Within the ASD group, for Big Five and gelotophobia-related traits, two sets of generalized F coefficients of roots were found to be significant. The coefficients of canonical correlation for the two sets were 0.626 (p < 0.001) and 0.488 (p < 0.001). In order, the first coefficient indicates that agreeableness (−0.966) had an influence on the level of katagelasticism (0.891) (the lower the level of agreeableness, the higher the katagelasticism); and the second coefficient indicates that extraversion (−0.901) had an influence on the level of gelotophobia (0.775) (the lower the extraversion, the higher the gelotophobia).

In terms of the results of the canonical correlation for Big Five and gelotophobia-related traits, similar findings were recorded for both groups; i.e., that extraversion is the best predictor of gelotophobia, and agreeableness is the best predictor of katagelasticism. The main difference between the groups was

TABLE 3 | Correlation of Big Five and gelotophobia-related traits.

\**p* < *0.05,* \*\**p* < *0.01. The bold values are highest correlation in the root.*

that emotional stability was proven to be the best predictor of gelotophobia for the typically developed group, but not for the ASD group.

### Mediation Analysis of the Big Five Personality Markers

To investigate the mediation effect of the Big Five personality markers on gelotophobia for people with autism and the typically developed group, we used gender and age as the control variables and the group (the autism group vs. the typically developed group) as the independent variable. For the dummy coding of the group, those with autism were assigned a value of 1 and those in the typically developed group were assigned a value of 0. We then used the Big Five personality markers as mediators and performed a mediation analysis using gelotophobia, gelotophilia, and katagelasticism as dependent variables. For the mediation analysis, we used a bootstrapping approach (Preacher and Hayes, 2008), which simulates the data of a large sample by re-sampling from current data. Analyzing a large sample of data means that we can obtain a more precise prediction. In the present study, our simulation sample comprised 5,000 people. First, we made a prediction for the groups in terms of personality, and then we investigated the predictive power of personality by using gelotophobia, gelotophilia, and katagelasticism as dependent variables. Finally, we analyzed the predictions for the groups in terms of gelotophobia, gelotophilia, and katagelasticism, and the change in the predictions after using personality as a mediator.

### Predictions for Groups in Terms of Personality

Because the predictive power of groups in terms of personality is not affected by using gelotophobia, gelotophilia, and katagelasticism as dependent variables, we began the analysis with a path analysis. The findings revealed that groups are powerful in terms of predicting extraversion (β = −0.499, p < 0.01) and agreeableness (β = −0.394, p < 0.01). The β-values were negative for both groups and indicated that individuals with autism have lower levels of extraversion and agreeableness.

#### Using Gelotophobia as a Dependent Variable

Only extraversion (β = −0.171, p < 0.001) and emotional stability (β = −0.175, p < 0.001) were found to be statistically significant with regard to predicting gelotophobia by personality. In other words, those with lower levels of extraversion and emotional stability had higher levels of gelotophobia.

Concerning the predictions for groups in terms of gelotophobia and the change in the prediction after using personality as a mediator, the findings revealed that groups significantly predict the level of gelotophobia (β = 0.114, p = 0.047). However, after using personality as a mediator, the power of the groups disappears (β = 0.006, p = 0.910), and the power of prediction is completely overtaken by personality. Upon further examination, the mediation effect of personality was found to derive mainly from extraversion (95% CI [0.041, 0.145]) and shows that gelotophobia is significantly influenced by extraversion; i.e., individuals with lower levels of extraversion are more fearful of being laughed at (**Figure 2**). To conclude, extraversion, rather than the groups (with or without autism), influences the level of gelotophobia.

#### Using Gelotophilia as a Dependent Variable

Our findings showed that extraversion (β = 0.105, p < 0.001) and openness (β = 0.081, p = 0.016) were found to be significant in predicting gelotophilia. Individuals with higher levels of extraversion or openness had higher levels of gelotophilia.

We then investigated the predictions for groups and the change after using personality as a mediator. Our results showed that the group significantly predicted the level of gelotophilia (β = −0.411, p < 0.001). The group effect remains but decreases after using personality as a mediator (β = −0.351, p < 0.01). The Sobel test clearly showed statistical significance (p < 0.05), and the mediation effect of personality was only partial. The mediation effect of personality was found to derive from extraversion (95% CI [−0.106, −0.015]). In summary, those with autism had lower levels of gelotophilia, as did those with lower levels of extraversion (as shown in **Figure 3**).

#### Using Katagelasticism as a Dependent Variable

Extraversion (β = 0.063, p = 0.015), conscientiousness (β = −0.085, p = 0.012), agreeableness (β = −0.219, p < 0.001), and emotional stability (β = −0.065, p = 0.044) were found to be statistically significant in predicting the level of katagelasticism. Individuals with higher levels of extraversion had higher levels of katagelasticism. In contrast, individuals with higher levels of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability had lower levels of katagelasticism.

Concerning the predictions for groups in terms of katagelasticism and the change after using personality as a mediator, our findings show that the group is powerful in

predicting the level of katagelasticism (β = −0.136, p = 0.021); moreover, its power slightly increases after using personality as a mediator (β = −0.211, p < 0.001). Personality is not a mediator, but rather a suppressor. Upon further analysis, the suppression effect of personality was found to derive from agreeableness (95% CI [0.041, 0.151]). Individuals with lower levels of agreeableness had higher levels of katagelasticism. Those with autism were found to have lower levels of agreeableness, but also lower levels of katagelasticism, than those in the typically developed group. Our results indicate that autism and the level of agreeableness are in conflict when predicting the level of katagelasticism. After using personality as a mediator, the effect of the group is more powerful in predicting the level of katagelasticism (as shown in **Figure 4**).

### DISCUSSION

### Conclusion and Implications

Past research has indicated that early experience affects whether gelotophobia develops in those with autism. Such individuals were thought to be lacking in communication and empathy skills and were often ridiculed by peers, which ultimately resulted in a fear of being laughed at. Personality was seldom considered as a contributory factor in terms of the fear of being laughed at in those with autism. Moreover, in the earlier studies of the personalities of those with autism, and the associations of personality with gelotophobia, the sample sizes were usually fewer than 50 participants, such as the research undertaken by Samson et al. (2011) and Schriber et al. (2014).

The present study recruited participants from high schools in Taiwan, selecting a typically developed group of teenagers and a group of teenagers with autism. We used a self-reporting questionnaire as a research tool, and investigated the difference in the level of gelotophobia between those teenagers with autism and those without. We then considered personality as a mediator to verify the relationship of autism to gelotophobia.

Our findings show that those individuals with ASD had higher levels of gelotophobia than those in the typically developed group. Further, we found that the most significant difference between the two groups was that the ASD group had a higher percentage of slight gelotophobia, and a lower percentage of no gelotophobia, than those in the typically developed group. In general, those with ASD had a higher level of gelotophobia than those in the typically developed group, particularly at the "slight" level, though no difference was found between the "marked" level and the "extreme" level between the two groups. The ASD group was found to have lower levels of katagelasticism and gelotophilia; i.e., those with ASD dislike being laughed at, but also are not interested in laughing at others. This finding is consistent with the findings of previous research (Wu et al., 2015).

Regarding personality, our results indicate that those with ASD had lower levels of extraversion and agreeableness than those in the typically developed group, possibly due to the fact that Chinese culture strongly emphasizes interpersonal harmony (Markus and Kitayama, 2010). Individuals with ASD tend to have poor social skills; consequently, those in the ASD group lagged behind those in the typically developed group in certain situations. Thus the difference between the ASD group and the typically developed group can perhaps be explained by cultural factors, and suggests that cultural factors should be taken into account in future studies. The other difference between the ASD group and the typically developed group was the canonical correlation results. We found that, for both groups, extraversion can predict the level of gelotophobia while agreeableness can predict the level of katagelasticism, though emotional stability can predict the level of gelotophilia only for the typically developed group. This suggests that personality is not the reason for the level of gelotophilia in those with ASD.

Lastly, the mediation analysis revealed that the level of gelotophobia was completely mediated by extraversion, indicating that those in the ASD group had a higher level of gelotophobia than those in the typically developed group, which was mainly driven by extraversion. This finding supports the claim by Ruch and Proyer (2009b) that an individual with a lower level of extraversion is less adept at social interaction and is less able to engage in humor with others. This, in turn, makes it less likely for such individuals to experience the positive influence of laughter and humor. Moreover, they are more ill at ease in teasing situations and more afraid of being laughed

at. In addition, extraversion was found to have an influence on the level of gelotophilia, although the mediated effect was partial. Those with higher levels of extraversion are keen to interact with others to create interesting situations, and even to engage in self-mockery. They do not feel embarrassed or uncomfortable at being laughed at; rather, they enjoy it (Ruch and Proyer, 2009a). Hence individuals with higher levels of extraversion usually have higher levels of gelotophilia. Further, the Big Five personality traits were found to confer no mediated effect on katagelasticism. We found that agreeableness inhibits the relationship between autism and katagelasticism, so that individuals with lower levels of agreeableness also have higher levels of katagelasticism (Ruch et al., 2013). As those with autism were found to have lower levels of agreeableness and also lower levels of katagelasticism than those in the typically developed group, this indicates that katagelasticism is not driven by personality but by other, unknown, factors.

Our results suggest that gelotophobia develops not from autism, but from a lower level of extraversion. For individuals with autism, a group therapy dealing with social skills (Glinski and Page, 2010) or a training program in emotional competencies will help (Nelis et al., 2011). Those with autism can learn interpersonal skills and thus learn how to engage in humor and how to cope with teasing situations. This, in turn, may alter their negative perception of interpersonal interaction, and thereby improve their fear of being laughed at.

Our findings suggest that future studies should investigate the reasons for katagelasticism and gelotophilia in order to understand what influences levels of gelotophilia and katagelasticism for those with ASD, and why those with ASD have both lower levels of agreeableness and lower levels of katagelasticism. They also suggest that it would be beneficial to create a comprehensive model of mockery styles based on the model of the putative causes and consequences of gelotophobia.

#### Limitations

The present study has several limitations. First, we did not manipulate variables in the current study, so we cannot draw any inferences about the causal directions of the relationships. Titze (1995, 1996, 1997) considers that past experience of being laughed at during childhood influences personality development. More empirical studies of the relationships between gelotophobia and personality are needed, particularly longitudinal studies.

### REFERENCES

Second, the present study used a test and a self-reporting questionnaire as research tools but lacked any other source of information; for example, observations by parents, teachers, or peers. Social desirability may have been a source of bias, indicating that more objective data should be used in future research. Third, the results of the current study were possibly restricted to males, because purposive sampling was used in this study. The gender ratio of individuals with autism in Taiwan is 8:1 (males to females), so the proportion of female participants in our study was only 13%. Therefore, if females and males had been included equally in the sample, it would have been necessary to examine gender as a factor. Fourth, the present study did not collect demographics of participants, e.g., parental socioeconomic status. Past research has indicated that a positive relationship has been observed between socioeconomic status and ASD prevalence (Durkin et al., 2010). Socioeconomic status might be a confounder of any associations between ASD status, personality traits, and gelotophobia-related traits. To investigate the index of socioeconomic status in future research, it would be more helpful to understand the causal mechanisms or confounding factors associated with ASD. Finally, because the participants of this study were Taiwanese students, the results may only be applicable to participants from an Asian cultural background. Thus, we recommend that future studies include participants from various cultures to examine whether the findings of this study differ culturally.

### AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

L-PT and C-PA designed and conducted the research. M-NT and C-LW analyzed the data and drafted the manuscript under the supervision of H-CC. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

### FUNDING

This research is sponsored by the "Building of the Chinese Sentiment WordNet Dictionary and Development of the Mental Assessment Index via Chinese Written Material-A study based on linguistic big data" of NTNU and Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C. under Grant no. MOST 104-2511- S-003-019-MY3.

Test. Taiwan 58, 119–145. Available online at: http://www.epc.ntnu.edu.tw/ files/writing/2775\_7a4ea1ed.pdf

A study of humor comprehension, appreciation, and styles among high school students with autism. Res. Autism Spectr. Disord. 8, 1986–1393. doi: 10.1016/j.rasd.2014.07.006

**Conflict of Interest Statement:** The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Copyright © 2018 Tsai, Wu, Tseng, An and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

# Eye Contact and Fear of Being Laughed at in a Gaze Discrimination Task

#### Jorge Torres-Marín1 \*, Hugo Carretero-Dios2 , Alberto Acosta1 and Juan Lupiáñez1

1 Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain, 2 Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center, Department of Methodology of Behavioral Sciences, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

Current approaches conceptualize gelotophobia as a personality trait characterized by a disproportionate fear of being laughed at by others. Consistently with this perspective, gelotophobes are also described as neurotic and introverted and as having a paranoid tendency to anticipate derision and mockery situations. Although research on gelotophobia has significantly progressed over the past two decades, no evidence exists concerning the potential effects of gelotophobia in reaction to eye contact. Previous research has pointed to difficulties in discriminating gaze direction as the basis of possible misinterpretations of others' intentions or mental states. The aim of the present research was to examine whether gelotophobia predisposition modulates the effects of eye contact (i.e., gaze discrimination) when processing faces portraying several emotional expressions. In two different experiments, participants performed an experimental gaze discrimination task in which they responded, as quickly and accurately as possible, to the eyes' directions on faces displaying either a happy, angry, fear, neutral, or sad emotional expression. In particular, we expected traitgelotophobia to modulate the eye contact effect, showing specific group differences in the happiness condition. The results of Study 1 (N = 40) indicated that gelotophobes made more errors than non-gelotophobes did in the gaze discrimination task. In contrast to our initial hypothesis, the happiness expression did not have any special role in the observed differences between individuals with high vs. low trait-gelotophobia. In Study 2 (N = 40), we replicated the pattern of data concerning gaze discrimination ability, even after controlling for individuals' scores on social anxiety. Furthermore, in our second experiment, we found that gelotophobes did not exhibit any problem with identifying others' emotions, or a general incorrect attribution of affective features, such as valence, intensity, or arousal. Therefore, this bias in processing gaze might be related to the global processes of social cognition. Further research is needed to explore how eye contact relates to the fear of being laughed at.

