The Humor Quotient Test
Introducing Humor into the Nursing Home
A Quick Summary
The Humor Quotient Test employs jokes representing 4 kinds of Humor of the Mind and creates 6 preference pairs indicating 6 personality types.
The 4 joke types are:
Gotcha (G): We laugh because someone thinks he or she is smart and then gets got.
Sympathetic Pain (SP): We laugh with, in sympathy for, an undeserving victim.
Incongruity (I): We laugh at the juxtaposition of humorously unlike things or ideas.
Word Play (W): We laugh at a humorous juxtaposition of words or parts of words.
The test pits each of the four types against one another an equal number of times and asks the respondent to select the funnier of each pair.
The "votes" for each type of joke are counted, and the respondent’s two highest humor preferences are combined to form a humor-derived personality.
G + I = Crusader: a knight, someone who sees what the problems are and tries to right the wrongs
G + W = Advocate: an activist wordsmith, someone who uses verbal flair to rectify problems
G + SP = Bridgebuilder: a people person, someone who sympathizes but also rectifies wrongs
SP + W = Consoler: a comforter, someone who sympathizes and soothes pain with the right words
SP + I = Reconciler: someone who recognizes the problems and empathizes with others
I + W = Intellectual: a facts and ideas person, someone who likes to deal perceptively with reality, facts, words, and ideas
For a more in-depth discussion of humor types and humor personalities as they are embodied in modern American film comedies, see Comedic Tenor, Comic Vehicle: Humor in American Film Comedy.