Abstract
Ruch and colleagues (Ruch, Willibald, Gabriele Köhler & Christoph Van Thriel. 1996. Assessing the “humorous temperament”: Construction of the facet and standard trait forms of the state-trait-cheerfulness-inventory — STCI. Humor 9(3–4). 303–340) postulated high cheerfulness, low seriousness, and low bad mood contribute to exhilaration and enjoyment of humor. Although robust findings have corroborated that cheerfulness is associated with well-being and greatly enhances one’s social desirability, no studies have investigated the effects of social desirability on the assessment of cheerfulness. For this study, 997 undergraduate students completed the State-Trait Cheerfulness Inventory (STCI) and validity measures. Exploratory factor analyses that controlled for social desirability suggest several items on the STCI cheerfulness subscale loaded on social desirability, whereas seriousness subscale items showed few positive loadings on social desirability and bad mood subscale items loaded negatively on social desirability. Despite associations with social desirability, items overall showed strong loadings onto their respective factors. Factor loadings free of social desirability ranged from 0.39 to 0.84 in cheerfulness, 0.49 to 0.76 in seriousness, and 0.50 to 0.81 in bad mood. Cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood subscale scores demonstrated partial correlations in the expected directions with well-being when controlling for social desirability, albeit smaller in size but not significantly different. The STCI scores demonstrated strong psychometric properties with good reliability, structural validity, and criterion validity when controlling for social desirability.
About the authors
Chloe Lau is a Postdoctoral Fellow funded by CIHR and Mitacs-Mental Health Research Canada at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health located in Toronto, Canada. She is also an Adjunct Research Professor at the Department of Psychiatry at Schulich Medicine and Dentistry at Western University. She completed her Doctor of Philosophy degree in clinical psychology at Western University where she received the Governor General’s Gold Medal.
Catherine Li completed her Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology at Northwestern University. For her honours thesis related to humor and dark personality traits, Catherine was awarded the 2020 Global Undergraduate Award in Psychology. Her undergraduate research project was selected as the top submission amongst 4,140 submissions across 380 universities in 50 countries.
Dr. Lena C. Quilty is a Senior Scientist and Director of Research Training in the Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto. She is a registered psychologist and certified cognitive behavioural therapist. Dr. Quilty has an applied program of research, with a focus on the role of personality and cognition in depression and addiction. Her research program includes risk and resilience factors for mood and substance use difficulties as well as evidence-based assessment and intervention. She has a specific interest in identifying how to match patients to the treatments that are best suited to them, and evaluating technology-facilitated treatments that will increase access to high quality care, including online and mobile interventions with a foundation in cognitive behavioural therapy, dialectical behavioural therapy, and mindfulness. Her initiatives incorporate a consistent emphasis on knowledge user feedback, lived experience perspectives, knowledge mobilization, and evaluation throughout the research endeavor.
Donald H. Saklofske is currently an Adjunct Research Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario. He was previously Full Professor at the University of Western Ontario, University of Calgary, and University of Saskatchewan, and also Visiting Research Professor at Beijing Normal University. Dr. Saklofske is currently editor of Canadian Psychology and Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment and Series Co-Editor for the Springer series on Human Exceptionality. He is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, Canadian Psychological Association, and Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
Francesco Bruno received his PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience at the Department of Psychology at Sapienza University of Rome. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Regional Neurogenetic Centre and Adjunct Professor of “Fundamentals of Psychobiology” at the degree course in Sciences and Techniques of Cognitive Psychology of Magna Graecia – University of Catanzaro.
Francesca Chiesi is an Associate Professor, Department of Neuroscience, Psychology, Drug, and Child’s Health (NEUROFARBA), Section of Psychology, University of Florence, Italy. Her research interests are focused on the construction, adaptation, and development of tests in positive and clinical psychology, educational psychology, and personality.
Acknowledgements
The first author (Chloe Lau) would like to acknowledge Professor Dr. Willibald Ruch’s mentorship in this Special Issue with the following statement: As an early career researcher, Professor Dr. Ruch has kindly provided me with career-related guidance, psychosocial support, and role modelling necessary to flourish in an academic environment. I was fortunate to receive mentorship from Professor Ruch since September of 2017 when I studied with him as a first year PhD student. Professor Willibald Ruch’s lab presented as a friendly, kind, and lighthearted group yet exhibited hard work, scientific rigor, and dedication in every scientific activity. While the learning curve involving conducting humor research was extremely challenging, Professor Ruch patiently invested in me and built my capabilities to successfully work on this project. Professor Ruch is a mentor who taught me that learning is a process that involves risk taking, which is facilitated only with unwavering commitment and perseverance despite difficulties and hardships. Professor Ruch’s support and dedication to my career success enabled me to realize my own potential and further my commitment to research and learning.
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Research funding: The authors have no funding to disclose.
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Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individual adult participants included in the study.
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Compliance with ethical standards: All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Western Ontario Non-Medical Research Ethics Board and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study received ethics approval prior to data collection.
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Conflicts of interest: The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.
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