Saturday, January 15, 2005

Serious humor?

Norm Weatherby is thinking about the Thematic Apperception Test, and the use of jokes to test for – well, something. (Since the Thematic Apperception Test is abbreviated TAT, would a pornographic version of the test be TAT for – well, you know.)

Psychologist Hans Eysenck once developed a personality test based on cartoons. The presumption was that the cartoons you found funny gave some insight into the kinds of things you respond to on some level, and when you're looking at cartoons and rating how funny they are, your defenses in other areas are down.

Alas, this was in a popular book of tests and quizzes, and presented no data on how this test (or any of the others) was validated.

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