits, which, according to a new line of research in personality psychology - positive psychology - are formed by positive values [2].

The main limitation of most existing research is the use of correlation methods, which do not allow researchers to determine the causal relationship between the available observable features of humor as a higher mental function and personality traits, which hinders the development of new methods of implicit personality diagnosis. That is why our chosen general psychological approach to the study of styles and forms of humor opens new opportunities for indirect general psychodiagnostics of human personality and has broad prospects for practical application and expansion of theoretical ideas about the peculiarities of human humor as a higher mental function [2].

References

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2. Giora R. (1991). On the cognitive aspects of the joke I Journal of Pragmatics. No 16. Р. 465-485.

3. Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, Kobzieva I., Borokh K. (2020). Investigating the concept of “lightness” as reflected in the Russian-speaking Ukrainians' linguistic consciousness. East European Journal of Psycholinguistics. 7(1). Р. 48-65. https:II doi.orgI10.29038Ieejpl.2020.7.1 .gor

4. Kuiper N. G.Kirsh (2015) Reactions to humorous comments and implicit theories of humor styles I Europe's Journal of Psychology. No 6 (3). Р. 236¬266.

5. Martin R. A. (2007). The psychology of humor: An integrative approach. New York: Elsevier. Р. 37-39.

6. Proyer R.T. (2017). A new structural model for the study of adult playful¬ness: Assessment and exploration of an understudied individual differences variable. Personality and Individual Differences. 108, Р. 113-122.

7. Schaefer C., Greenberg R. (1997) Measurement of playfulness: A neglected therapist variable. International Journal of Play Therapy. 6(2), Р. 21-31.

8. Yue X.D., Leung C.L., Hiranandani N.A. (2016). Adult Playfulness, Humor Styles, and Subjective Happiness. Psychological Reports. 119(3), Р. 630-640.

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