林語堂的人格特徵與幽默

田偉翠，張靈聰

漳州師範學院，福建

摘要

背景：林語堂被公認為中國的“幽默大師”。以往對林語堂及其幽默的研究，多從文學、歷史等角度展開。本文擬從心理學角度探討林語堂的人格特徵與其幽默的關係。

目的：從林語堂的幽默觀入手，以心理學的視角探討林語堂眼中幽默的現代意義，並分析其人格特徵對幽默感形成的影響。

建議：雖然本文從心理學視角出發，將林語堂的人格特質與其幽默觀相聯繫，探討了二者之間潛在的因果關係，但其從人格角度的探討不夠詳盡，從而顯得心理學視角不夠清晰。未來研究者可進一步探討林語堂的人格與其幽默的關係，而不要僅僅局限於其人格特徵與幽默的關係上。另外，本研究並未採取在行為科學領域常用的量化或質性研究，這也給未來研究者留下了諸多可探尋空間。

總結：林語堂將幽默理解為“亦莊亦諧”、“悲天憫人”的“會心的微笑”，並認為幽默具有社會和個體兩個角度的現代意義。而且，林語堂的人格特徵對其幽默感的形成具有以下兩方面的影響：（1）童年經歷為林語堂的幽默感奠定基礎；（2）中西文化的結合為其幽默人格提供基礎。

關鍵字：林語堂；幽默；人格特徵

Lin Yutang's Personality Characteristics and Humor

Weicui TIAN, Lingcong ZHANG

Zhangzhou Normal University, Fukien, China 

Background: Lin Yutang has been publicly recognized as China’s "master of humor". The researches of Lin Yutang and his humor in the past were more developed from literary or historical perspectives. This study will discuss the relationships of Lin Yutang’s personality and humor from the perspective of psychology.

Aims: This study will begin with Lin Yutang's view of humor, then discuss the modern significance of humor within Lin Yutang's eyes from the visual angle of psychology, and analyze the effect that his personality characteristics on the formation of his sense of humor.

Suggestions: Although this article embarks from the perspective of psychology, contacting Lin Yutang's personality with his view of humor, discussing their latent causal relationships, the discussion is not very exhaustive from the personality angle, and thus the visual angle of psychology is not clear enough. In the future, researchers may further discuss the relations of Lin Yutang's personality and humor, but do not limit merely in the relations. Moreover, this research has not adopted the qualitative or quantitative research which is commonly used in the behavioral sciences, this will also give the researchers much possible space what can be inquired in the future.

Conclusion: Lin Yutang understood the humor as the “understanding smile”, which was “solemn and also scherzando” after “feeling compassion for the state of the world and its people”. Moreover, he noted that there were social and individual two perspectives’ modern significances of humor. Talking of the effects of Lin’s character on humor formation, we found that: (1) The childhood experience had laid the foundation for his sense of humor; (2) the union of Chinese and Western cultures provided the foundation for his humorous personality. Furthermore, there remained some other problems. For example, it wasn't detailed enough from the study of character angle, and it didn't adopt the quantitative research or the qualitative research in the behavioral sciences realm. All of these were still in need.

Keywords: Lin Yutang; humor; personality characteristics