Assessing dispositions towards ridicule and being laughed at: Development and initial validation of the Turkish PhoPhiKat-45

How people deal with humor and laughter is culturally constructed within a society but each member may differ in their attitudes. Depending upon this, this study aimed to test the factor structure of PhoPhiKat-45 (Ruch and Proyer Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 22, 183–212, 2009a) which is a subjective measurement designed to assess three dispositions toward laughter and ridicule; gelotophobia (fear of being laughed at), gelotophilia (joy of being laughed at), and katagelasticism (joy of laughing at others), taking samples from two universities in Turkey (N = 628; female = 470). We further examined the relationships between humor styles, self-esteem, and psychological symptomatology with the PhoPhiKat-45. Confirmatory factor analyses replicated the original 3-factor model and internal consistencies of derived subscales were satisfactory (.76 for gelotophobia, .79 for gelotophilia, .66 for katagelasticism). For the nomological validity, bivariate correlations and regression analyses showed that gelotophobia was associated with low self-esteem, greater levels of psychological distress (mainly concerning interpersonal relations), and social and coping functions of humor. Gelotophilia was associated with all forms of humor, had no relation to self-esteem or any kind of psychological distress. Katagelasticism (i.e., enjoying laughing at others) was associated with all dimensions of psychological distress and only with an aggressive style of humor. In conclusion, the findings showed that the Turkish PhoPhiKat-43 scale has a satisfactory construct validity and reliability instrument to assess the dispositions toward laughter and ridicule. © 2017 Springer Science+Business Media, LL