The age and gender differences of the sense of humor of the aged.

Research Project

Project/Area Number	12610154
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	教育・社会系心理学
Research Institution	Fukuoka University
Principal Investigator	TAKASHITA Yasuyuki Faculty of Humanities, Fukuoka University Professor, 人文学部, 教授 (30091234)
Project Period (FY)	2000 – 2001
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2001)
Budget Amount *help	¥1,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000) Fiscal Year 2001: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000) Fiscal Year 2000: ¥1,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000)
Keywords	sense of humor / cartoon / the aged / age differencen / gender difference
Research Abstract	This study examined the age and gender differences of humor appreciation and the sense of humor. A total of 240 middle and elder aged (50 to 79 years) women and men resided in and around Fukuoka City completed the humor appreciation test of 17 cartoons and the questionnaire concerning the sense of humor. The control group of 318 university students (mean age 19.5) to compare with the elderly also were subjected to the same administration. All subjects appreciated humor (funniness) of 17 cartoons, the contents of which were tendentious humor (hostile and sexual tendency), incongruity humor, disparagement humor (diparaging of the elderly) and so on. The results showed few differences in humor appreciation between female and male. As age difference, the fifties, sixties, and seventies rated tendentious cartoon and incongruity cartoon significantly funnier than young subjects. Then the irate of comprehending of humor point showed significant gender difference and age difference namely, male was higher than female, and the elderly was higher than the young. Elderly and young subjects were asked to self-rate the sense of humor presented by the questionnaire composed of 15 question items. Two factors, "the direction to humorous matters and laughing" and "the direction to humor media" tendency were presented by a factor analysis of subjects' responses to the sense of humor questionnaire. The former was significantly higher in female than male. Moreover, the elderly had significantly more tendency of "the direction to humorous matters and laughing" and significantly less tendency of "the direction to humor media" than young people.