Aggressive and Affiliative Humor: Relationships to Aspects of Intercultural Communication

The security theory of humor was utilized to examine two types of humor (affiliative and aggressive) in relation to intercultural communication. Participants (N = 241) completed a survey containing measures of humor (humor orientation, humor aggressiveness) and intercultural communication (intercultural communication apprehension, ethnocentrism, emulation, intercultural willingness to communicate). Humor orientation was negatively related to intercultural communication apprehension. Humor aggressiveness was positively related to ethnocentrism and negatively associated with emulation. Implications for the theory and intercultural communication are discussed.