Humor and Chinese Culture : A Psychological Perspective

This book focuses on the studies of humour in Chinese societies from a psychological approach. While humour is considered an important aspect of life in the western culture for the past century, it seems to have no importance in the Chinese contexts until recent decades. This book addresses how humour relates to various demographic and dispositional factors such as gender, region, age, optimism, resilience, and subjective well-being. It also explores the impact of the accelerating pace of social changes in China and how these changes affect people’s attitudes toward humor, and includes cross-cultural comparisons of humor studies.

This book addresses psychological studies of humour in Chinese societies. It starts by reviewing how the concept of humour evolves in Chinese history, and how it is perceived by Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism respectively. It then compares differences in the Western and the Chinese perceptions of humor and discusses empirical studies that were conducted to examine such differences. It also discusses the cultural origin and empirical evidence of the Chinese ambivalence about humor and presents empirical findings that illustrate its existence. Having done these, it proceeds to discuss psychological studies that examine how humour is related to various demographic, dispositional variables as well as how humour is related to creativity in Chinese societies. It also discusses how humour is related to emotional expressions and mental health in Chinese society as well. It concludes with a discussion on how workplace humor is reflected and developed in Chinese contexts. Taken together, this book attempts to bring together the theoretical propositions, empirical studies, and cultural analyses of humor in Chinese societies.