Are Funny Teenagers Creative?

Abstract

To assess relationships among measures of humor, creativity, and self-concept in early and late adolescents, seventh and eleventh grade students were evaluated on the basis of observational, rating, and psychometric procedures. These included direct observation of humorous events as well as teachers', peers', and raters' judgments of humorousness and creativity. Psychometric measures included the Torrance test and the Piers-Harris Self-concept Scale. For students in both grades, significant correlations were obtained between teachers', observers', and students' ratings of humorousness and humor production. While there were few significant correlations among creativity, humor, and self-concept for seventh graders, for eleventh graders there were many positive correlations. Results were taken to suggest that being humorous is part of a different complex of personal characteristics for seventh and eleventh graders.