Anna Karenina essays

Anna Karenina essays Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy is a novel about love and marriage among the Russian aristocracy in the 1870s. Anna is young, beautiful woman married to a powerful government minister, Karenin. She falls in love with the elegant Count Vronsky and after becoming pregnant by him, leaves her husband Karenin and her son Seryozha to live with her lover. Despite the intervention of friends such as her brother Oblonsky, an adulterer himself, she is unable to obtain a divorce, and lives isolated from the society that once glorified her. As a man, Vronsky enjoys relative social freedom, which causes Anna to have increasingly intense fits of jealousy. Because of her constant suspicion, she thinks that Vronskys love for her is dwindling. Their story is ended by an exciting finale that moves the reader. Interwoven with the story of Anna, is the tale of Levin, a thoughtful, passionate young man who seeks to marry the Princess Catherine Shcherbatskaya, known as Kitty. Kitty rejects his first proposal because she believes that Vronsky, who flirted with her before he met Anna, intends to marry her. Levin is devastated and withdraws to his country estate and works on a book about agriculture. But the couple reunites through another appearance of Oblonsky, Kittys brother in law, and they discover that they are deeply in love. Kitty joyfully accepts Levins second proposal. Once married, they live happily in the country, host their families and guests during the summers, and have a son. Levin's philosophical doubt and religious skepticism trouble him despite his domestic happiness, but, after a spiritual enlightenment, he finally recognizes that the capacity for goodness is innate. He devotes himself to living for his loved ones, and to giving his life meaning by advancing the will of God . Anna Karenina is a timeless classic and has been acclaimed by many literary critics as the best or one of the best novels of all time. One critic te...

The secret history vs the bacchants essays

The secret history vs the bacchants essays The novel of Donna Tartt The Secret Hystory has many similarities with the play of Euripides The Bacchants, but the differences are too contrasting beteween each other that it is safe to say that The Secret Hystory is definetly not a modern day version of The Bacchants. The themes are very different to the point where they contradict each other, the thenes of The Bacchants, that is Fear the gods and follow blindly the gods, is completely different and opposite to the thenes of the secret hystory which is to think ahead and know what effects will an action bring before doing any action. In the other hand the themes from The Bacchants almost urge you to have complete submission to the gods, thats why the theme between the bacchants and the secret history contradict each other. A similatiry is that both themnes of both the novel and the play teach us that if we dont follow their respective themes, we will end up in a tragic en like the charactes of the bacchants and the secret hystory. If you look back at the themes differences paragraph you will see that the themes contradict each other in the aspect of instructions yet, Donna Tartt uses a similar outcome for her characters to the characters of The Bacchants, in other words, Donna Tart is Criticizing Euripides play The Bacchants. The main difference of the plot between The Bacchants and The Secret History are that that Dionysus followers practiced the rituals because they were cursed by Dionysus, but the greek class students did the ritual by their own because they were curious, in other words, the greek students didtheritual by their own will, while the Dionsysus followers had no chice but to follow Dionysus because they were being mind controlled by Dionysus. This is a major plot difference ...

An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge Essay

An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge - Essay Example Plato invites us to imagine a group of life-long inhabitants of a prison-cave with no knowledge what so ever of the outside world. When shadows appear on the walls of the cave the inhabitants take them to be real entities without knowing that the shadows are actually those posed by the humans outside. This explanation of Plato directs towards the fact that â€Å"most of us live in ignorance most of the time. The worst of this situation is that we do not even know we are ignorant†. (Mitchell, 2008) The truth that we perceive, therefore, seems to be subjective to our experience and conditioning.The emotional states of our inner being determine the way we see the outside world. Great poetry works are inclined to this particular phenomenology. Poet Matthew Arnold, once, sitting over the edge of Dover Beach claimed the â€Å"grating roar† of the pebbles that the sea flung back and forth over the beach to have brought the â€Å"eternal note of sadness in†(stanza 1). Th e withdrawing of the sea from the coast only reminds him of the ignorance of people and their diminishing faith in god. It is the melancholic and sad state of the poet’s mind that makes him behold the sea also as sad. For a sad person, even a bright sunny green day will appear to be boring while for a joyous person, even a rainy, cloudy or a gloomy day might appear to be mirthful! Differences occur among individuals on the way we emotionally react to certain situations. Temper-oriented people do not need much of a reason to go haywire in anger while for those spiritually and morally inclined individuals, even the most aggravating circumstances might be won over by forgiveness. How we take things, therefore, is a matter of our subjective emotional state. The reason that we claim for any happening is purely determined by the kind of mindset we have been brought up with.

