Healthy Influence – Persuasion Blog

Below are several descriptions of how you may communicate in general.  Please use the scale below to rate the degree to which each statement applies to your communication.

1. Strongly Disagree  2. Disagree  3. Neutral  4. Agree  5. Strongly Agree

___1. I regularly tell jokes and funny stories when in a group.

___2. People usually laugh when I tell jokes or funny stories.

___3. I have no memory for jokes or funny stories.

___4. I can be funny without having to rehearse a joke.

___5. Being funny is a natural communication style with me.

___6. I cannot tell a joke well.

___7. People seldom ask me to tell stories.

___8. My friends would say I am a funny person.

___9. People don’t seem to pay close attention when I tell a joke.

___10. Even funny jokes seem flat when I tell them.

___11. I can easily remember jokes and stories.

___12. People often ask me to tell jokes or stories.

___13. My friends would not say that I am a funny person.

___14. I don’t tell jokes or stories even when asked to.

___15. I tell stories and jokes very well.

___16. Of all the people I know, I am one of the funniest.

___17. I use humor to communicate in a variety of situations.

Scoring: After administering, recode (reverse score) items 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14; then sum.

Reference:  Booth-Butterfield, S. & Booth-Butterfield, M. (1991). The communication of humor in everyday life: Individual differences in the use of humorous messages. Southern Communication Journal, 56, 205-218.
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Melanie and I developed and tested the Humor Orientation scale in the late 1980s and published our research and the original 17 item scale in the Southern Speech Journal, 1991.  This journal can be difficult to access, so I’m posting the scale here for public use.  While Melanie and I hold the copyright to the scale, you may use it for any noncommercial purpose.  It would be nice if you referenced our authorship.  Or Melanie will plant a Whoopee Cushion on you at a professional conference (as here in Providence, RI at the 2007 ECA meeting).

A good source that reviews the research with HO can be found in Elizabeth Graham’s chapter in the sourcebook, “Communication Research Measures II.”  Here’s a source for that book.

A couple of personal observations about HO . . .

1.  It does not measure a person’s sense of humor (Ha-ha, gee, that’s funny!).  It measures a person’s ability to produce humor and make other people go “Ha-ha, gee, that’s funny!”  Some folks miss this source versus receiver distinction and that’s a big error.  HO is a skill and if you’ve got it, you can whip it out anytime.

2.  The scale is riddled with errors, oversights, and general foolishness that other researchers like to correct by changing a few words here and there, dropping this item, and adding a new one.  May I suggest that if you feel the need to improve this scale, do the damn work needed to publish your own scale rather than mess with this one.  If you keep changing the thermometer, we’ll never agree on the temperature, okay?  Use this thermometer the way it was tested and validated.  You might consider using the original scale in your research AND then adding your smarter changes in a separate scale.

3.  People are High HO, Mo HO, Low HO, No HO, or Faux HO.  Some are just HOs, but that’s really a different concept.

4.  I think that Humor Orientation is a huge individual difference variable for cognitive function.  People often think that humor is a rather low form of human communication, when humor production is truly a complex cognitive skill.  Funny people have different brains, I think.  You could do some truly baroque experimental studies with HO.  Select Hi HOs and Lo HOs (or better still No HOs), then have each group do a variety of intricate cognitive tasks.  Hi HOs will perform very differently.  I suspect that “magneticians” who like playing with fMRIs would find Humor Orientation a productive variable.

5.  Both Melanie and I learned to be situational Hi HOs when we do presentations, whether in teaching or briefings or pitches.  Mo HOs can learn to pick their spots and act funnier than they really are.

6. My favorite joke:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed.

The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls emergency services. He gasps ‘My friend is dead! What can I do?’

The operator says: ‘Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.’

There is a silence, then a shot is heard.  Back on the phone, the guy says ‘OK, now what?’