Keywords: gelotophobia, gaze discrimination, eye contact, emotional expression, emotional categorization

### INTRODUCTION

The term gelotophobia (gelos in Greek means laughter) refers to a personality trait characterized by a disproportionate fear of being laughed at by others (Ruch, 2009). Although this phenomenon was originally conceptualized as a psychopathological disorder (Titze, 2009), recent approaches have operationalized gelotophobia as an individual differences variable that also shows considerable

Edited by:

Willibald Ruch, University of Zurich, Switzerland

#### Reviewed by:

Kay Brauer, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany Karl-Heinz Renner, Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany

> \*Correspondence: Jorge Torres-Marín<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### Specialty section:

This article was submitted to Personality and Social Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology

Received: 28 July 2017 Accepted: 24 October 2017 Published: 08 November 2017

#### Citation:

Torres-Marín J, Carretero-Dios H, Acosta A and Lupiáñez J (2017) Eye Contact and Fear of Being Laughed at in a Gaze Discrimination Task. Front. Psychol. 8:1954. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01954

variation in non-clinical samples (e.g., Ruch and Proyer, 2008). In this sense, those individuals scoring high in traitgelotophobia —or gelotophobes— are described as neurotic and introverted and as having a paranoid tendency to anticipate derision and mockery situations (Ruch and Proyer, 2009). This misinterpretation of humor related-situations undermines their social interactions, as they are constantly expecting contempt and rejection from others individuals (Ruch et al., 2014a). Research on gelotophobia has gradually progressed over the past two decades (Ruch et al., 2008; Titze, 2009; Platt et al., 2012, 2013; Wu et al., 2016), leading to a theoretical framework of reference that includes major findings concerning both potential triggering causes and moderating factors (e.g., bullying, parental influences or sociocultural factors), as well as consequences (e.g., humourlessness or social withdrawal) linked to gelotophobia predisposition (Ruch, 2009; Ruch et al., 2014a). Nevertheless, it is important to note that still, the nature of the predisposing factors of gelotophobia remains unclear. Contrary to traditional assumptions about the appearance/origin of gelotophobia (Titze, 2009), the presence of the traumatic experiences of teasing during childhood and adolescence does not seem to be a differentiating or invariant aspect of the development of this humor-related trait (Ruch et al., 2010). Therefore, additional research areas such as, for example, perceptual biases toward relevant affective or social cues (e.g., gaze or eye contact) need to be explored. Indeed, it has been stressed that gelotophobia research needs to move toward a more comprehensive and accurate theoretical model (Ruch et al., 2014a).

Recent experimental research on the fear of being laughed at has advanced our knowledge about this phenomenon. For instance, Papousek et al. (2009) designed an experimental task in which participants were exposed to several emotionally contagious films displaying a positive (e.g., cheerfulness), negative (e.g., anxiety or sadness), or neutral mood, with the purpose of comparing gelotophobes' and non-gelotophobes' responses to the emotional states of other individuals. The results revealed that individuals with gelotophobia did not show a reduced emotional induction to positive emotions compared with non-gelotophobes; interestingly, however, they showed a higher degree of affective induction to negative emotions, that is, high scores of subjective anxiety or sadness after watching anxiety- or sadness-causing films, respectively. In line with the analysis of gelotophobes' reactions concerning the affective states of others, Ruch et al. (2015) used the Facial Action Coding System to analyze the potential differences between gelotophobes and non-gelotophobes in joy and contempt responses to videos of laughter-eliciting emotions (e.g., amusement or relief). In particular, they found that gelotophobes exhibited reduced facial expressions of joy (i.e., joyful smiles) and more expressions of contempt when they were exposed to laughter-eliciting emotions. In a different study, Ruch et al. (2014b), by using interactions with virtual agents (i.e., human-like figures or avatars) investigated which features of avatar laughter were considered to be not genuine, threatening, or malicious among individuals who score high on gelotophobia. Their results indicated that, among other factors, a low or mid-level intensity of laughter, an inhibited facial expression, and exaggerated body movements that accompany the laughter may be perceived as more malicious among gelotophobes. In a further investigation, Papousek et al. (2014) developed a realistic and socially relevant context in which participants were interrupted while performing an arithmetic task. The nature of the interruption was manipulated in three experimental conditions: anger provocation together with laughter, anger provocation together with white noise, and no interruption. The cardiac responses of the participants were recorded during the experiment, with a specific reaction of individuals with gelotophobia emerging, that is, a heart rate deceleration in response to others' laughter. According to these authors, this psychophysiological response would be associated with a higher inclination in gelotophobes to interpret laughter as a cue of social rejection. To sum up, gelotophobes, compared with non-gelotophobes, seem to exhibit differentiated emotional manifestations. They are more sensitive to the contagion of negative emotions, show fewer facial expressions related to positive affective states as joyful smiles, and exhibit specific physiological reactions to potential threatening laugher. However, despite the undeniable progress made in the understanding of gelotophobia, further experimental research and new research topics are necessary for deepening the role of the fear of being laughed at in gelotophobes' processing of emotional information.

### Smiles, Eye Contact, and Gelotophobia

Numerous authors have discussed the variability of meanings ascribed to a smile as well as the implication of its degree of genuineness or authenticity (Ekman et al., 1990; Ekman, 2003; Johnston et al., 2010). Although a smile is generally labeled as an indicator of a positive affective state, this emotional expression may hide other motivations as to denote, for example, social hierarchy or to mask negative feelings (Niedenthal et al., 2010). Evidence exists that a smile perceived as false or as a non-enjoyment smile is evaluated more negatively and can even lead the perceiver to show less cooperation or trust in comparison with a genuine or enjoyment smile (Johnston et al., 2010). One of the main features related to the fear of being laughed at is the tendency to interpret benevolent or neutral humor-related situations as threatening or malicious (Titze, 2009). Consistent with these findings, gelotophobes also tend to perceive others' smiles as less joyful and more scornful than non-gelotophobes do (Hofmann et al., 2015). This smile misattribution may disturb the adequate social integration of these individuals, thus constituting to the persistence of gelotophobia (Ruch et al., 2014a). Exploring all different cues that may support the recognition of smiles and that may facilitate correct access to the meaning of smiles, especially among individuals with a higher inclination to gelotophobia, is therefore important.

Previous research has indicated that gaze and eye contact play relevant roles in the processes of recognition and inference making with regard to the meanings of others' smiles (Niedenthal et al., 2010). Indeed, gaze entails an essential information source for enhancing our understanding of other people's intentions, facilitating adaptation to our environment and being particularly relevant during social interactions (Argyle and Cook, 1976; Baron-Cohen, 1994; Cañadas and Lupiáñez, 2012). In particular,

according to the simulation of smiles (SIMS) model, eye contact could act as a trigger of an embodied simulation process by which an individual obtains information to identify and interpret smiles (Niedenthal et al., 2010). Another theoretical approach that has highlighted the importance of the gaze direction when individuals have to interpret the intentions or anticipate the actions of others is theory of mind (ToM). According to Baron-Cohen (1994, 1995), the capacity to make inferences about others' states of mind, or the "mind reading" system, would consist of a set of modular components, among which would be an eye direction detector (EDD). This module would be involved in the identification of a gaze direction (e.g., direct or averted) and therefore in the subjective perception of being looked at (Cañadas and Lupiáñez, 2012).

It has already been proposed—as a tentative explanation—that an atypically developed ToM could be related to the underlying wrong attribution present in gelotophobes, which would lead them to interpret that people are not laughing with them but rather laughing at them during social interactions (Ruch et al., 2008). Given that gaze discrimination is associated with both access to adequate meanings of smiles as well as expectations about how someone is going to behave, providing useful information for interpreting their objectives or intentions (Hudson et al., 2009; Niedenthal et al., 2010; Hudson and Jellema, 2011), we decided to explore whether higher traitgelotophobia could be associated with potential bias processing gaze discrimination or eye contact, especially when the looking face portrays a smile. In this sense, a fundamental difficulty in gaze discrimination might underlie interpretation biases, leading gelotophobes to wrongly interpret others' smiles as malicious or false.

To test this point, we used a novel gaze discrimination task that Cañadas and Lupiáñez (2012) developed, with the objective of exploring the importance of social stimuli (i.e., eye contact) in spatial Stroop paradigms. These authors discovered that the identification of a gaze direction is quicker when a face is located to the left but looking to the right, or vice versa (incongruent condition), in comparison with when the face location and eyes' direction match (congruent condition). This reverse congruency effect—classical results with non-social stimuli, such as arrows, show faster responses for congruency trials—was interpreted in terms of eye contact (e.g., responses are faster when a face located to the left looks to the right, i.e., at us). Moreover, further investigation revealed that the emotional charge of the facial expression modulated this eye contact effect (Jones, 2015). More specifically, Jones's results indicated that the effect was stronger for happy and angry faces (approach-oriented emotions) than for neutral faces, and it was non-existent for fearful faces (avoidanceoriented emotions). According to Adams and Kleck (2003), approach-oriented emotions (i.e., happiness and anger) are those that are identified more quickly when the faces displaying these emotions feature direct gazes rather than averted gazes. On the contrary, avoidance-oriented emotions (i.e., fear and sadness) are those that are recognized more quickly when the faces feature averted gazes vs. direct gazes. In this sense, Jones (2015) pointed out that the differences in the observed eye contact effect could be due to the differential facilitation of the processing of each emotion depending on the eye contact condition (e.g., a direct gaze would facilitate the processing of anger or happiness, and an adverted gaze would facilitate the processing of fear or sadness).

### EXPERIMENT 1

The purpose of the first experiment was to explore the performance of individuals scoring high vs. low in traitgelotophobia in a gaze direction discrimination task, which has been previously shown to index an eye contact effect. The emotional expression of the face whose gaze direction had to be discriminated was also manipulated to investigate whether emotion affected the observed eye contact effect as a function of the gelotophobia levels of the participants. We expected traitgelotophobia to modulate the eye contact effect data, showing specific group differences in the happiness condition. It may be possible for gelotophobes to respond to happy faces in the same way they would respond to fear faces, that is, as an avoidanceoriented emotion. Additionally, to corroborate the adequacy of the "approach or avoidance oriented emotions" interpretation for the reverse congruency (i.e., eye contact) effect that Jones (2015) proposed, and to extend our understanding of the role of emotional expression in the modulation of gaze discrimination, we decided to incorporate faces portraying sadness into our experiment. In accordance with Jones (2015), we expected to replicate the previous results in happiness, anger, neutral, and fear stimuli; regarding sadness, we expected to find a pattern similar to fearful faces and different from angry or happy faces.

### Materials and Methods Participants

From a total sample (N = 202) of undergraduate students, 40 (32 females, 8 males; age ranging from 17 to 34; M = 19.80, SD = 2.94) were selected on the basis of their either extremely high or extremely low scores in trait-gelotophobia, and they were assigned to one of two comparison groups (gelotophobes vs. non-gelotophobes). All participants took part in the experiment voluntarily and received course credits in exchange for their collaboration. They reported normal or corrected-to-normal vision and hearing.

In particular, the selection criterion was the participant's score on the Spanish version of Geloph <15> (Ruch and Proyer, 2008; Carretero-Dios et al., 2010a). The gelotophobes group consisted of the 20 participants who had the highest traitgelotophobia scores (18 females; 17–25 years; MGeloph = 2.76; SDGeloph = 0.35; MinGeloph = 2.20; MaxGeloph = 3.27). According to a transcultural investigation (Proyer et al., 2009), gelotophobia scores can be set in the following categories: 1.0–2.0: no gelotophobia; 2.0–2.5: borderline fearful; 2.5–3.0: slight expression of gelotophobia; 3.0–3.5: marked expression of gelotophobia; and 3.5–4.0: extremely fearful of being laughed at. Therefore, of the 20 participants, five were classified as borderline fearful, seven as slight expression of gelotophobia, and eight as marked expression of gelotophobia. Meanwhile, the nongelotophobes group was also made up of 20 participants but, in this case, with the lowest trait-gelotophobia scores. (14 females;

18–34 years; MGeloph = 1.38; SDGeloph = 0.25; MinGeloph = 1.00; MaxGeloph = 1.80). These 20 participants were classified as having no gelotophobia. It should be noted that, in order to improve the comparability of the results, we ensured that both comparison groups had the same number of participants (n = 20).