Making references to at least two of the operas that we have studied, Essay

Making references to at least two of the operas that we have studied, write on the main features of opera as an art form - Essay Example The ma8in features of opera as an art form are historicism and social reflections, a strong impact on feelings and sensation and authentic nature. Opera is a form of art reflecting historical or social events, criticism and observation of the epoch. For instance, Prelude and Liebestod from "Tristan and Isolda" by wagner show that opera becomes a matter for critical attention in the light of this nostalgia for power it can give its listeners (especially this most famous listener), a nostalgia that works even now as a high-class aestheticist cult and longing for and pursuit of a pure experience. Opera is a phenomenon whose time has come, even if the form is practically speaking dead in terms of new writing and performance of the new. "But within a society which was a structural unity the knowledge of certain types of material could always be relied on, so that the author of a music-drama was always in the closest contact with his audience" (Wellesz and Kean 89). Prelude and Liebestod break up the order of the singing contest by praising sensuality and emotions. These forces, heard in the orchestra, are those of the prelude, whos e music momentarily reappears (Zuckermann 32). Similar to other forms of art, opera has a strong impact on feelings and sensation of the listeners. ... What is more, the emotional listener "fiercely resists all attempts to make him listen structurally -- more fiercely, perhaps, than the culture consumer who for culture's sake might put up even with that." ().In short, emotional listeners display a troubling anti-intellectualism and use music predominantly as an excuse for extramusical emoting. These are people who vigorously reject the romanticized excess of emotional listening. But rather than attempting to move beyond it, into the kind of critical awareness engendered by authentically modern music, they naively retreat to the music of periods which they believe (wrongly) to be safe havens from the forces of reification and the predominantly commodity character of music. Purity and simplicity are highly desirable attributes of music destined for paidela, lest its effects become diluted, mistaken, or confused. Instruments capable of panharmonic playing were therefore particularly troublesome. For instance, in Mozart's Overture from "Don Giovanni" the unique feature is extraordinary expression of desire and emotions in music. What emerges from Prelude and Liebestod from "Tristan and Isolda" is a "sense of Wagner as a way station, revolutionary in the sacralization of art and pursuit of synaesthesia, but still too confined to produce a completely 'pure' experience" (Zuckermann 37). It was not merely a matter of draining off specificity to achieve heightened mystery and a reformulation of the Subject, but also of problematizing the relationship between word and tone (Zuckermann 39). Following Wellesz and Kean (1950) 'the very complicated laws' that govern musical discourse; these lead to two independent spheres that, fused though they may appear to be,

Project risk management of south africa's 2010 world cup challenge Essay

Project risk management of south africa's 2010 world cup challenge - Essay Example These negativities pose a great risk in hosting such a mega event. This country has never got such a chance to propagate its plus points at any previous time in history so it should focus on appropriate planning of strategies and successful management of risks. The political risks are high, as the opposition would always scrutinize each and every effort and actions of the ruling party. Organizing such a big event without any political upheaval is nearly impossible. Reports have already started coming which state that opposition feels that spending so much of money in a gala event is not required when South Africa has other burning issues like poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment to deal with. Each and every issue related to world cup is taking a political angle. There are a section of people who believe that showing so much of interest in this event should not be the priority of the government, instead the focus should be in the overall development of the country. This viewpoint has the risk of further aggravating the political tensions as the opposition may try to project this viewpoint of a small section of society into the opinion of the masses. This entire hullabaloo will negatively impact the feelings of those who are pro FIFA w orld cup in South Africa and give a chance to the opposition in creating a situation that might pose a threat to the hosting and staging of the sports event. All other controversial issues of the South African politics will also come in the fore thus distracting the ruling party’s enthusiasm and focus towards the event. Hence political unrest in the backdrop of this gala event is a major threat to this project. Other major controversies like power shortage in the country and underdeveloped broadcast infrastructure would be greatly emphasized by the opposition which would pose a threat to the South Africa’s image to the entire world. There is a risk from a section of

