Resiliency and the Ability to Detect Cartoon Humor

The Connor Davidson Resilience Scale was developed to measure resiliency, an individual's ability to positively adapt to stressful or adverse situations. Resilient individuals have close and secure relationships, have a strong sense of purpose, know when to turn to others for help, and find humor in situations. The focus of this study was on the humor component of resiliency. We utilized both theory of mind (TOM) and semantic cartoons (SEM) with incongruent (INC) cartoons as the control to observe whether sorting participants by resiliency scores would affect the funniness ratings of the cartoon stimuli. We hypothesized that those with higher resiliency would rate cartoons as funnier, then tested this with a 2 x 3 (Resiliency: low or high by Cartoon humor: TOM, SEM, INC) mixed design with Cartoon as the within-subjects factor. Participants also answered the Connor-Davidson Resilience Score -25 item (CDRS-25), the Student Life Stress Inventory (SLSI), and the Perceptions of Interparental Conflict-Intensity/Frequency Scale (PIC-I/F). A significant main effect of cartoon humor was found wherein TOM cartoons were rated as funniest and INC cartoons were rated as the least funny. A main effect of resiliency was also found; thus, those who scored higher on the CDRS-25 rated all cartoons as funnier, even the INC cartoons that were without humor. There were no differences found in the PIC-I/F, the SLSI, gender, or family status between resilience groups. These findings align with previous research in that resilient individuals try to see the humorous aspect of environmental stimuli in addition to possessing the ability to see stress as strengthening and being able to adapt to change.