The two reported experiments were conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki, following an ethical protocol approved by the University of Granada. All participants participated voluntarily in the studies and provided signed written consent before participating in the experiment.

#### Instruments

The Spanish version of the Geloph <15> (Ruch and Proyer, 2008; Carretero-Dios et al., 2010a) consists of a self-report questionnaire that assesses trait-gelotophobia, A sample item is "when others laugh in my presence I get suspicious." It includes 15 positively keyed items in a 4-point answer format ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 4 (Strongly agree). Test reliability (Cronbach's alpha) was α = 0.94 in the present sample.

#### Apparatus and Stimuli

In this experiment, stimuli presentation, timing, and data collection were controlled by using E-Prime 2.0 run on a standard personal computer (PC). Stimuli were presented on a 1700 screen running at a 1024 pixel × 768 pixel resolution. The stimulus material consisted of 40 different full-color photographs (dimensions = 152 pixels × 186 pixels or 5.5 cm × 6.0 cm) of four males and four females portraying either a happy, angry, fearful, neutral, or sad emotional expression. All faces were selected from the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces (KDEF; Lundqvist et al., 1998). As the original photos featured faces that looked straight ahead, they were manipulated via Adobe Photoshop CS6 for the purpose of changing the gaze directions to the left and right sides. The main selection criteria for the faces were as follows: (a) The gaze was clearly visible while displaying each facial expression (Jones, 2015), and (b) the global hit rate accuracy scores of each individual displaying an emotional expression was higher than 0.49 (M = 0.66; SD = 0.10) (Goeleven et al., 2008).

#### Procedure

We used a paradigm similar to that used in previous research (Cañadas and Lupiáñez, 2012; Jones, 2015). Participants performed an experimental task in which they had to discriminate the gaze directions (left or right) of faces that were presented to the left or to the right of fixation, by pressing, as quickly and accurately as possible, the corresponding key on the keyboard. Participants sat approximately 60 cm away from the monitor in a dimly illuminated testing room. Each trial began with the onset of a fixation point (a white cross: 0.5◦ × 0.5◦ ) located in the center of a black computer screen for 500 ms. Then, a face portraying different emotional expressions was presented either to the left or to the right of the fixation point (approximately at 3.02◦ away from fixation to the inner edge of the face) and gazing either to the left or to the right (see **Figure 1**). Thus, considering that participants were in the middle, and following the interpretation by Cañadas and Lupiáñez (2012), the gaze direction could be either direct (e.g., a left-looking face presented to the right of fixation, i.e., potentially producing eye contact) or averted (e.g., a leftlooking face presented to the left of fixation). Participants had to identify the face's gaze direction by pressing, respectively, the "Z" or "M" key of the computer keyboard when the correct answer was left or right. Feedback on no-response or incorrect response trials was provided via a 220-Hz tone for 700 ms and a short text message. All possible combinations of stimuli, 8 (face identity) × 5 (emotional expression) × 2 (presentation side) × 2 (gaze direction), formed a total of 160 trials. Two blocks of trials with all combinations were presented for a total of 320 trials. Participants completed a practice block of 16 randomly selected trials to familiarize themselves with the task, followed by eight experimental subblocks of 40 randomly selected trials each, with a rest period between blocks. Participants could determine the duration of each rest period.

After performing the experimental task, participants had to fill out, again, the Geloph <15> (Carretero-Dios et al., 2010a) to ensure that they had been assigned to the appropriate groups and hence to enhance the validity of the obtained results.

#### Design

A 2 (gelotophobia: participants scoring high vs. low on Geloph <15>) × 5 (emotional expression: happiness, anger, fear, neutral, or sadness) × 2 (gaze direction: direct or averted) mixed design was used to analyze the data, with 32 observations per experimental condition. Response times (RTs) and error rates were used as dependent variables. The gelotophobia level was treated as a between-participant variable, and emotional expression and gaze direction as within-participant factors. A two-tailed significance level of p < 0.05 was used for all analyses.

### Results

#### Response Time

Taking into account the procedure followed in the original study by Cañadas and Lupiáñez (2012), those trials with RTs shorter than 200 ms or slower than 1300 ms were eliminated from the RT analyses. Mean corrected RTs were submitted to a 2 (gelotophobia) x 5 (emotional expression) x 2 (gaze direction) mixed ANOVA. All response times (RTs) are measured and reported in ms. The results showed a main effect of emotional expression, F(4, 152) = 29.75, p <0.001, η 2 p = 0.44, with the lowest reaction times being for fearful faces (M = 618; SD = 55.86) and the highest for angry faces (M = 651; SD = 60.72). Replicating Cañadas and Lupiáñez (2012), a main effect of gaze direction was also found, F(1,38) = 68.02, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.64, with shorter RTs for direct gaze stimuli (M = 616; SD = 53.87) than for averted gaze stimuli (M = 655; SD = 65.40). Furthermore, as Jones (2015) showed, the interaction between emotional expression and gaze direction was significant, F(4,152) = 2.67, p = 0.035, η 2 p = 0.07. However, in contrast to Jones's (2015) conclusions regarding the interaction, paired t-tests showed that RTs were lower in the direct gaze than in the averted gaze condition for all emotional expressions [8.11 > t(39) > 5.54; all ps < 0.001, d = 0.47–0.79] (see **Figure 2**).

Regarding trait-gelotophobia, no main effect of group was observed, F(1,38) = 0.15, p = 0.697, η 2 p = 0.004. Furthermore, and importantly for our hypotheses, gelotophobia did not modulate any effect, especially the emotional expression × gaze direction interaction, F(4,152) = 0.40, p = 0.807, η 2 p = 0.01.

#### Error Rates of Responses

In a similar pattern to the RT data, the obtained results showed a significant main effect of emotional expression, F(4,152) = 4.21, p = 0.003, η 2 p = 0.10, with a higher error rate for responses to angry (M = 0.07; SD = 0.09) compared with fearful faces (M = 0.04; SD = 0.06). A main effect of gaze direction, F(1,38) = 10.17, p = 0.003, η 2 p = 0.21, was also found, with lower error rates for direct gaze (M = 0.04; SD = 0.05) than for averted gaze stimuli (M = 0.07; SD = 0.10). Finally, as in the RT analysis, the interaction between emotional expression and gaze direction was significant, F(4,152) = 3.14, p = 0.016, η 2 p = 0.08. To explore this interaction (see **Figure 3**), pairedsamples t-tests were employed, and a greater error rate for averted gaze stimuli emerged for happiness, t(39) = 3.22, p = 0.003, d = 0.54; anger, t(39) = 3.17, p = 0.003, d = 0.29; and sadness, t(39) = 2.76, p = 0.011, d = 0.41. Furthermore, in spite of the results just bordered on a statistically significant value, t(39) = 1.98, p = 0.054, d = 0.29, a low effect size was observed for

fearful faces in accordance with Cohen (1988) criteria. Lastly, no differences were found for neutral faces, t(39) = 0.84, p = 0.404, d = 0.12.

Concerning gelotophobia effects, our data revealed that this predisposition did not modulate the gaze discrimination error rate, F(1,38) = 2.32, p = 0.136, η 2 p = 0.06, but an interaction close to statistical significance between gelotophobia and gaze direction appeared, F(1,38) = 3.56, p = 0.067, η 2 p = 0.09. To explore this interaction, an independent analysis was performed on each gaze direction condition (direct vs. averted). Although our results failed to attain statistical significance at conventional levels, the Cohen values suggested that gelotophobes had higher error rates than non-gelotophobes, specially for averted gaze, F(1,38) = 2.91, p = 0.096, d = 0.50, compared to direct gaze, F(1,38) = 0.92, p = 0.343, d = 0.40.

Given that Ruch and Proyer (2008) derived empirical cut-off points for gelotophobia (≥2.50), and with the aim of avoiding potential limitations of our participant selection, we decided to repeat the above analyses but remove those participants classified as borderline fearful (n = 5) in the gelotofobia group. In addition, to balance the two comparison groups, we also removed the five participants of the no-gelotophobia group with the highest scores on the Geloph <15>. Thirty individuals composed our new test sample. Again, two comparison groups were created: 15 gelotophobes (14 females; 17–21 years; MGeloph = 2.91; SDGeloph = 0.24; MinGeloph = 2.53; MaxGeloph = 3.27) and 15 non-gelotophobes (nine females; 18–34 years; MGeloph = 1.26; SDGeloph = 0.16; MinGeloph = 1.00; MaxGeloph = 1.53). The RT analysis on the data from the more extremely selected sample did not change from the results with the whole sample. However, with regard to error rates, the new analysis indicated that gelotophobes had significantly higher error rates (M = 0.05; SD = 0.05) compared with non-gelotophobes (M = 0.02; SD = 0.01), F(1,28) = 8.59, p = 0.007, η 2 p = 0.24. Additionally, the interaction between gelotophobia and gaze direction was also significant, F(1,28) = 4.99, p = 0.034, η 2 p = 0.15. Again, an independent analysis was performed on each gaze direction condition (direct vs. averted). A between-participant effect emerged for the averted gaze condition, F(1,28) = 7.65, p = 0.010, d = 1.03, showing that gelotophobes had higher error rates (M = 0.08; SD = 0.08) compared with non-gelotophobes (M = 0.02; SD = 0.02). Along the same lines, a trend that approached significance and a low effect size, F(1,38) = 3.71, p = 0.064, d = 0.39, emerged for direct gaze stimuli, with higher error rates for gelotophobes (M = 0.03; SD = 0.03) than for non-gelotophobes (M = 0.02; SD = 0.02). Finally, and importantly for our hypotheses, the third-order interaction among gelotophobia, emotional expression, and gaze direction (see **Table 1**) did not reach statistical significance, F(4,112) = 1.33, p = 0.263, η 2 p = 0.05.

### Discussion

As we expected, the results of the present experiment confirmed that gaze direction and emotion modulate reaction time in gaze discrimination. In line with Cañadas and Lupiáñez (2012), participants were faster and more accurate at identifying a gaze direction when the face was presented to the left but looking to the right (direct gaze) than the same face location but looking to the left (averted gaze). These data reinforce the eye contact interpretation of this reversed congruency effect and entail new evidence regarding its robustness. Importantly, our results indicated a similar pattern for RT and accuracy data in contrast to other authors who have reported that gaze direction does not modulate accuracy in a gaze-cueing paradigm (Prinzmetal et al., 2008). Furthermore, we found that emotional expression influenced our eye contact effect, but in a way that is inconsistent with the "approach and avoidance oriented emotions" interpretation by Jones (2015). In fact, the expression of sadness, which has been considered an avoidance-oriented emotion (Adams and Kleck, 2003), showed a pattern similar to that of approach-oriented emotions (e.g., happiness and anger). Similarly, emotional expression modulated the gaze direction effect in error rates as well. Participants showed lower error rates in identifying gaze directions with fearful faces compared with angry faces. In addition, more interestingly, direct gaze facilitated performance leading to higher accuracy, i.e., lower error rates for all emotional expressions with the exception of neutral faces. Therefore, although the "approach and avoidance oriented emotions" interpretation by Jones (2015) was not supported, the pattern of results supported the social nature of the reverse congruency effect observed, and therefore its interpretation in terms of eye contact (Cañadas and Lupiáñez, 2012). Eye contact is important in human communications (Doherty-Sneddon and Phelps, 2005), particularly in those

TABLE 1 | Means of reaction times (in ms) and error rates for gaze discrimination in Experiments 1 and 2 for each condition and gelotophobia group.

interactions where emotional expression is present (Milders et al., 2011).

With respect to gelotophobia, and in relation to RT, we found no evidence for any modulation of gelotophobia in gaze discrimination. However, and interestingly, individuals with high trait-gelotophobia tend to make more errors when they have to discriminate gaze direction. The ability to detect correctly gaze direction is associated with the appropriate interpretation of others' intentions (Baron-Cohen, 1994; Hudson and Jellema, 2011). Given that wrong attributions on the motivations and goals of other individuals could be considered one of the main components of gelotophobia (Ruch et al., 2008; Titze, 2009), this potential bias related to gaze identification could be a relevant finding to better understand the fear of being laughed at. Furthermore, the interaction between gelotophobia and gaze direction was significant, showing that the higher error rates observed in gelotophobes was larger in averted gaze trials than in direct gaze trials. Nevertheless, the independent analyses of the direct gaze condition also showed a low effect size for gelotophobia, so it seems necessary to explore this interaction further.