An investigation in the phenomenon of humour

An investigation in the phenomenon of humour Humor is a universal phenomenon which shows in the tribal and industrialized societies (Apte, 1985). In the Oxford English Dictionary, humor is defined as that quality of actions, speech, or writing which excites amusement; oddity, jocularity, facetiousness, comicality, fun (Simpson Weiner, 1989). From the psychology perspective, humor is stated as a cognitive, emotional and motivational stance toward incongruity, as inherent in funny artifacts, but also in inadvertently amusing situation, our fellow behaviour and attitudes, in fate and life and human nature and existence in general (Ruch, 2002). The term sense of humor will be more specific which refer to a personality trait or individual-differences variable (Ruch, 1998). In addition, Schmidt-Hidding (1963) and Ruch (1998) pointed out that humor has changed rapidly throughout history and during different epochs which has been viewed as predominant mood, talent virtue, style, philosophical attitude or world view. According to Marti n, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray and Weir (2003), the different facets of sense of humour lend themselves to different measurement approaches, including maximal performance tests (eg. Humour as cognitive ability), funniest ratings (eg. Humour as aesthetic response), observer ratings and self-reported scale. Furthermore, Tamaoka Takashima (1994) stated that humor actually is grounded in a cultural and social context as understanding humor should requires some knowledge of the language which humor was written. From past research, humor is often to be tested in different dimensions which include how it deals with stress and depression (Thornson, Powell, Sarmany-Schuller Hampes, 1997). Lefcourt (2001) stated that people with great sense of humor are easily get well with others, have better ability to cope with stress and also have a better mental and physical health. Martin (2000) explained that humor has become a broad and multi-faceted construct in current psychological research which refers to mental processing in creating, perceiving, understanding and appreciating humor, to characteristics of a stimulus or to the responses of the individual. Nowadays, there are lots of approaches to measure humor, which includes the self-report scales, ability tests, behavioural observation techniques and human appreciation measures. Among all the measurements, there are a few well-known measurements which are frequently used by researchers in their studies. These measurements include Coping Humor Scale (CHS; Matin Lefcourt, 1983), Situational Humor Response Questionnaire (SHRQ; Matin Lefcourt, 1984), The Sense of Humor Questionnaire (SHQ; Svebak, 1974), Multidimensional Sense of Humor (MHSH; Thorson Powell, 1993), and Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Gray Weir, 2003). Coping Humor Scale was a 7 items scale which designed to report individuals on the humor in coping with stress and the association between sense of humor and both mental and physical health. Besides that, Coping Humour Scale inquires participants used humour to alter difficult situation (Ruch, 1998). Following that, Situational Humor Response Questionnaire was a 21 items scale which has been used in research on sense of humor as a stress-moderator and also the association between sense of humor and both mental and physical health. Thorson (1990) critic SHRQ is a measurement that defines sense of humor purely in terms of laughter frequency. Kuiper and Martin (1993) stated that individuals who score higher marks in both the Coping humour Scale and Situational Humour Response Questionnaire had higher level of self esteem, less discrepancy between their actual and ideal self-concepts, and greater stability in their self concepts over time. Sense of Humor Questionnaire was a 21 items measured with 3 dimensions (Metamessage sensitivity, liking of humor, and emotional expressiveness. SHQ used for investigating relationship between sense of humor and other personality dimensions as well as measures of psychological and physical health and well being. Then, Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale was a 24 items scale with 4 factors (humor creativity and uses of humor for social purposes, uses of coping humor, appreciation of humorous people and