Abstract
While both humor and creativity have been the subject of extensive study, the relationship between the two has suffered from a shallow pool of research utilizing narrow definitions of both constructs. There is evidence for the role of humor ability in creative ideation and problem-solving, however, studies examining alternative definitions of humor have found mixed results. This study aimed to better our understanding of the nuanced relationship between the two by incorporating multiple measures of humor and creativity. Specifically, 152 undergraduate students completed the two most prominent humor measures used in the literature: Humor Production Ability (a series of cognitive tasks requiring generation of funny responses) and the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ). They also completed measures of divergent thinking ability (Alternate Uses Task) and creative problem solving (Remote Associates problems and verbal insight problems), as well as a general test of verbal ability. As in prior studies, humor production ability was found to be significantly correlated with divergent thinking and verbal crystallized intelligence though an additional relationship was found between humor production ability and Remote Associates Task and verbal insight problem-solving performance. Results on the Humor Styles Questionnaire supported earlier findings regarding the relationship of individual humor styles with divergent thinking though a relationship was discovered between creative problem solving (on the RAT and verbal insight problems) and both the affiliative and self-defeating humor styles. This effect was independent of any relationship between the two styles, given that the typical correlation between HSQ scales was not supported in this study’s results. Additionally, these results suggested a link between humor ability and humor styles not found in earlier studies. The relationship between humor production ability and creative problem-solving was further quantified by investigating an interaction effect between humor production ability and vocabulary score on insight. Finally, the possibility of producing a comprehensive model of the relationship between humor ability and creative ability was explored via path analysis. Suggested models proved to have very high goodness of fit, but the alternative model performed better than the theoretical model, and so were inconclusive. These findings suggest a few possible explanations for the disparate results in existing literature and serve as the basis for a higher degree of specification for defining “humor.”