Finally, and in contrast to our hypothesis, happiness did not seem to have any special role in the observed differences between individuals with high and low trait-gelotophobia. Previous research has shown that gelotophobia may influence reactions to others' affective states but not just those related to happiness (Papousek et al., 2009). However, inasmuch as we had to reduce our testing sample to adjust it to the reported cut-off points for gelotophobia (≥2.50) (Ruch and Proyer, 2008), we carried out an additional experiment to confirm the observed pattern of data, thus avoiding this potential limitation of the research. In addition, and importantly, to test whether our findings are specific to gelotophobia, in the next experiment, we controlled for social phobia as an alternative explanation of the observed effect of gelotophobia.

### EXPERIMENT 2

In Experiment 2, we tried to replicate the results observed in the preceding experiment, but controlling for the potential limitations highlighted above. The newly recruited participants for the high- and low-gelotophobia groups showed greater differences in their trait-gelotophobia scores. Then, we tested again whether individuals scoring high in trait-gelotophobia indeed have higher error rates in detecting gaze direction compared with individuals with lower trait-gelotophobia scores. Moreover, we explored the interaction between gelotophobia and gaze direction with the aim of confirming our previous finding that a larger gelotophobia predisposition could be associated with poorer performance, especially with averted gaze in comparison with direct gaze conditions. Finally, we were interested in analyzing the third-order interaction among gelotophobia, emotional expression, and gaze direction once again to corroborate that the happiness condition does not play any specific role in the eye contact effect that gelotophobes show.

Another main objective in gelotophobia research is to determine its differential features in relation to other disorders with similar symptomatology (e.g., social phobia) (Carretero-Dios et al., 2010b). Actually, previous research studies have reported that a high percentage of gelotophobes are also assessed as individuals with social phobia and/or Cluster A (i.e., schizoid,

paranoid, or schizotypal) personality disorder (Weiss et al., 2012). Consequently, we included social phobia as a control variable to investigate whether the effects of gelotophobia could be explained on the basis of differences in social phobia.

In addition, we added a new experimental phase related to the identification of others' emotional expressions. Although previous research indicated that gelotophobes did not have a general deficit in interpersonal emotion-related skills so as to categorize the emotions of others (Papousek et al., 2009), the goal of this second phase was to test whether eye contact conditions (direct vs. averted) modulate gelotophobes' capacity to identify others' emotional expressions. The manipulation of gaze direction in our preceding experiment seemed to be relevant, so we were interested in knowing whether gelotophobes would show a different pattern of emotion categorization depending on gaze conditions. Furthermore, all participants evaluated the intensity of the expressed emotion together with the valence and arousal of each face.

### Materials and Methods

#### Participants

Undergraduate students (N = 241) were screened using the Geloph <15>. The Sample included a total of 40 participants (32 females, 8 males; mean age of 21.18, SD = 6.34; range from 18 to 49) who were selected on the basis of their either extremely high or extremely low scores in trait-gelotophobia and assigned to one of the two comparison groups (gelotophobes and non-gelotophobes). As in Experiment 1, all participants reported normal or corrected-to-normal vision and hearing, and participants' collaboration was in exchange for course credit. None of the participants had participated in Experiment 1.

The gelotophobes group was made up of 20 participants who had the highest trait-gelotophobia scores (16 females; 17–27 years; M = 20.00; SD = 3.06; MGeloph = 2.93; SDGeloph = 0.39; MinGeloph = 2.53; MaxGeloph = 3.60). In contrast to Experiment 1, all participants in this study exceeded the cutoff point for gelotophobia (>2.50; see Ruch and Proyer, 2008). Thus, of these 20 participants with high trait-gelotophobia scores, none was classified as borderline fearful, 11 were classified as slight expression of gelotophobia, seven were classified as marked expression of gelotophobia, and two were classified as extremely fearful of being laughed at. Likewise, the non-gelotophobes group was made up of 20 participants whose scores were the lowest in the GELOPH <15> (16 females; 18–49 years; M = 22.35; SD = 8.39; MGeloph = 1.24; SDGeloph = 0.17; MinGeloph = 1.00; MaxGeloph = 1.53). As in Experiment 1, these individuals were classified as having no gelotophobia.

#### Instruments

The Spanish version of the Geloph <15> was also used in this experiment with test reliability (Cronbach's alpha) α = 0.96.

The Spanish version of the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS; Mattick and Clarke, 1998; Olivares et al., 2001) consists of 20 items rated on a Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (Not at all) to 4 (Totally). A sample item is "I get nervous if I have to speak with someone in authority (teacher, boss, etc.)." In this study, the SIAS showed adequate good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.94).

#### Apparatus, Stimuli, and Procedure

The same procedure as in Experiment 1 was used in the first phase of this experiment. Additionally, a second experimental task was added in which participants had to identify the emotional expressions of faces with direct vs. averted gaze. For this new task, 160 photographs of 16 individuals, eight males and eight females, portraying either a happy, angry, fearful, neutral, or sad emotional expression, were also selected from the KDEF (Lundqvist et al., 1998). Stimuli were different from those used in the gaze discrimination task. Photographs did not have to be modified to recreate eye contact conditions. Each target face was presented for an unlimited time at the center of the monitor either with a direct gaze (i.e., the eyes looking straight ahead) or an averted gaze (i.e., the eyes looking left or right). Participants had to categorize the emotional expression by pressing the corresponding key on the keyboard ("1 = happiness," "2 = anger," "3 = fear," "4 = neutral," or "5 = sadness"). After each categorization, and while the picture remained visible, participants indicated their estimation of different affective dimensions—valence, intensity, and arousal—for that facial expression based on the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM: Lang, 1980). Only one experimental block composed of 160 trials, 16 (faces) × 5 (emotion) × 2 (gaze direction), was created. Hence, we obtained 16 observations per gaze direction condition displaying each emotional expression. Trials were presented randomly for each participant. Finally, participants responded to gelotophobia and social phobia questionnaires, in that order.

#### Design

For the gaze discrimination task, the same design was used as in Experiment 1. For the analysis of the ratings in the emotional expression task, a similar design was used, 2 (gelotophobia: high trait-gelotophobia vs. low trait-gelotophobia) × 5 (emotional expression: happiness, anger, fear, neutral, or sadness) × 2 (gaze direction: direct or averted), with the following dependent variables (DVs): (a) reaction time; (b) accuracy of responses in the emotional categorization task; (c) intensity or magnitude of the emotion expressed (high vs. low); (d) valence or pleasantness of the faces displaying either emotional expression (positive vs. negative); and (e) the arousal or activation of these faces (active vs. calm). Again, gelotophobia predisposition was manipulated between participants, whereas the other variables were manipulated within participants. Furthermore, in all analyses, social phobia scores were introduced as a covariate to determine whether the specific effects are related to gelotophobia independently of social phobia. A two-tailed significance level of p < 0.05 was used for all analyses.

#### Results

#### Gaze Direction Discrimination Task

Response time data showed, again, a main effect of emotional expression, F(4,152) = 30.16, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.44, with the lowest reaction times for fearful faces (M = 653; SD = 64.71) and the highest for angry faces (M = 691; SD = 67.24). As

in the previous experiment, a main effect of gaze direction was also found, F(1,38) = 41.18, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.52, with participants having shorter RTs for direct gaze (M = 655; SD = 62.42) than averted gaze faces (M = 691; SD = 69.61). However, the interaction between emotional expression and gaze direction was not significant in this case, F(4,152) = 1.33, p = 0.26, η 2 p = 0.03. Furthermore, there was a main effect of group, F(1,38) = 5.58, p = 0.023, η 2 p = 0.13, with gelotophobes (M = 651; SD = 70.90) being faster compared with non-gelotophobes (M = 696; SD = 48.83). Nevertheless, this effect disappeared after controlling for social phobia scores, F(1,37) = 1.96, p = 0.170, η 2 p = 0.05. As in the Experiment 1, the interaction between emotional expression and gaze direction was not modulated by gelotophobia, F(4,152) = 1.48, p = 0.210, η 2 p = 0.04.

As in our previous experiment, the analysis of error rate data also showed a main effect of emotional expression, F(4,152) = 7.60, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.17. Again, participants had the lowest error rate for fearful (M = 0.03; SD = 0.05) and the highest for angry faces (M = 0.06; SD = 0.07). However, the difference between direct gaze and averted gaze did not reach significance this time, F(1,38) = 2.70, p = 0.109, η 2 p = 0.07, and neither was an interaction found between emotional expression and gaze direction, F(4,152) = 1.60, p = 0.179, η 2 p = 0.04. Concerning gelotophobia, our results replicated the significant main effect of group, F(1,38) = 6.68, p = 0.014, η 2 p = 0.15, with gelotophobes having higher error rates (M = 0.07; SD = 0.08) compared with non-gelotophobes (M = 0.03; SD = 0.03). Interestingly, this effect remained significant after controlling for individual social phobia scores, F(1,37) = 5.54, p = 0.024, η 2 p = 0.13. Additionally, and in contrast to Experiment 1, the interaction between gelotophobia and gaze (see **Figure 4**) was not statistically significant, F(1,38) = 0.14, p = 0.708, η 2 p = 0.004. Notwithstanding, a trend close to being significant and a medium effect size according to Cohen' (1988) criteria, were found for the averted gaze condition, F(1,38) = 3.54, p = 0.067, d = 0.62, with gelotophobes having higher error rates (M = 0.09; SD = 0.13) compared with non-gelotophobes (M = 0.03; SD = 0.04), and it was significant for the direct gaze condition, F(1,38) = 8.65, p = 0.006, d = 0.79, with gelotophobia predispositions being associated, again, with higher error rates (M = 0.05; SD = 0.05) in comparison with lower gelotophobia (M = 0.02; SD = 0.02). Both effects remained after controlling for social phobia, F(1,37) = 3.59, p = 0.066, and F(1,37) = 4.80, p = 0.036, respectively.

#### Emotional Expression Categorization Task

The analysis of RTs showed a main effect of emotional expression, F(4,152) = 32.35, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.46, with happiness faces identified significantly more quickly (M = 2137; SD = 614.52) than all other emotions were. Gaze direction and the interaction between emotional expression and gaze direction did not modulate any effect. It should be noted that RT was not limited in this phase. Furthermore, individuals with gelotophobia showed a tendency to respond more quickly when they identified others' emotional expressions, F(1,38) = 5.87, p = 0.020; d = 0.77, η 2 p = 0.13. Nevertheless, this effect disappeared after the inclusion of social phobia as a covariate, F(1,37) = 0.99, p = 0.327; η 2 p = 0.03. On the other hand, the interaction between gelotophobia and emotional expression, F(4,152) = 2.02, p = 0.095, η 2 p = 0.05, did not reach statistical significance. Finally, and interestingly with regard to our hypothesis, individuals with higher gelotophobia scores did not differ in their RTs due to gaze direction conditions, F(1,38) = 0.29, p = 0.865; η 2 p = 0.001.

On the other hand, the analysis of accuracy data indicated a main effect of emotional expression, F(4,152) = 8.47, p < 0.001; η 2 p = 0.18. The highest accuracy was observed for faces displaying happiness (M = 0.97; SD = 0.05) and the lowest for neutral faces (M = 0.86; SD = 0.15). On the contrary, no main effect of gaze direction, F(1,38) = 0.34, p = 0.566; η 2 p = 0.01, was found, and the interaction between emotional expression and gaze direction did not reach statistical significance, F(4,152) = 1.47, p = 0.213, η 2 p = 0.04. Importantly, the results showed that gelotophobia predisposition did not have any effect, F(1,38) = 0.40, p = 0.531; η 2 p = 0.01, and did not modulate the effects of emotional expression, F(4,152) = 1.17, p = 0.328, η 2 p = 0.18, or gaze, F(1,38) = 0.62, p = 0.805; η 2 p = 0.002.

#### Emotional Expression Rating Task: Intensity, Valence, and Arousal

Emotional expression, F(4,152) = 15.80, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.29, modulated the reported intensity. Particularly, the neutral expression had the lowest reported levels (M = 5.42; SD = 1.62) and the happiness expression the highest ones (M = 6.75; SD = 1.14). Gaze direction also modulated intensity, F(4,38) = 12.84, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.25, with greater intensity levels reported for direct gaze (M = 6.20; SD = 1.03) than for averted gaze (M = 6.08; SD = 1.11). Furthermore, the interaction between emotional expression and gaze direction was also significant, F(4,152) = 3.95, p = 0.004, η 2 p = 0.09. Paired t-tests showed that happy faces, t(39) = 5.30, p < 0.001, d = 0.34, with direct gazes (M = 6.94; SD = 1.09) were assessed with a greater level of intensity in comparison with happy faces with averted gazes (M = 6.54; SD = 1.23). A similar pattern was found for angry faces, t(39) = 1.98, p = 0.055, d = 0.14, with larger intensity reports for direct gaze (M = 6.41; SD = 1.19) than for averted gaze (M = 6.23; SD = 1.36). No differences were found for the other emotional expressions. The main effect of the gelotophobia group did not reach statistical significance, F(1,38) = 0.24, p = 0.628, η 2 p = 0.01, although an interaction close to statistical significance between emotional expression and gelotophobia was observed, F(4,152) = 2.28, p = 0.063, η 2 p = 0.06. Nevertheless, it completely disappeared after controlling for social phobia, F(4,148) = 0.93, p = 0.446, η 2 p = 0.03.