appreciation of humor) comparing groups on sense of humor for determining correlates between sense of humor and other personality variables. Humor Styles Questionnaire was a 32 items scale which used to measure 4 humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive and self-defending) in accessing both positive and negative styles of humor in correlational research on the role of humor in psychological and physical health, etc. Lefcourt (2001) described that humor has always been found to occur in everyone across many different cultures around the world. Three different categories of research area in cross cultural differences or national differences in humor were suggested by Goldstein (1976): cross cultural comparisons, cross national replications, and intracultural research of Western and non-Western cultures. Other than that, Nevo, Nevo Yin (2001) stated that cross cultural studies are valuable because they help assess the generality of empirical phenomena and highlights the effects of specific cultural influences which show in Castell and Goldstein (1976) research. They compared different culture group like Belgium, Hong Kong and US, and found out that US unlike others nations, they preferred jokes which related to sexual and aggressive content. In addition, humor tends to be interpreting in different way by various cultures which results of cultural and linguistics differences (Thorson, Brdar and Pow ell, 1997). Besides that, Hofstede (1983) found out that cultures could be differentiated on two dimensions: individualism-collectivism andpower-distance. There are several studies using Multidimensional Sense of Humor to measures humor in cultural differences with the finding which culture score higher in creativity. In Nevo, Nevo Yin (2001) studies, there is a significant cross cultural difference found in the structured questionnaires was the tendency of Singaporean students to rely less on humor when coping with difficulty which concludes (Crawford Gressley, 1991) that they are tendency to produce humor rather than to appreciate it. The relationship of humor and gender are being discussed over year and year. According to Lampert Tripp (1998), men are more likely to joke, tease and kid, whereas women are more likely to act as an appreciative audience than to produce humor of their own. Powell, Sarmany-Schuller and Hampes (1997) stated that there are pretty much gender neutral in using the MSHS questionnaire, however, there are still some differences between male and women in the sense of humor. A past research which done by Thorson and Powell (1996) using the MSHS questionnaires showing that males tended to respond with higher score on the humor production and the social uses of humor, while woman respond with higher score in the coping mechanism. The study of Ho Chik (2010) have examines there is a gender differences in association with the moderating effects of coping humor on environmental mastery. The present study is interested in investigating the humour responses in both Malaysian and British cultures, cross gender comparison and also the interaction between the culture differences and the gender in humour. There are few studies in humour using Western countries culture like British, Canadian and Eastern countries culture such as Singaporean, Hong Konger and Japanese but they arent studies done on Malaysian humour. There wasnt any research have been done between Malaysian and British but there were researches done between western and eastern culture which the hypothesis was made accordingly to the results done by previous cultural studies. In the support of the past research, two hypotheses were made for this study. The first hypothesis were that male participants will be more humorous than female which based on the finding of past research like Thornson Powell (1996) which shows men will score higher in the humour production and humour creativity of Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale. Additionally, the second hypothesis was British tend to be funnier, hilarious comparing to Malaysian due to the cultural differences. Acordingly to the studies of humour in most of the eastern culture showed that they are not humourous as western cultures because of their own cultural bias. Method Participants There were 100 participants (28 female Malaysian, 28 male Malaysian, 22 female British, 22 male British) were recruited for this study. 