Abstract :
Humor is a concept that has been studied and discussed throughout the ages in many different fields including philosophy, literature, education, and psychology. In psychology, humor has been examined in various perspectives and areas from psychoanalytic theory to positive psychology. Sense of humor, which is seen as a personality trait, is a concept that includes individuals perceptions, production, and use of humor. Different conceptualizations and measurement tools for sense of humor are available in the literature. The Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (MSHS) is a self-report scale with 24 five-point Likert items developed by Thorson and Powell in 1993. The scale, which is adapted into Turkish by Aslan and his colleagues in 1999, has a total sense of humor score that is recommended for use as well as four subscales as humor creativity or generation, coping humor, appreciation of humorous people, and appreciation of humor. There has been little use of the scale in research since it has been adapted to Turkish and a discrepancy in two items and rating anchors was observed between the original and adapted versions. In this study, MSHS items and factor structure were updated by using a larger sample. The scale with updated items was administered to 566 university students and the data was analyzed for reliability and validity. Findings show that the updated scale has a four-factor structure as in the original and adaptation scale, and the psychometric properties of the scale are strengthened. This study presents the MSHS to the attention of researchers and practitioners as a reliable and valid measurement tool that can be used to measure adults’ sense of humor in a multidimensional perspective.
NaturalLanguageKeyword :
Sense of humor , scale , reliability , validity