Concerning valence and arousal, as expected, the valence ratings were modulated by emotional expression, F(4,152) = 172.83, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.82. No evidence was found, however, that gaze direction modulated the valence ratings, F(1,38) = 0.21, p = 0.653, η 2 p = 0.01. Interestingly, a significant interaction between emotional expression and gaze direction was also observed, F(4,152) = 3.37, p = 0.011, η 2 p = 0.08. Paired t-tests, t(39) = 2.85, p = 0.007, d = 0.21, showed that happy faces with direct gazes (M = 7.27; SD = 0.98) were evaluated as

more positive than happy faces with averted gazes (M = 7.06; SD = 1.02). In contrast, angry faces with direct gazes were evaluated as less positive (M = 3.05; SD = 1.02) than angry faces with averted gazes (M = 3.20; SD = 0.94), t(39) = −2.09, p = 0.044, d = 0.15. No differences for the other emotional expressions were found. On other hand, neither the main effect of gelotophobia, F(1,38) = 1.34, p = 0.255, η 2 p = 0.03, nor its modulation over emotional expression, F(4,152) = 0.07, p = 0.992, η 2 p = 0.002, or gaze direction, F(1,38) = 0.58, p = 0.451, η 2 p = 0.02, reached statistical significance.

Finally, emotional expression also influenced the participants' perceptions of arousal, F(4,152) = 48.64, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.56, whereas gaze direction did not, F(1,38) = 0.31, p = 0.583, η 2 p = 0.01. Nevertheless, the interaction between emotion and gaze was also significant, F(4,152) = 2.67, p = 0.034, η 2 p = 0.07, and paired t-tests were used to explore this interaction. Differences in arousal were found for angry faces, t(39) = 2.53, p = 016, d = 0.20, with a greater arousal associated with direct gaze (M = 6.52; SD = 0.97) vs. averted gaze (M = 6.33; SD = 1.07). Finally, no main effect of group, F(1,38) = 0.42, p = 0.522, η 2 p = 0.01, or interaction involving gelotophobia and emotional expression, F(4,152) = 0.10, p = 0.984, η 2 p = 0.003, or gaze, F(1,38) = 0.48, p = 0.491, η 2 p = 0.01, reached statistical significance for the arousal ratings. Those results concerning the abovementioned third interaction can be seen in **Table 2**.

### GENERAL DISCUSSION

In this study, we explored the modulation that a higher traitgelotophobia produced in a task in which individuals were asked to discriminate the directions of the gazes of faces portraying different emotions. In particular, we were interested in examining the RTs and the error rates of gelotophobes to discriminate adequately the left-right direction of others' eyes, as a function of whether they conformed direct vs. averted gaze conditions. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical study investigating the potential effects of gelotophobia in reaction to eye contact. In contrast to our initial hypothesis, and compared with nongelotophobes, gelotophobes did not show a differential eye contact effect for happy faces. However, our results revealed a potential tendency among individuals with a greater degree of gelotophobia to make more error rates when identifying gaze direction. Interestingly, this potential bias in gaze discrimination is rather general, as it does not seem to be associated with a specific emotion or, according to our second experiment, the eye contact condition (direct or averted gaze). In fact, gelotophobes constantly exceeded—in terms of error rates—non-gelotophobes

TABLE 2 | Means RTs and percentages of correct responses, and affective dimensions evaluations, for each condition and gelotophobia group, in the emotional categorization task of Experiment 2.

when they had to detect correctly the eyes' directions of the different faces.

Detecting correctly gaze direction or eye contact is widely considered as a crucial factor in the communication of social intentions or desires (e.g., Argyle and Cook, 1976), to modulate social cognition processes as person categorization (e.g., Macrae et al., 2002) and also to obtain key elements concerning the mental states of others (e.g., Baron-Cohen, 1995). Traditional conceptualizations of gelotophobia have included a poorly developed social competence among its features (Titze, 2009). These limited social skills are characterized, for example, by a widespread fear of acting in a socially inadequate way ("maybe funny"), a feeling of insecurity, hypervigilance toward all possible contempt manifestations of social partners, and a general belief in the negative intentions of others (Platt et al., 2012; Ruch et al., 2014a).

In accordance with Baron-Cohen (1994), difficulties with discriminating others' gaze direction could lead to wrong interpretations of others' intentions or mental states. This is because individuals use the information provided by gaze in order to clarify ambiguous situations and, thus, to judge correctly intentions or acts of others (Phillips et al., 1992). Accordingly, a greater difficulty in knowing where other people are exactly looking at could be connected with the misattributions of others' intentions that gelotophobes make during social interactions, as well as the incorrect access to the real meanings of some more complex emotional expressions. In this sense, given that gelotophobes seem to be less able to identify accurately the direction of other's eyes (i.e., and therefore whether the attention is focused at a particular point or not), may contribute to perceive social interactions as ambiguous or, even, threatening. Furthermore, these results are in line with previous studies, which reported that gelotophobes show difficulties in adequately interpreting facially expressed communication (Ruch et al., 2014b).

In addition, it has been demonstrated that ambiguous eye contact conditions influence the subjective feeling of being observed (Senju and Hasegawa, 2006). Theoretical considerations and empirical data have supported the importance of studying eye contact and, more specifically, the feeling of being observed in relation to several disorders, such as social anxiety. For this reason, the goal of previous research was to determine the contextual cues that exacerbate the feeling of being looked at (Gamer et al., 2011). These authors found that a higher social phobia inclination would be associated only with a greater tendency to judge a "mutual gaze" in situations with a light social pressure (i.e., a second observer is present during the interaction), but not in one-to-one conditions. Given that our experimental setting recreated a one-to-one interaction, this may help with explaining why social anxiety cannot explain the bias revealed for gaze discrimination, i.e., why this bias rather seems to be specific to gelotophobia. Additionally, in our second experiment, we found that a higher gelotophobia predisposition could be related to faster responses regardless of eye contact conditions—direct or averted—in the gaze discrimination task. However, this effect disappeared after controlling for social phobia scores. These results could be due to the tendency of individuals with high social anxiety to be hypervigilant toward threatening social cues (Eysenck, 1992; Boll et al., 2016), such as eye contact, which is an indicator of the beginning of a social interaction.

Consistent with previous research (Cañadas and Lupiáñez, 2012; Jones, 2015), we replicated a reversed congruency effect. Furthermore, in general, the emotional expressions of faces modulate this effect: Although the interaction was not significant in Experiment 2, the same tendency was observed, and the combined analysis of the two experiments showed a significant interaction for both RT, F(4,316) = 2.48, p = 0.044, η 2 p = 0.03, and error rates, F(4,316) = 3.30, p = 0.011, η 2 p = 0.04. This is important, as it favors the interpretation of the reversed congruency effect in terms of eye contact. Nevertheless, it should be noted that in contrast to the pattern of results that Jones (2015) reported, the effect was also observed for the fearful expression; furthermore, sadness (theoretically, an avoidance-oriented emotion) showed a pattern similar to those of happiness and anger (approach-oriented emotion) in both experiments. For this reason, we cannot corroborate the "approach and avoidance oriented emotions" interpretation that Jones (2015) suggested. Thus, additional studies of our eye contact effect should look into other different frameworks used to explain the interaction between facial expression and gaze direction, as the appraisal theory (Sander et al., 2007). This theory focuses on the importance of the observer's goals or intentions when interpreting or evaluating (appraisal process) the meaning of all of the external social clues (Sander et al., 2007; Milders et al., 2011). Perhaps, sadness could trigger avoidance motivation in others but also feelings of compassion or approach behavior to offer occasional help to the observer. Nevertheless, it is important to note the need for developing further research to elucidate the relationship between sadness and the reverse congruency effect data and, more generally, the role of emotional expression in this unusual effect. Furthermore, in this research, we incorporated the data of error rates in the gaze discrimination task. We observed a main effect of emotional expression, which was replicated in both experiments, with the highest error rates in faces expressing anger and the lowest in faces expressing fear. Importantly, the joint analysis of the error data in these two experiments revealed that this eye contact effect was stronger in faces displaying emotional expressions—with the exception of fearful faces—compared with neutral faces.

Concerning the emotional expression categorization task, we found that gelotophobes were faster when they had to categorize others' emotional expressions, but as in the previous gaze discrimination task, this effect disappeared after controlling for social phobia scores. No accuracy differences between gelotophobes and non-gelotophobes in identifying others' emotional expressions were found, with our results being consistent with the notion that gelotophobes do not present difficulties in the use of interpersonal emotion-related skills (Papousek et al., 2009). Interestingly, neither did we find any interaction among gelotophobia, emotional expression, and gaze direction for intensity, valence, or arousal. In sum, our results seem to indicate that eye contact conditions do not modulate the gelotophobes' ratings of these affective dimensions.

Aside from gelotophobia effects, however, it should be noted that in this categorization task emotional expression modulated both RT and accuracy. More specifically, we found that happiness trials produced the fastest RTs and highest accuracy rates. Furthermore, the lowest accuracy rates were found in neutral faces. This data could be in line with previous studies reporting that emotional expressions, in comparison with neutral faces, facilitated processes such as face detectability (de Jong and Martens, 2007; Calvo and Nummenmaa, 2008; Milders et al., 2011). Along the same lines, we know that neutral faces contain affective keys more ambiguously than others' emotional expressions.  In addition, a fewer number of neutral trials exist compared with emotional faces, which can lead to interpreting neutral faces as an emotional expression.

With respect to the affective dimensions measured, our results showed an interaction between emotion and gaze direction for intensity, valence, and arousal rates. More specifically, we found that faces displaying anger or happiness with direct gazes were evaluated as more intense than those with averted gazes. These results are consistent with other studies that have proposed that gaze direction modulates the recognition accuracy and perceived intensity of several emotions (Adams and Kleck, 2005). Consistent with intensity data, we obtained for valence an opposite pattern between anger and happiness. Whereas happy faces with direct gazes were rated as more positive than happy faces with averted gazes, angry faces with direct gazes were evaluated as more unpleasant than angry faces with averted gazes. Finally, differences in arousal were found for angry faces with a greater arousal associated with direct gaze than with averted gaze. The observed interaction between emotional expression and gaze direction fits with other empirical data suggesting that the processing of emotional expression and the processing of gaze pattern are interdependent (Ganel et al., 2005).

### CONCLUSION

The current results provide the first preliminary empirical evidence that gelotophobia is related to a potential bias in gaze discrimination. The effects of gelotophobia on error rates in discriminating gaze direction were replicated in two experiments. Furthermore, in the second experiment, the effect remained when controlling for social anxiety scores. Taking into account that gelotophobes, on the other hand, did not show any difference with non-gelotophobes in discriminating emotional expression, or intensity, arousal, or valence, our results could suggest that the

### REFERENCES

gaze discrimination difficulties observed in high gelotophobes are not associated with problems with identifying others' emotions or an incorrect attribution of affective features. These higher error rates in gaze direction accuracy might not be due to any limitation in processing affective information but rather might be related to global processes of social cognition. However, future research should clarify and continue exploring social cognition biases in gelotophobia to analyze the potential consequences of feeling being observed.

Several limitations of this research must be nevertheless pointed out. Firstly, due to the low prevalence of gelotophobes in non-clinical population, the sample sizes were relatively small. However, both the number of participants selected and the strategy adopted for recruiting them (i.e., construction of extreme groups) were in the line with previous research concerning gelotophobia (Papousek et al., 2014; Ruch et al., 2015). Lastly, it is important to indicate that some particular laughter (or humor) related aspects were not included in these studies. Indeed, the use of pictures does not allow for the incorporation of key emotional components, such as sounds or movements. Therefore, it is possible that these stimuli may be insufficient to trigger some gelotophobes' specific reactions and can help with explaining the absence of a specific effect on eye contact in the happiness condition. For this reason, future research should add other materials (e.g., films, virtual reality, etc.) with the aim of creating more realistic scenarios of emotional interactions where laughter is present, which will surely be a significant step forward for the main purpose of this research.

### AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Conceived and designed the experiments: JT-M, HC-D, AA, and JL. Performed the experiments: JT-M. Analyzed the data: JT-M, HC-D, AA, and JL. Interpreted the data and drafted the manuscript: JT-M, HC-D, AA, and JL.

### FUNDING

This research is part of the doctoral dissertation by JT-M, which is supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte with a predoctoral fellowship (FPU14/05755) and with research grants from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO) (PSI2014-52764-P to JL), and Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica-Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (DGICYT-MEC) (PSI2016- 78236-P to AA and PSI2016-79812-P to HC-D).