75% of British and Malaysian participants were recruited Middlesex University and Malaysia, the remaining 25% were recruited through email within Middlesex database and Malaysias friends. All the participants were required to respond to a demographic form and 4 sets of questionnaires (Coping Humour Scale, Situational Humour Response Questionnaire, Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale, Humour Scale Questionnaire). For this experiment, participants were between 16 to 57 years of age, the average mean of the age was 24.44 (SD= 6.76). All of them were English literate, able to do their questionnaire without others help. Design The present study carried out had an independent groups design. There were two independent variables which the first independent variable was the nationality of the participants and the second independent variable was the gender of the participants. The dependant variables are participants humour responses, which measured through 4 sets of questionnaires. These dependent variables include the Coping Humour Scale questionnaires, Situational Humour Responses Questionnaires, the affiliative humour, self-enhancing humour, aggressive humour and self-defeating humour of Humour Scale Questionnaires, the humour creativity, coping humour, attitude towards humorous people and facility of social uses of humour of Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale. Materials Participants are required to complete a demographical form with few questions, eg.Gender, nationality, age etc. (appendix 3) and 4 sets of Humour questionnaires which they were Coping Humour Scale (appendix 4), Situational Humour Response Questionnaire (appendix 5), Multidimensional Sense of Humour (appendix 6), and Humour Styles Questionnaire (appendix 7). The Coping Humour Scale (CHS; Martin Lefcourt, 1983) is a 7-item scale which designed to measure participants tendency to make use of humour as a strategy for coping with stress and also the association between sense of humor and both mental and physical health. The CHS (Coping Humour Scale) is a 4-point Likert scale which ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (4). Eg 1. extract from appendix 4 Strongly disagree Mildly disagree Mildly agree Strongly agree 1. I often lose my sense of humour when I am having problems. 2. I have often found that my problems have been greatly reduced when I try to find something funny in them. Example 1 The Situational Humour Response Questionnaire (SHRQ; Martin Lefcourt, 1984) is designed to assess participants sense of humour as the tendency to laugh and smile in a wide range of situations. The SHRQ includes 18 situational items that describe a possible life situation. Participants were asked to respond to the situation by imaging or recalling it, which they could be as irritating or they might be amusing. These questionnaires will be rated in a 5-point Guttman-type scale ranging from I wouldnt have found it particularly amusing (1) to I would have laughed heartily (5) (Martin 2006). Besides that, Martin (2006) also explain that the SHRQ correlated significantly with peer ratings of participants laughter, and tendency to use humour in stressful situations . Eg 2. Extract from appendix 5. 1. If you were shopping by yourself in a distant city and you unexpectedly saw an acquaintance from school (or work), how have you responded or how would you respond? (a.) I would probably not have bothered to speak to the person (b.)I would have talked to the person but wouldnt have shown much humor (c.) I would have found something to smile about in talking with him or her (d.)I would have found something to laugh about with this person (e.) I would have laughed heartily with the person Example 2 Humour Style Questionnaires (HSQ; Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Gray Weir, 2003) is a 32 items scale which consists of 4 humour style (each humour style contains of 8 items). The four humour style includes affiliative humour ( I enjoy making people laugh), self-enhancing humour (If I am feeling depressed, I can usually cheer myself up with humour), aggressive humour (if someone make mistake, I will often tease them about it) and finally the self-defeating humour (I let people laugh at me or make fun at my expense more than I should). Humour Style Questionnaires consists of 21 positively- phrased item and 11 negatively-phrased items which the 11 negatively-phrased items will be reversed in scoring. All questions are answered by participants on a seven-point scale ranging from totally disagree (1) to totally agree (7). Eg 4. Extract from appendix 7 Totally Disagree = 1 Moderately Disagree = 2 Slightly Disagree = 3 Neither Agree nor Disagree = 4 Slightly Agree = 5 Moderately Agree = 6 Totally Agree = 7 1. ______ I usually dont laugh or joke around much with other people. 2. ______ If I am feeling depressed, I can usually cheer myself up with humor. Example 4 The Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale (MHSH; Thorson Powell, 1993) contains 24 self descriptive Likert item testing for the four factors which assess individual aspects of the sense of humour. These four factors includes humour creativity (sometimes I think up jokes and funny stories), use of humour as a coping mechanism (Uses of humour help to put me at ease), attitudes towards humour itself (people who tell jokes are a pain in the neck) and appreciation of humour (I appreciate those who generate humour). Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale consist of 18 positively- phrased item and 6 negatively-phrased item. The 6 negatively-phrased items are reversed in scoring. In this questionnaire, participants with higer scores indicate higher sense of humour (Thorson, Powell and Samuel, 2001). Participants were required to indicate their choices on every question on a Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Eg3.extract from appendix 6 Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree 1. I can often crack people up with the things I say. 1 2 3 4 5 2. Other people tell me that I say funny things. 1 2 3 4 5 Example 3 Procedure Participants were invited to participant in the study as they will be given an information sheet (appendix 1) which explained about the study. After finished reading the information sheet, they will be given the informed consent form (appendix 2) to sign if they willing to participate the experiment. After signing the consent form, they will require to fill in the demographic form (appendix 3) which consists of gender, age, nationality etc. Then, four sets of questionnaires which include the Multidimensional Sense of Humour Questionnaire, Humour Styles Questionnaire, Coping Humour Scale and Situational Humour Response Questionnaire will be given to them to fill in. After finishing all the questionnaires, participants were given a debriefing sheet (Appendix 8) and dismissed from the study. For participants recruited through email, they had also received the information sheet by email before they agreed to do the experiment. Then, they will receive a consent form to sign and together with the demographic form and four sets of questionnaires to fill in. After finished filling in all the answer, the consent form, demographic form and four sets of questionnaires will be given back through email. After receiving the questionnaires set, a debriefing sheet will be emailed to them. Results Descriptive statistics The means and standard deviations (S.D) for each of the measures are shown in table one to table two, by splitting gender (male, female) and nationality (British, Malaysian) respectively. From the table 1 shown below, British male had higher mean than Malaysian Male in all of the measures except Coping Humour scale. In the other hand, Malaysian female had higher mean compare to the British Female except Multidimensional sense of Humour Sense which shown in table 2. To be more specified, descriptive tables for both four subscale of Humour Style Questionnaires and Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale are shown in table three to table six. The Mean and Standard Deviation (S.D) of the dependent variables of Male Participants (50) were shown below as table 1. British Male Sample size = 22 Malaysian Male sample size= 28 Total Sample size =50 Mean S.D Mean S.D Mean S.D Coping Humour Scale 2.89 0.43 2.96 0.40 Situational Humour Response Questionnaire 2.70 0.62 2.47 0.45 Humour Style Questionnaire 5.44 4.33 4.09 0.50 Multidimensional sense of Humour Sense 4.01 3.17 3.22 0.24 Table 1 The Mean and Standard Deviation (S.D) of the dependent variables of Female Participants (50) were shown below as table 2. British Female Sample size = 22 Malaysian Female sample size= 28 Total Sample size =50 Mean S.D Mean S.D Mean S.D Coping Humour Scale 2.60 0.37 2.90 0.32 Situational Humour Response Questionnaire 2.34 0.43 2.46 0.39 Humor Style Questionnaire 4.05 0.46 4.09 0.67 Multidimensional sense of Humour Sense 3.30 0.29 3.16 0.26 Table 2 The Mean and Standard Deviation (S.D) of the Humour Style Questionnaires sub-factors (dependent variables) of Female Participants (50) were shown below as table 3. Humor Style Questionnaire British Male Sample size = 22 Malaysian Male sample size= 28 Total Sample size =50 Mean S.D Mean S.D Mean S.D Affiliative humour (HSQ) 5.41 1.23 5.18 0.79 5.29 1.00 Self-enhancing humour (HSQ) 4.70 1.10 4.00 0.89 4.28 1.04 Aggressive humour (HSQ) 3.50 1.04 3.50 0.68 3.49 0.85 Self-defeating humour (HSQ) 3.75 1.03 3.73 0.86 3.74 0.93 Table 3 The Mean and Standard Deviation (S.D) of the Humour Style Questionnaires sub-factors (dependent variables) of Female Participants (50) were shown below as table 4. Humor Style Questionnaire British Female Sample size = 22 Malaysian Female sample size= 28 Total Sample size =50 Mean S.D Mean S.D Mean S.D Affiliative humour (HSQ) 5.58 0.96 5.28 0.82 5.41 0.89 Self-enhancing humour (HSQ) 4.05 0.82 3.88 0.77 4.00 0.79 Aggressive humour (HSQ) 3.55 0.83 3.47 0.71 3.50 0.76 Self-defeating humour (HSQ) 3.03 0.90 3.72 1.05 3.42 1.04 Table 4 The Mean and Standard Deviation (S.D) of the Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale Questionnaires sub-factors (dependent variables) of Male Participants (50) were shown below as table 5. Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale British Male Sample size = 22 Malaysian Male sample size= 28 Total Sample size=50 Mean S.D Mean S.D Mean S.D Humour creativity 3.48 0.94 3.49 0.61 3.46 0.76 Coping humour 3.63 0.48 3.62 0.51 3.62 0.49 Attitude towards humorous people 3.89 0.65 3.91 0.55 3.90 0.59 Appreciation of humour 4.25 0.65 4.29 0.63 4.27 0.63 Table 5 The Mean and Standard Deviation (S.D) of the Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale Questionnaires sub-factors (dependent variables) of Female Participants (50) were shown below as table 6. Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale British Females Sample size = 22 Malaysian Females sample size= 28 Total Sample size= 50 Mean S.D Mean S.D Mean S.D Humour creativity 3.36 0.61 3.32 0.76 3.29 0.70 Coping humour 3.56 0.67 3.53 0.43 3.54 0.54 Attitude towards humorous people 4.31 0.63 3.95 0.72 4.11 0.70 Appreciation of humour 4.57 0.44 4.52 0.59 4.54 0.52 Table 6 Factor Analysis Factor analysis was carried out in order to test the validity of the sub-scales in two measures (Humour Style Questionnaires and Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale). It was expected that the four factors of each measure would emerge from this analysis. Both Humour Style Questionnaires and Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale used Principal Component Analysis (PCA) as the analysis. Table seven and table eight showed both of the results of the PCA of Humour Style Questionnaires and Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale using the Varimax rotation and Kaiser-Meyer-Oblin test. The results showed that the expected factors loading in previous studies did not emerge from the current sample. For the Humour Style Questionnaires, five items (questions 6, 22, 26, 27, 28) load in different factors comparing to Martins (2003) original questionnaires, which looks a bit confusing. In addition, four items (questions 7, 13, 16, 30) did not load significantly (at above .3), therefore, there were excluded from the tables 7. For the Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale, table 8 showed messy values load in each factors. Two factors can not be identified due to the messy items comparing with Thornson Powells (1993) original scale. Only one item did not load significantly (at above .3) on any factors. The overall results of the factor analysis were not satisfied, because the analysis came out in a mess. One of the reasons which contribute the following table 7 and table 8 might because of the small sample size (100) comparing with the large sample size (>1000) in Martins (2003) and Thornson Powells (1993) studies. Therefore, the following reliability test and ANOVA will adopt past researchs scale. Table 7: Factor loadings of the 32 items of Humour Style Questionnaires (Principal Componenet Analysis using Varimax Rotation, N=100) Items Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4 I usually dont like to tell jokes or amuse people. .765 I dont often joke around with my friends. .711 I usually dont laugh or joke around much with other people. .654 I enjoy making people laugh. .650 I usually cant think of witty things to say when I m with other people. .640 Even when Im by myself, Im often amused by the absurdities of life. .564 I rarely make other people laugh by telling funny stories about myself. .557 I dont have to work very hard at making other people laugh I seem to be a naturally humorous person. .468 I often go overboard in putting myself down when I am making jokes or trying to be funny .767 Letting others laugh at me is my way of keeping my friends and family in good spirits. .716 I often try to make people like or accept me more by saying something funny about my own weaknesses, blunders, or faults. .618 I will often get carried away in putting myself down if it makes my family or friends laugh. .598 If I dont like someone, I often use humor or teasing to put them down .554 I let people laugh at me or make fun at my expense more than I should .517 When I am with friends or family, I often seem to be the one that other people make fun of or joke about. .479 It is my experience that thinking about some amusing aspect of a situation is often a very effective way of coping with problems. .391 -.311 If I am feeling upset or unhappy I usually try to think of something funny about the situation to make myself feel better. .775 If Im by myself and Im feeling unhappy, I make an effort to think of something funny to cheer myself up. .755 If I am feeling depressed, I can usually cheer myself up with humor. .703 My humorous outlook on life keeps me from getting overly upset or depressed about things. .357 .322 .360 If I am having problems