Preferred Styles of Humor across Professions in the Indian Context

Research has shown different uses for different styles of humor for various workplace environments. The present study focused on different styles of humor preferred in different professions as well as gender differences in styles of humor. The psychometric properties of the Humor Styles Questionnaire were also established in the Indian context. A sample of 210 participants (105 males & 105 females) from a range of 7 professions, chartered accountants, computer science engineers, doctors, educators, lawyers, nurses and police officers, filled the Humor Styles Questionnaire. The results reported that males use aggressive humor more than females, whereas females use self-defeating humor more than males. It was also observed that nurses had a high preference for affiliative humor and a very low preference for aggressive humor; doctors and police officers reported a high preference for self-enhancing humor; police officers had the highest preference for aggressive humor; and chartered accountants reported a high preference for self-defeating humor Police officers reported the highest total score on the questionnaire, whereas lawyers reported the lowest score. The reliability of the four components of the questionnaire was found to be high. Factor analysis reported four components with Eigen values higher than 2.