**Conflict of Interest Statement:** The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Copyright © 2017 Torres-Marín, Carretero-Dios, Acosta and Lupiáñez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

# Assessing Dispositions Toward Ridicule and Laughter in the Workplace: Adapting and Validating the PhoPhiKat-9 Questionnaire

Jennifer Hofmann1, 2 \*, Willibald Ruch1, 2, René T. Proyer 3 , Tracey Platt 4 and Fabian Gander 1, 2

*1 Personality and Assessment, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, 2 Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research Lives–Overcoming Vulnerability: Life Course Perspectives, Lausanne, Switzerland, 3 Department of Psychology, Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany, 4 Institute of Psychology, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, UK*

#### Edited by:

*Thomas L Webb, University of Sheffield, UK*

#### Reviewed by:

*Karl-Heinz Renner, Bundeswehr University Munich, Germany Ilona Papousek, University of Graz, Austria Russell Spears, University of Groningen, Netherlands*

> \*Correspondence: *Jennifer Hofmann<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### Specialty section:

*This article was submitted to Personality and Social Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology*

> Received: *17 January 2017* Accepted: *21 April 2017* Published: *12 May 2017*

#### Citation:

*Hofmann J, Ruch W, Proyer RT, Platt T and Gander F (2017) Assessing Dispositions Toward Ridicule and Laughter in the Workplace: Adapting and Validating the PhoPhiKat-9 Questionnaire. Front. Psychol. 8:714. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00714* The current paper addresses the measurement of three dispositions toward ridicule and laughter; i.e., gelotophobia (the fear of being laughed at), gelotophilia (the joy of being laughed at), and katagelasticism (the joy of laughing at others). These traits explain inter-individual differences in responses to humor, laughter, and social situations related to humorous encounters. First, an ultra-short form of the PhoPhiKat-45 (Ruch and Proyer, 2009) was adapted in two independent samples (Construction Sample *N* = 157; Replication Sample *N* = 1,774). Second, we tested the validity of the PhoPhiKat-9 in two further independent samples. Results showed that the psychometric properties of the ultra-short form were acceptable and the proposed factor structure could be replicated. In *Validation Sample 1* (*N* = 246), we investigated the relation of the three traits to responses in a ridicule and teasing scenario questionnaire. The results replicated findings from earlier studies by showing that gelotophobes assigned the same emotions to friendly teasing and malicious ridicule (predominantly low joy, high fear, and shame). Gelotophilia was mainly predicted by relating joy to both, teasing and ridicule scenarios, while katagelasticism was predicted by assigning joy and contempt to ridicule scenarios. In *Validation Sample 2* (*N* = 1,248), we investigated whether the fear of being laughed at is a vulnerability at the workplace: If friendly teasing and laughter of co-workers, superiors, or customers are misperceived as being malicious, individuals may feel less satisfied and more stressed. The results from a representative sample of Swiss employees showed that individuals with a fear of being laughed at are generally less satisfied with life and work and experience more work stress. Moreover, gelotophilia went along with positive evaluations of one's life and work, while katagelasticism was negatively related to work satisfaction and positively related to work stress. In order to establish good work practices and build procedures against workplace bullying, one needs to consider that individual differences impact on a person's perception of being bullied and assessing the three dispositions may give important insights into team processes.

Keywords: assessment, bullying, gelotophobia, humor, laughter, work satisfaction, work place

## INTRODUCTION

Although humor and laughter are commonly viewed as positively valued, empirical evidence suggests individual differences in the perception of laughter and laughter-related events (see Ruch et al., 2014). Three dispositions toward laughter and ridicule (Ruch and Proyer, 2009) have been coined to define specific interindividual tendencies to either (a) fearing being laughed at (Ruch and Proyer, 2008a,b; gelotophobia), (b) enjoying being laughed at (gelotophilia; Ruch and Proyer, 2009), or (c) enjoying to laugh at others (katagelasticism; Ruch and Proyer, 2009).

Individuals with a fear of being laughed at display biases in their perception of humor and laughter, as well as in responses to those phenomena (see Ruch et al., 2014). They see humor and laughter as negative, aversive, and directed toward them in a malicious way (see e.g., Ruch and Proyer, 2008a; Ruch et al., 2014). For example, they respond to both, friendly teasing and malicious ridicule with higher felt shame, fear, and low joy in predefined scenarios of ridicule and teasing. They do not emotionally distinguish between the different contexts (Platt, 2008). Gelotophobes screen social interaction partners for signs of derision, and often show paranoid tendencies toward being laughed at. They further display disproportionate negative responses toward anticipated ridicule. Moreover, they respond with controlling themselves and their environment, withdrawing, or internalizing when confronted with (anticipated) ridicule (Papousek et al., 2009; Platt et al., 2012; Ruch et al., 2014). Moreover, gelotophobes experience marked heart rate deceleration when hearing laughter (indicating a "freezing-like" response; Papousek et al., 2014).

Thus, gelotophobes respond to the pro-social bonding and group building aspects of humor and laughter with aversion and misinterpretation, which can have detrimental effects on social interaction. Whereas, withdrawing from fear-evoking situations may be manageable in their personal lives, they will encounter problems in the work place where they presumably cannot avoid engaging in social interactions. It is speculated that gelotophobes will find humorous interactions with (unfamiliar) customers and staff, team members, and supervisors difficult (Ruch et al., 2014): they are likely to misinterpret friendly banter and humor in the work place more often as negative, will screen the environment for laughter and will attribute this laughter as being laughed at. In line with this, Ruch and Proyer (2008b) already predicted that higher degrees of gelotophobia should be found in victims of bullying (e.g., at the workplace see Ruch et al., 2014) and related to phenomena like aggressiveness1 or coherence within social groups (see Samson and Meyer, 2010). Additionally, Platt et al. (2009) confirmed that gelotophobia correlated positively with reports of having been a victim of bullying. While this may be distressing for the individual, it has also implications on a broader level too. At the level of organizations, such behaviors could seriously impact on employees' well-being, be a potential financial burden when going along with increased social welfare payments, have an impact on over-stretching health service resources, and potentially add costs to spurious employment ligations.

Nevertheless, these predictions have so far not been substantiated in a working context; i.e., in representative samples of the workforce of a given country. This is relevant, as the perceived bullying and discrimination may be based on "false alarms" due to gelotophobia, while there is actually no objective evidence for it (Ruch and Proyer, 2008a). Such misperceptions may reflect in lower work and life satisfaction (see Proyer et al., 2012b), as well as higher work stress. For the co-workers and supervisors, claims of bullying assaults need to be taken seriously, but they should also take into account the individual differences in the perception of humor and laughter, if other evidence does not corroborate the claims.

While gelotophobes dread the laughter of others, gelotophiles actively seek it: They readily tell others of their mishaps and embarrassing situations because they enjoy the laughter of others that these stories elicit (Ruch and Proyer, 2009). They explicitly seek potentially embarrassing situations for the joy of recalling this to an audience. As expected, gelotophobia is negatively correlated to gelotophilia (Ruch and Proyer, 2009). In a work context, it is assumed that gelotophiles will be frequent elicitors of humor and laughter (particularly when it relates to them) and they will perceive friendly banter as joyful. They will be viewed as the "good cheer" of the group. Thus, we hypothesize that gelotophilia will positively related to work and life satisfaction (in line with former findings, see Ruch et al., 2014 for an overview) and negatively to work stress, due to their ability to laugh at their mishaps and ability to initiate humor and laughter.

The third disposition relates to those who experience joy when laughing at others, katagelasticism (Ruch and Proyer, 2009). Katagelasticists screen their peers carefully to find instances or causes of amusement. These triggers are then used for making others laugh. They actively search for situations where they can laugh at others and do not feel guilty for doing so. As the saying goes "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," their aim is for the targets of their mockery to take revenge and joke or prank back by trying to out perform the initial joke (Ruch and Proyer, 2009). While katagelasticism is positively correlated to gelotophilia, typically no relation to gelotophobia is found. Therefore, some gelotophobes might as well-enjoy laughing at others, whereas others will not. In work place contexts, katagelasticists are predicted to be seen as the "bullies" as they enjoy laughing at others and be the ones who encounter problems in the work place, as they behave socially undesirable by laughing at others frequently.

The three traits can be reliably assessed with a self-report measure, the PhoPhiKat-45 (Ruch and Proyer, 2009). Many studies have shown the reliability and validity (cf. Ruch et al., 2014). The scale allows separating the gelotophobia spectrum (with means ranging from 1 to 4) into groups of no fear (<2.5 on the gelotophobia scale), a slight fear (>2.5), a marked fear (>3.0), and extreme fear of being laughed at (>3.5; see Ruch and Proyer, 2008a). While a 30-item short form (Ruch and Proyer, 2009) exists, an ultra-short version is required for research and application. In research contexts, the short form can be utilized for screening purposes and the use in

1Weiss et al. (2012) could show that gelotophobes showed deficits in handling their emotions, more self-reported aggressive behavior, and anger proneness.

large-scale studies. In the latter, the number of items for the assessment of constructs is often limited and the comparatively lower reliabilities can be compensated by larger sample sizes. In the applied context, the short form can serve as an economic instrument for the screening of the three dispositions toward laughter in large groups, for work place counseling, and the investigation of team processes (yet, the ultra-short form always needs to be complemented by the long form for individual counseling).

The aims of the current study were two-fold. First, we aimed to develop an ultra-short form of the standard selfreport questionnaire on the three dispositions toward ridicule and laughter, the PhoPhiKat-45 (Ruch and Proyer, 2009). This newly developed questionnaire, labeled PhoPhiKat-9 was tested for its psychometric properties2 . The development of the ultra-short form was motivated by the necessity to include a brief measure of the PhoPhiKat-9 in the project conducted by the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (LIVES—Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives), which examines the effects of the post-industrial economy and society on the development of vulnerability (using a longitudinal and comparative approach in a representative sample of the Swiss work force). Second, we validated the short form by relating it to the performance in a ridicule and teasing scenario test. As it was shown previously that gelotophobes do not distinguish well between teasing and ridicule. We aimed to replicate this well-established finding in order to show the validity of the PhoPhiKat-9. Moreover, we established first relations of the three dispositions to relevant work place related variables (global life satisfaction, work satisfaction, work stress) in a large-scale representative sample of Swiss employees, to see whether the dispositions could help explaining vulnerabilities in the work place.

### METHOD

### Participants

#### Construction sample

The sample consisted of 157 German-speaking adults (34 males, 123 females). The age ranged between 18 and 59 years old (M = 28.l2, SD = 9.34).

#### Replication Sample 1

The sample consisted of 1774 German-speaking adults (443 males, 1331 females). The age ranged between 18 and 79 years old (M = 38.44, SD = 12.41).

#### Validation Sample 1

The sample consisted of 246 German-speaking adults (204 females, 42 males). The age ranged between 19 and 72 years old (M = 42.54, SD = 12.66).

#### Validation Sample 2

The sample consisted of 1248 German-speaking adults (627 males, 627 females) from the NCCR- LIVES (data from the first wave of data collection in 2012). The age ranged between 26 and 56 years old (M = 42.73, SD = 8.73). The sample is representative for the Swiss working population.

### Instruments

The PhoPhiKat-45 (Ruch and Proyer, 2009) is a 45-item questionnaire for the assessment of gelotophobia (a sample item is "When they laugh in my presence I get suspicious"), gelotophilia ("When I am with other people, I enjoy making jokes at my own expense to make the others laugh"), and katagelasticism ("I enjoy exposing others and I am happy when they get laughed at"). Answers are given on a four-point answer format (1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree). Ruch and Proyer (2009) reported high reliability coefficients (all alphas ≥0.84) and high retest-reliabilities ≥0.77 and ≥0.73 for a 3 and 6-month time period, respectively.

The Ridicule Teasing Scenario Questionnaire Revised (RTSqr; Platt, 2008) contains nine scenarios that assess emotions toward predetermined ridicule and teasing social scenarios. Four teasing, four ridicule, and one ambiguous scenarios are presented with short stories where participants rate to which extent they would experience eight emotions (joy, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise, shame, and fear plus contempt in the revised version) on a nine point Likert scale (from 0 = lowest to 8 = highest experience of emotions). Eight total scores are computed for both ridicule and teasing by averaging across the four scenarios.

The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al., 1985) assesses the participants' life satisfaction. Answers are given on a seven-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). A sample item is "The conditions of my life are excellent." In the current study (Validation Sample 2), the Cronbach's alpha was high (α = 0.89).

Global work satisfaction was assessed by one item ("In general, how satisfied are you with your work?") on a four-point scale (1 = not satisfied at all to 4 = very satisfied).

The General Work Stress Scale (GWSS; De Bruin, 2006) is a nine item questionnaire assessing individually perceived demands of the workplace (e.g., "Do you become so stressed at work that you forget to do important tasks"). A five-point answer format is used (1 = never to 5 = always) measuring work stress as a one-dimensional construct. Cronbach's alpha in the current study (Validation Sample 2) was .87 and thus comparable to earlier findings (see De Bruin, 2006).

#### Procedure

#### Participant Recruitment

Participants were recruited in four independent surveys, three online surveys, and one mixed-method survey. They were not paid, but were offered an individual feedback on their personality

2We followed the guidelines recommended by Smith et al. (2000). One requirement is that the original instrument has shown enough evidence of reliability and validity. For the PhoPhiKat-45, a variety of validation studies have shown its good psychometric characteristics and validity (see Ruch et al., 2014 for a review). A further requirement suggests that the development of the short form and the analysis of its psychometric properties should be conducted in two independent samples. We included data of two independent samples for the construction and replication, as well as two samples for the validation.

scores (on demand) or could receive a gift voucher/make a donation in Validation Sample 2. All participants stayed anonymous at all times and they were free to withdraw from the study at any time. The studies fulfilled the ethical standards for research of the APA and approval from local ethic committees was granted.

