A behavioral genetic investigation of humor styles and their correlations with the Big-5 personality dimensions

Four hundred and fifty six pairs of adult twins completed the Humor Styles Questionnaire – which measures two positive and two negative styles of humor – and the NEO-PI-R, which measures the Big-5 personality traits. Univariate behavioral genetic model-fitting revealed that individual differences in the two positive humor styles (affiliative and self-enhancing) and all five of the Big-5 traits were largely attributable to genetic and nonshared environmental factors, whereas individual differences in the two negative humor styles (self-defeating and aggressive) were largely attributable to shared and nonshared environmental factors. Several significant phenotypic correlations were found between each of the four humor styles and the Big-5, and multivariate behavior genetic analyses revealed that these observed correlations were themselves entirely attributable to genetic and nonshared environmental factors.