title: A behavioral genetic study of humor styles in an Australian sample.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Baughman
authors.forename: E A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Giammarco
authors.forename: Livia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Veselka
authors.forename: Julie A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Schermer
authors.forename: Nicholas G
authors.initials: NG
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lynskey
authors.forename: Phillip A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Vernon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001315:Australia; D005260:Female; D005824:Genetics, Behavioral; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D012938:Social Perception; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014429:Twins, Dizygotic / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology; D014430:Twins, Monozygotic / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology; D014925:Wit and Humor as Topic / Q000523:psychology*