#### Construction Sample

The study was announced on the website of the University of Zurich and in a free local newspaper distributed in the public transport of the Zurich area. Participants received a link to the online survey and filled in the questionnaires.

#### Replication Sample

Participants completed the survey on a website for research purposes hosted by the lab of the authors (http://www. charakterstaerken.org). The website was promoted by different means, such as press coverage (e.g., newspapers articles) and by contacting specific occupational groups, in order to ascertain heterogeneity of the sample.

#### Validation Sample 1

Individuals from the Replication Sample were contacted via email approximately 10-month after their initial participation and invited to take part in a new online survey. In this online survey, the participants completed the PhoPhiKat-9 short-form (plus one item) and the RTSqr.

#### Validation Sample 2

The data was collected within NCCR- LIVES (Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES—Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives; data from the first wave of data collection in 2012). A representative sample of participants was drawn from the Swiss National Register of Inhabitants. In a mixed-method design, participants completed a first part of a questionnaire by phone or online (socio-demographic data and employment information), and the second part of the questionnaire online or paper-pencil (including the PhoPhiKat-9, SWLS, GWSS).

#### Ethics Statement

This study complies with the ethical standards of the Swiss Society for Psychology. Also, the study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Institute of Psychology, University of Zurich. All participants gave consent to participate and were free to withdraw from the study at any time, and their anonymity was ensured. As incentive, they could receive a personalized feedback in the Construction Sample, the Replication Sample, and the Validation Sample 1. Additionally, for Validation Sample 2, the institute that conducted the data collection obtained informed consent, kept the personal information, and researchers received a dataset without any personal information, in which participants were assigned numerical codes. Participants were compensated for their participation with a gift for a value of 20 Swiss francs.

#### Construction of the Short Form PhoPhiKat-9

The items for the PhoPhiKat-9 were selected from the PhoPhiKat-45 (Ruch and Proyer, 2009) in the Construction Sample. For the gelotophobia scale, items were selected to represent three facets found by Platt et al. (2012); i.e., (a) coping with derision (i.e., "I avoid showing myself in public because I fear that people could become aware of my insecurity and could make fun of me"); (b) disproportionate negative responses to being laughed at ("It takes me very long to recover from having been laughed at"); and (c) paranoid sensitivity to anticipated ridicule ("When strangers laugh in my presence I often relate it to me personally"). The selected items had the highest factor loading on each facet respectively (Construction Sample; cf. Platt et al., 2012).

For selecting the items for gelotophilia and katagelasticism, a principal component analysis was computed with the 45 items of the PhoPhiKat-45. Three component were extracted and rotated according to the Oblimin criterion (delta = 0). The components represented the three traits and were labeled accordingly. The rationale for the selection of the items was: (a) highest factor loading on the intended factor (and low secondary loadings; the difference between secondary loadings should be ≥0.30), (b) high corrected item-total correlations, and (c) the content should not overlap too strongly with the items that were already selected. **Table 1** shows descriptive statistics for the nine item short form3 .

Next, we examined the factor structure of the nine item short form in a principal component analysis in the Replication Sample. Three components were extracted (Eigenvalues were 2.50, 2.09 and 0.92, respectively; explained variance = 61.19%) and rotated to the Oblimin criterion (delta = 0). Component 1 contained all gelotophobia items plus one item (with a high negative loading) that originally belonged to the gelotophilia scale (with loadings ranging from −0.59 to .79; see **Table 1**), component 2 constituted of the katagelasticism items (loadings ranging from 0.68 to 0.81), and component 3 of the remaining two gelotophilia-items (loadings were 0.76 and 0.88; see **Table 1**). Thus, eight items had their highest loadings on their target component, as theoretically expected, and had no high loadings on the other two components. However, one gelotophilia-item ("There is no difference for me whether people laugh at me or laugh with me") had its highest loading on the gelotophobia factor.

Investigating the nature of the short form, we computed a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for three different models (Replication Sample, N = 1,774). To evaluate the model fit, RMSEA and SRMR values lower than 0.10 were assumed to indicate acceptable fit (e.g., Browne and Cudeck, 1993). According to Bollen and Long (1993), a RMSEA of 0.09 SRMR of 0.06 would be around the limit of being a reasonable error. We further followed the recommendations of Schermelleh-Engel et al. (2003), additionally reporting CFI and TLI. For model 1, we assumed correlated factors and loadings of each item on one factor alone, without secondary loadings on another

3As different samples were utilized, internal consistencies are reported for all samples separately: In the replication sample, the Cronbach's alpha of the PhoPhiKat-9 were 0.69 for gelotophobia, 0.57 for gelotophilia, and 0.64 for katagelasticism. In the validation sample 1, the Cronbach's alpha of the PhoPhiKat-9 were 0.70 for gelotophobia, 0.69 for gelotophilia, and 0.38 for katagelasticism. In the validation sample 2, the Cronbach's alpha of the PhoPhiKat-9 were 0.64 for gelotophobia, 0.54 for gelotophilia, and 0.65 for katagelasticism.

TABLE 1 | Descriptive statistics and factor loadings for the nine items of the PhoPhiKat-9 short form in the replication sample.

*N* = *1774. M, Mean; SD, Standard Deviation. Item descriptions refer to paraphrases. CITC, corrected item total correlation; Pho, gelotophobia. Phi, gelotophilia; Kat, katagelasticism. First column numbers in brackets are corresponding to position of the item on the PhoPhiKat-45. Bold values indicate high loadings.*

factor. The null hypothesis of perfect fit for this model was rejected [χ 2 (24) = 496.54, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.85, TLI = 0.77, RMSEA = 0.105 (0.097–0.114), SRMR = 0.08]. For model 2, the assumptions were the same as for model 1 except for the first gelotophilia-item, which was allowed to have a second loading on the gelotophobia-factor. This model yielded better results [χ 2 (23) = 301.99, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.91, TLI = 0.87, RMSEA = 0.083 (0.075–0.091), SRMR = 0.06] with acceptable (but not high) model fit indices. In model 3, the gelotophiliaitem was allowed to load only on the gelotophobia factor, with the loading on the gelotophilia factor restricted to zero, while the other model specifications remained the same. The model fit was acceptable [χ 2 (24) = 357.24, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.89, TLI = 0.86, RMSEA = 0.088 (0.080–0.097), SRMR = 0.07]. Thus, model 2 and 3 yielded acceptable solutions, with one gelotophilia item also loading on the gelotophobia factor. As this item worked well in the earlier studies (see Ruch and Proyer, 2009) we therefore did not consider this a serious deviation.

#### VALIDATION RESULTS

### Characteristics of the PhoPhiKat–9 in the Validation Sample 1

First, the descriptive statistics of the PhoPhiKat-9 items in the Validation Sample 1 are reported in **Table 2**. Means, standard deviations, Cronbach's alpha and the corrected itemtotal correlations (CITCs) can be seen in **Table 2**.

The corrected item-total correlations (CITC) ranged between r = 0.15 and r = 0.53 for the short form. For the katagelasticism scale, the CITCs were remarkably lower and all below r = 0.30 (see **Table 2**). The Cronbach's alpha coefficients of gelotophilia and gelotophobia were acceptable (0.69 and 0.70; see **Table 2**), while the alpha of the katagelasticism scale was low (0.38). As expected, the Cronbach's alpha coefficients were smaller in the TABLE 2 | Descriptive statistics of the PhoPhiKat-9 and PhoPhiKat-45 in the validation sample 1.

*N* = *201–246. M, Mean; SD, Standard Deviation; Alpha, Cronbach's alpha; CITC, corrected item-total correlation; t-tests (df* = *224) for mean level differences of the short and long form scales of gelotophobia, gelotophilia, and katagelasticism.* \*\*\**p* < *0.001.*

short form than in the PhoPhiKat-45 (see **Table 2**) due to the smaller number of items.

Second, we investigated mean level differences between the gelotophobia, gelotophilia, and katagelasticism scale, assessed by the short and the long form with t-tests for dependent samples. As shown in **Table 2**, the gelotophobia and gelotophilia means were higher in the short form, compared to the long form. The mean score of katagelasticism was lower in the short form assessment than the long form. Importantly, the results indicated that the cut-off for gelotophobia (>2.5 in the gelotophobia scale of the PhoPhiKat-45) could not be applied in the short form, as this would lead to an over-estimation of gelotophobes due to the increased mean in the short form. Therefore, we estimated the cut-off score equivalents for the short form by means of plotting the gelotophobia scores of the short and long form in a bivariate plot. The plot indicated that the equivalent of the 2.5 cut-off in the long form was reached by the approximate cut-off score of 2.67 in the short form. In both samples, the gelotophobia scores reached a cumulative percentage of 80.9% at the values of 2.47 (long form) and 2.67 (short form). With this cut-off equivalent, that classification of gelotophobes was only minimally different between the PhoPhiKat-45 and the PhoPhiKat-9. Splitting the group according to the criterion of the long form (cut-off of 2.5) resulted in 40 individuals being classified as gelotophobes. Splitting the group according to the cut-off equivalent in the ultra-short form (>2.67) resulted in 43 individuals being classified as gelotophobes4 . Third, we investigated the correlations of the short and the long form of the PhoPhiKat. The correlations between the respective traits of the short and long form were high (0.58–0.76, p < 0.001). As expected (see Ruch and Proyer, 2009), both gelotophobia scales were unrelated to the katagelasticism scales (−0.03 to −0.10, n.s.) and negatively related to the gelotophilia scales (−0.36 to −0.42, p < 0.001). The katagelasticism scales were positively related to gelotophilia (0.34–0.38, p < 0.001). Previously reported correlation patterns could be replicated for both forms of the PhoPhiKat and the inter-correlations between the short and long form indicated an acceptable content overlap4 .

### Predicting Responses Toward Ridicule and Teasing Scenarios

To investigate the criterion validity of the PhoPhiKat-9, we utilized the RTSqr in the Validation Sample 1. Earlier research (e.g., Platt, 2008) showed that gelotophobes did not distinguish between ridicule and teasing when having to rate the emotions toward ridicule and teasing scenarios, assigning predominantly low joy, high fear, and high shame to both kinds of scenarios. Thus, in a first step, we investigated whether individuals above the cut-off point for gelotophobia would show similar response patterns of feeling high negative emotions and low joy when confronted with ridicule and teasing scenarios. We applied the cut-off equivalent for the short form (no gelotophobia ≤2.67, n = 203; gelotophobia >2.67, n = 43 individuals) for gelotophobia and computed two repeated measures ANOVAs (for the ridicule and teasing scenarios), with gelotophobia group (no gelotophobia vs. gelotophobia) as factor, the eight emotion ratings as repeated measures, and the intensity of emotion as dependent variable. For the ridicule scenarios, results showed that both main effects for type of emotion [F(7, 1393) = 65.61, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.248] and gelotophobia group [F(1, 199) = 16.73, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.078] were significant. Furthermore, the results

were qualified by an interaction between gelotophobia group and type of emotion, F(7, 1393) = 16.86, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.078. **Figure 1** shows the means and confidence intervals (95%) of the eight emotion ratings in the two groups (gelotophobia vs. no gelotophobia) toward ridicule and teasing scenarios.

Replicating the findings of Platt (2008), both groups of individuals assigned ridicule to negative feelings (mainly anger) and low joy. **Figure 1** shows that the gelotophobes had higher ratings of sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, shame, and fear compared to individuals without a fear of being laughed at (all p < 0.05, Bonferroni corrected). In line with the predictions, the level of gelotophobia predicted the disproportionate negative responses to being laughed at by eliciting more intense negative feelings toward ridicule scenarios.

Concerning the teasing scenarios, results showed that both main effects for type of emotion [F(7, 1400) = 27.67, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.094] and gelotophobia group [F(1, 200) = 27.40, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.121] were significant. Furthermore, the results were qualified by an interaction between gelotophobia group and type of emotion, F(7, 1400) = 33.61, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.144. As **Figure 1** indicates, gelotophobes were higher in anger, fear, disgust, contempt, shame, and lower in joy and surprise, compared to individuals with no fear of being laughed at (all p < 0.05,

4For the PhoPhiKat-45, age and gender differences were reported (see Ruch and Proyer, 2009). For replication purposes, we computed correlations between the three dispositions, age and gender in both forms. Concerning the relations to the participant's age, both katagelasticism scales were negatively related to age, as previously found; rshort (225) = −0.11, p = 0.106, rlong (246) = −0.14, p = 0.031. Also, the participant's age correlated negatively to gelotophobia [rshort (225) = −0.11, p = 0.103, rlong (246) = 0.18, p = 0.005], but was unrelated to gelotophilia [rshort (225) = −0.04, p = 0.564, rlong (246) = −0.01, p = 0.878]. Fourth, we computed a MANOVA with gender as factor and the scales of the PhoPhiKat long and short forms as dependent variables. The overall effect was significant, F(6, 218) = 2.21, p = 0.043, = 0.057. In line with the expectations, post-hoc tests indicated that males scored higher on both katagelasticism scales (p < 0.05). Males and females did not differ in gelotophobia and gelotophilia (all n.s.). The results show that the short form and long form revealed the same patterns of relationships to the demographic variables, replicating former findings (see Ruch and Proyer, 2009).

