title: How do emotional restrictions affect the use of humor? A behavior genetic analysis of alexithymia and humor styles.
abstract: This article reports the first behavioral genetic study of relationships between alexithymia and four styles of humor: affiliative, self-enhancing, self-defeating, and aggressive. A total of 509 MZ pairs and 264 DZ pairs of twins completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20) and the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ). Consistent with our predictions, alexithymia correlated negatively with affiliative and self-enhancing humor and positively with self-defeating and aggressive humor. All but one of the 16 phenotypic correlations that we report are significant at the 0.01 level. Also consistent with our predictions, the phenotypic correlations between alexithymia and humor styles were primarily attributable to correlated genetic factors and to a lesser extent to correlated non-shared environmental factors. Correlated shared environmental factors had no significant effect. Implications and limitations of this study are discussed.
authors: Department of Psychology,University of Western Ontario,London,Ontario,Canada.
authors: Breanna E
authors: BE
authors: Atkinson
authors: Department of Psychology,University of Western Ontario,London,Ontario,Canada.
authors: Debra
authors: D
authors: Lipton
authors: Department of Psychology,University of Western Ontario,London,Ontario,Canada.
authors: Holly M
authors: HM
authors: Baughman
authors: Management and Organizational Studies,University of Western Ontario,London,Ontario,Canada.
authors: Julie A
authors: JA
authors: Schermer
authors: Twin Research & Genetic Epidemiology Unit,King's College London,London,UK.
authors: Juliette
authors: J
authors: Harris
authors: Department of Psychology,University of Western Ontario,London,Ontario,Canada.
authors: Philip A
authors: PA
authors: Vernon
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000368:Aged; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D014429:Twins, Dizygotic / Q000235:genetics*; D014430:Twins, Monozygotic / Q000235:genetics*
keywords: twin study