Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Role Of Humor As A Character Strength In Positive Psychology, Kimberly R. Edwards

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In positive psychology, humor has been identified as one of twenty-four character strengths considered ubiquitously important for human flourishing. Unlike the other strengths, humor was a late addition to this classification system and its status as a strength continues to be somewhat controversial. Therefore the purpose of this thesis was to explore how humor fits within positive psychology. Four studies were conducted to achieve this goal. Study 1 involved a cross-sectional design and compared the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths - Humor Scale (the humor measure used in positive psychology, which assumes that humor is a unitary and positive …