The development of a humor measure was described in a brief report in this journal. In that report, a series of suitable congruous and incongruous pictures were developed with a community sample of children. The findings of that study were consistent with those reported by others (Chik, 2001; Masten, 1989; Schultz, 1972), indicating that incongruity is an essential component of humor appreciation. With a larger (n = 140) and more representative sample, we embarked on a follow-up validation study. The findings of the present study provide further support for the universality of the incongruity as an essential component of humor appreciation across age and cultures.
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The procedure for the development of a measure of humour appreciation among a convenience sample of 53 primary school children attending a one-week summer program held in Hong Kong is described. Two sets of visual stimuli depicting pictures of local celebrities portrayed either veridically (congruously) or incongruously were established from a pool of 30 pictorial items. The pictures were ranked for their humour properties yielding a 16-item test battery. Analyses of children's responses clearly indicated that incongruous pictures were rated as significantly funnier than congruous pictures.
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