Faculty of Education - Theses

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/11343/162

Filters

1971 1
1
Reset filters

Settings
Statistics
Citations
Author: Bowman, Norman Francis × End date: 1979 × Start date: 1970 × Subject: Psychological aspects ×

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Intelligence and originality, and the manifestation of humour under varying conditions
    Bowman, Norman Francis ( 1971)
    On the basis of experiments with a group of gifted American adolescents, Getzels and Jackson (1962) reported that whilst the written and artistic productions of their "highly creative" subjects were characterised by the presence of humour, those of their "highly intelligent" subjects were not. The present study describes a partial replication of Getzels and Jackson's work using as subjects, older adolescents from a different culture and of a lower mean I.Q. Originality, a more manageable concept than creativity, has been employed and operationally defined. An investigation using specially constructed Originality and Humour Tests, and involving a partitioned chi-square and an analysis of variance was adopted as being a more controlled examination of humour as an aspect of Creativity than the anecdotal approach adopted by previous experimenters. The presence or absence of humour on a paper and pencil test and the degree of humour displayed, seems to depend mainly on the type of instruction given, and to a lesser extent on level of intelligence. Less humour of the type evident in Getzels and Jackson's protocols was manifested in the scripts in this study, paralleling findings by Hudson (1967) with a group of clever English schoolboys. The pattern emerging from a factor analysis of types of humour, although not definitive, indicates that certain types of humour may be associated with particular situations. Humour may well be in part situationally determined and in part the result of a specific or generalised set rather than being the salient feature of a particular mode of cognitive functioning. Further replications using similar instruments are needed on subjects differing from those in the present study in age, social-class and cultural background. Detailed examination of scripts, using more precisely defined "popular" types of humour may reveal differences in degree and type of humour which could add to the understanding of the functioning of the "original" or in broader terms, the "creative" individual.