List of contributors; Preface and acknowledgments; Part I Introduction; Foreword and overview Sense of humor: A new look at an old concept; Approaches to the sense of humor: A historical review; Part II Current conceptual approaches; Humor and personality in everyday life; The sense of humor and the truth; A two-mode model of humor appreciation: Its relation to aesthetic appreciation and simplicity-complexity of personality; "Sense" of humor: Perception, intelligence, or expertise?; Is sense of humor a positive personality characteristic?; Humor and stress revisited
A temperament approach to humorPart III Differences among groups; Exploring paradigms: The study of gender and sense of humor near the end of the 20th century; The ill side of humor: Pathological conditions and sense of humor; The dog that didn't bark in the night: A new sociological approach to the cross-cultural study of humor; Part IV Intra-individual differences; Influence of mood on humor; Development of the sense of humor; Part V Causes of inter- and intra-individual differences; Genetic and environmental contributions to children's interpersonal humor
The development and evaluation of a systematic program for improving sense of humorAppendix: Humor measurement tools; Bibliography; Author index; Subject index
