Personality Traits, Intelligence, Humor Styles, and Humor Production Ability of Professional Stand-up Comedians Compared to College Students

Individual differences in humor production ability are understudied, especially among experts. This is the first quantitative study of personality traits, humor production ability, humor styles, and intelligence among stand-up comedians. It analyzes data from 31 comedians and 400 college students with regard to the Big Five personality traits (NEO-FFI-R), the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ), a humor production task, verbal intelligence, and, for the comedians, a measure of professional success. Comedians scored higher than students on verbal intelligence, humor production ability, and each of the four styles of humor. Among comedians, openness, agreeableness, and extraversion correlated positively with affiliative humor, and intelligence correlated negatively with self-defeating humor. Professional success was predicted positively by affiliative humor and negatively by self-defeating humor.