or feeling unhappy, I often cover it up by joking around, so that even my closest friends dont know how I really feel. .344 I do not like it when people use humor as a way of criticizing or putting someone down. .654 If I am feeling sad or upset, I usually lose my sense of humor. .393 .579 Even if something is really funny to me, I will not laugh or joke about it if someone will be offended .506 If someone makes a mistake, I will often tease them about it. .487 Sometimes I think of something that is so funny that I cant stop myself from saying it, even if it is not appropriate for the situation. .443 I never participate in laughing at others even if all my friends are doing it. -.334 .336 Eigenvalue 4.73 3.21 2.41 2.02 % of Variance 14.80 10.04 7.53 6.34 * Only Coefficient above .3 were shown Table 8: Factor loadings of the 24 items of Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale (Principal Componenet Analysis using Varimax Rotation, N=100) Items Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4 I can say things in such a way as to make people laugh. .837 Other people tell me that I say funny things. .825 Im confident that I can make other people laugh .793 My clever sayings amuse others. .785 I use humour to entertain my friends .779 Im regarded as something of a wit by my friends. .779 People look to me to say amusing things .773 I can often crack people up with the things I say. .755 Sometimes I think up jokes or funny stories .699 I can actually have some control over a group by my uses of humour .643 .324 I can use wit to help adapt to many situations. .545 .337 Trying to master situations through uses of humour is really dumb. .704 .333 Humour is a lousy coping mechanism .697 Calling somebody a comedian is a real insult. .695 I like a good joke .592 People who tell jokes are a pain in the neck. .581 Humour helps me cope .814 Uses of wit or humour help me master difficult situations .798 Coping by using humour is an elegant way of adapting. .750 I appreciate those who generate humour .774 Uses of humour to put me at ease. .523 .641 I dislike comics .566 Im uncomfortable when everyone is cracking jokes .372 .447 Eigenvalue 6.67 3.41 2.26 1.13 % of Variance 27.82 14.19 9.40 5.61 * Only Coefficient above .3 were shown Reliability Test The internal consistencies (Cronbach Alpha) were run in order to check the reliability of the test. The Cronbach Alpha for the Coping Humour Scale was low, .50 but still acceptable and it was lower than the value .61 found in Martin and Lefecourts (1983) studies in Canada. The corrected item-total correlation for the 7 item of Coping Humour Scale fall between .199 to .483, with an exception of Item 1 ( I often lose my sense of humour when I am having problems), which the corrected item-total correlation was -.22. This means that item 1 is not consistent with other items, if item 1 was deleted, the Cronbach Alpha of Coping Humour Scale will become .58, higher than current value .50. The Cronbach Alpha of the Situational Humour Response Questionnaire was high, .78 which was a reliable measure although it only consists of 18 items comparing to 21 items. The corrected item-total correlation for the 18 items of Situational Humour Response Questionnaire falls between .151 and .519. Given its comparability to previous study of 21 items, Cronbach Alpha ranging from .70 to .85 and test-retest correlation of around .70 was presented (Lefcourt Martin, 1986; Martin Lefcourt, 1984). The Cronbach Alphas of the four sub-scales (affiliative humour, self-enhancing humour, aggressive humour and self-defeating humour) of the Humor Style Questionnaire were .77, .68, .47 and .69 respectively. The Cronbach alpha of aggressive humour was low .47, if the item 27 (If I dont like someone, I often use humor or teasing to put them down) was deleted, the Cronbach alpha will rise to an acceptable value .50. Comparing with Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Gray and Weirs research(2002), reliabilit

Our Individual Social Responsibility Essay -- Personal Social Responsi

Individual Social Responsibility is a moral belief where we as individuals, have a responsibility toward society. Being "socially responsible" is about all individuals behaving ethically and sensitively towards social, economic, and environmental issues. It is about being accountable for our actions and being conscious of the impact your actions have on others, our communities, and the environment. By taking an active participation in resolving some of the issues, we as individuals should all strive to set good examples by applying and adhering to socially responsible practices, such as improving the quality of lives for individuals and their families, volunteer energy and time towards improving and benefiting society. Get involved and actively participate in helping to solve some ...