Bonferroni corrected). Thus, gelotophobes did not evaluate the friendly teasing scenarios as such, but assigned them negative emotions (mostly shame, fear, and anger) and low joy, just as to the ridicule scenarios. This replicates former findings (see Platt, 2008) but also shows that this effect can be found for the short form of the PhoPhiKat-9 as well, validating its suitability for the assessment of gelotophobia. Furthermore, the results show the bias of gelotophobes toward social situations in which teasing occurs (i.e., banter at work, pro-social teasing among friends): Instead of seeing the joyful component, gelotophobes report that they would mainly feel anger, shame, and fear.

Next, we investigated the role of katagelasticism and gelotophilia in predicting responses to ridicule and teasing. As no cut-offs exists for these dispositions, we decided to compute four hierarchical multiple regression analyses (two for the teasing and ridicule scenarios) with gelotophilia and katagelasticism as criteria and the eight emotion ratings as predictor variables. A multiple regression model was estimated in which predictors were entered when they added to the prediction of the dependent variable substantially or removed, when they did no longer add substantially to the prediction due to the inclusion of another variable (STEPWISE-procedure). These predictors entered the analysis in a second block preceded by age and gender in a first block which entered simultaneously. First, the findings on gelotophilia are reported. In the ridicule scenarios, the regression led to a multiple correlation coefficient of R = 0.36, F(3, 197) = 9.62, p < 0.001. Gelotophilia was solely predicted by the assigned joy to the scenarios (β = 0.19, p < 0.001), while neither age (β = −0.003, p = 0.445) nor gender (β = −0.13, p = 0.282) had a significant contribution. No other emotion rating entered in a further step. In the teasing scenarios, the multiple correlation was R = 0.47 [F(3, 198) = 18.95, p < 0.001]. Again, gelotophilia was predicted by the joy rating entering the equation (β = 0.36, p < 0.001), while neither age (β = −0.08, p = 0.239) nor gender (β = −0.06, p = 0.331) contributed significantly. No other variable entered the equation. As expected, joy mainly predicted gelotophilia in both types of scenarios.

Concerning the prediction of katagelasticism in teasing scenarios, gender turned out to be significant predictor in the first step, F(2, 198) = 3.26, p = 0.037, R = 0.18, β = −0.20, p = 0.022. Age did not predict the katagelasticism score, β = −0.01, p = 0.162. No further variable entered the equation, indicating that none of the emotion ratings toward teasing scenarios were good predictors of the joy of laughing at others. For the ridicule scenarios, the regression led to a multiple correlation coefficient of R = 0.34 [F(4, 196) = 6.25, p < 0.001]. Gender (entering in the first step) had a significant contribution (β = −0.18, p = 0.030), but not age (β = −0.01, p = 0.059). Furthermore, there were unique contributions of the self-reported joy in ridicule (β = 0.10, p < 0.001) and contempt to the prediction of katagelasticism (β = 0.04, p = 0.009).

### Gelotophobia, Gelotophilia, and Katagelasticism and Workplace Outcomes

Next, we investigated the relationship of the three dispositions toward ridicule and laughter to life and global work satisfaction, as well as work stress in a large and representative sample of Swiss employees (Validation Sample 2). This could give first indication of whether the three dispositions can help explaining workplace related vulnerabilities. Findings for gelotophobia are presented first. Here, the established cut-off score warrants the analysis of gelotophobes vs. non-gelotophobes. We utilized the adapted cutoffs for the PhoPhiKat-9. The means and standard deviations can be seen in **Table 3**; for individuals with (gelotophobia group; scores >2.67; n = 115) and without a fear of being laughed at (no gelotophobia; scores ≤2.67; n = 1017) separately5 .

**Table 3** shows the means in life satisfaction, global work satisfaction, and work stress in individuals with or without a fear of being laughed at. Investigating group differences, we computed three ANOVAs with the gelotophobia group as the factor and life satisfaction, work satisfaction, and general work stress as dependent variables. Results indicated gelotophobes reported lower levels of life satisfaction and global work satisfaction, as well as higher perceived work stress (see **Table 3**) compared to individuals with no fear of being laughed at. Thus, in line with our hypotheses, gelotophobia was negatively related to indicators of satisfaction and went along with higher reported stress.

For the investigation of the relationship of gelotophilia and katagelasticism to life and work satisfaction and work stress, we computed hierarchical multiple regression analysis with gelotophilia and katagelasticism as predictors and life satisfaction, work satisfaction, and work stress respectively as criteria. The predictors entered the analysis simultaneously in a second block preceded by age and gender in a first block (both entering simultaneously as well). To predict life satisfaction, the regression led to a multiple correlation coefficient of R = 0.12, F(4, 1246) = 4.16, p = 0.002. Life satisfaction was predicted by gelotophilia (β = 0.07, p = 0.022), and katagelasticism (β = −0.10, p < 0.001), while neither age (β = 0.05, p = 0.059) nor gender (β = 0.007, p = 0.800) had a significant contribution. For work satisfaction, the multiple correlation was R = 0.06 [F(4, 1238) = 0.96, p = 0.431]. None of the predictors had a significant contribution (all p > 0.200). For work stress, the multiple correlation was R = 0.14 [F(4, 1236) = 6.03, p < 0.001). Only katagelasticism predicted work stress (β = 0.14, p < 0.001), while neither gelotophilia (β = −0.01, p = 0.708), age (β = 0.03, p = 0.370) nor gender (β = −0.01, p = 0.672) contributed significantly.

*Gelotophobia scores* >*2.67 on the PhoPhiKat-9.* \*\*\**p* < *0.001.*

5Cut-off score equivalents for marked and extreme gelotophobia assessed with the short form are at 3.33 (marked) and 3.67 (extreme).

### DISCUSSION

The aim of this study was two-fold. First, we adapted the PhoPhiKat-9 for the use in large-scale studies and as a screening tool in applied settings. Second, we established first relations to work-related outcome variables in a representative sample of the Swiss work force. In terms of construction of the PhoPhiKat-9, all three dispositions can be reliably assessed with this ultra-short form. The psychometric characteristics were satisfactory when considering that this ultra-short form should only be used in large samples. The relations to demographic variables were comparable to relations found for the standard PhoPhiKat-45. Two deviations from the original PhoPhiKat-45 occurred: First, the cut-off point for gelotophobia set at 2.5 on the original PhoPhiKat-45 could not be utilized with the ultra-short form, as the means were generally higher compared to those of the original scale. We therefore estimated cut-off score equivalents basing on the criterion for the sample that had filled in both forms (long and short form). The new cutoff was set at 2.67. Second, one item representing gelotophilia revealed high loadings on the gelotophobia component as well, which may need consideration in future studies (i.e., re-phrasing item).

We utilized two independent samples to validate the PhoPhiKat-9. In line with former studies (Platt, 2008; Platt et al., 2009), the present results replicated the misperception of teasing and ridicule by individuals with elevated scores in gelotophobia. In a work based context, gelotophobes are probably going to have problems distinguishing between the friendly smiling and banter between colleagues (see also Hofmann et al., 2015), taking it for bullying. There is a stable pattern of reporting being a victim of bullying and greater expressions in gelotophobia already starting from the age of six (self- and peer-reports; for an overview see Ruch et al., 2014). Gelotophobes are therefore more likely to feel bullied and discriminated in the workplace, leading to more perceived stress, and lower satisfaction with work and life (cf. Proyer et al., 2012b). This was substantiated by findings of the second validation, where gelotophobes described themselves as less satisfied with life and work, as well as more stressed at the work place, compared to those individuals without gelotophobia.

With respect to gelotophilia, the main finding was that higher ratings of gelotophilia went along with higher ratings of joy toward both, teasing and ridicule scenarios in the RTSqr. Gelotophiles take humorous instances light-heartedly and will initiate them with pleasure. Surprisingly, no relations of gelotophilia to satisfaction and work stress were found, indicating that other factors might be more important in the prediction of those outcomes. Interestingly, katagelasticism was predicted by the joy and contempt assigned to ridicule scenarios. In line with the descriptions by Ruch and Proyer (2009), katagelasticists get pleasure from laughing at other and will also use this as a social corrective, or to take revenge on others (i.e., "an eye for an eye," see Ruch and Proyer, 2009). Already Tomkins (1969) stated that contempt toward another person might lead to laughter directed at this individual (see Hofmann et al., 2015): Katagelasticists might ridicule a person that is disliked or has overstepped a norm, and the ridicule goes along with laughter and humor targeted at the person (e.g., Tomkins, 1969; "the laugh becomes a vehicle of contempt," p. 367). Unexpectedly, the Cronbach's Alpha of the katagelasticism scale was lower in this sample than in the other three samples (0.38 compared to 0.64, 0.65, and 0.65 in the construction and validation samples respectively). Thus, the findings on the katagelasticism scale are best treated more cautiously in this sample, while the scale is stable in the other three samples. With respect to the second validation, negative relations of katagelasticism to life satisfaction and positive relations to work stress were found. One possible explanation might be that katagelasticists generally experience more conflicts with others (generally, as well as in the work place), as they overtly laugh at them. This potentially could lead to problems in the work place and consequently to increasing levels of stress. Alternatively, katagelasticism has been shown to positively relate to psychoticism and psychopathic traits (see Proyer et al., 2012a), as well as lower social desirability. Those higher order traits might be (partially) responsible for more conflicts that could lead lowered life satisfaction and higher work stress. Thus, future studies may investigate this hypothesized mechanism and also investigate the incremental validity of katagelasticism compared to higher order traits, such as psychoticism.

Two main limitations prevail: The factor structure of the PhoPhiKat-9 did not reveal a consistent pattern for the gelotophilia scale. The item "There is no difference for me whether people laugh at me or laugh with me" loaded higher on the gelotophobia scale than on the gelotophilia scale. It is hypothesized that this item was maybe interpreted differently to the initial meaning: If individuals fear being laughed at, it does not make a difference to them if people laugh with or at them, as both is negative. In the original sense, the item possessed a positive connotation: It does not make a difference whether people laugh at or with a gelotophile, as both is equally enjoyable. This item needs a clearer phrasing toward all laughter being good to fit on the gelotophilia factor. Moreover, the mechanisms between gelotophobia, and the lowered satisfaction and work stress need to be looked at in more detail, at best by studying phenomena longitudinally. Furthermore, future studies should aim at investigating the incremental validity of the three dispositions toward ridicule and laughter in the prediction of workplace related outcomes when controlling for broader personality traits (i.e., the "Big Five"). Moreover, future studies may opt for more balanced samples in terms of gender ratio.

### APPLICATION

In light of work place behavior and career trajectories, all three dispositions relate to relevant behaviors and perceptions, such as work place bullying and perceived discrimination (e.g., Platt, 2008; Platt et al., 2009; Ruch and Proyer, 2009; Proyer and Ruch, 2010; Chen and Liu, 2012). The measurement of gelotophobia, gelotophilia, and katagelasticism in work place environments can indicate important team processes relating to the popular topics of "good work practice" and "avoidance of incidents of work place bullying." Gelotophobia may link to unfavorable work outcomes, like feeling one is being bullied, misunderstanding any laughter and humor in teams, and maybe being more stressed and less satisfied with the work environment as a consequence. Understanding the (mis-) perception will assist in redressing the bias often placed toward the alleged victims. This is of concern not only to institutions, human resource units and those practicing workplace law but also to public and governmental bullying initiatives. Hence, intervention programs should aim at raising awareness about the role of laughter and laughing at the workplace in general, but also those with greater fear of being laughed at directly. There are no standardized programs addressing the fear of being laughed at, but learning about humor and laughter and how to deal with (perceived) ridicule may be beneficial for those with extreme expressions, i.e., formulating guidelines and offering advice for applied psychologists (see Platt et al., 2012). The ultra-short form is only utilized for screening larger samples, yet, the judgments on the three dispositions need to be consolidated by giving the PhoPhiKat-45 (or the short form PhoPhiKat-30) to individuals that potentially fear being laughed at or potentially are work place bullies. This potentially helps to improve team processes and relations among co-workers and customers.

### REFERENCES

### ETHICS STATEMENT

This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of "Swiss Psychological Association"; and the Ethics Committee of the Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, with written informed consent from all subjects. All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

### AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Conception or design of the work: WR and JH. Data collection: JH, WR, RP, TP, FG. Data analysis and interpretation: JH, WR, RP, and FG. Drafting the article: JH. Critical revision of the article: WR, RP, FG, and TP. Final approval of the published version JH, WR, RP, FG, TP.

### FUNDING

This publication benefited from the support of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES—Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives, which is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number: 51NF40- 160590). The authors are grateful to the Swiss National Science Foundation for its financial assistance.

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