Influence of Junior High School Students’ humor styles and perceptions of their class Teachers’ humor Styles on Teacher-Student Interaction

A sense of humor constitutes a core factor that influences teacher-student interactions. The humor that teachers utilize in class may influence teacher-student relationships, either positively or negatively. Moreover, teachers’ humor style influences students’ humor style, and vice versa. This study aimed to construct patterns of humor styles based on typology and explore how these patterns influence their interactions. Data were collected from 990 Taiwanese students regarding their self-reported humor styles and perceptions of class teachers as well as the interaction between the two. Subsequently, k-means clustering was conducted by dividing participants into four clusters based on the collected data: positive humor endorsers, negative humor endorsers, humor deniers, and contradictory humor endorsers. Among these, the grouping of contradictory humor endorsers differed from previous findings. Among the four clusters, the teachers of positive humor endorsers were perceived to have a significantly higher influence and proximity to students, whereas contradictory humor endorsers were perceived to have the lowest influence and proximity to students. The research findings revealed that different patterns of teachers’ and students’ humor styles have a distinct influence on their interactions, which deepens our understanding of the extent to which their humor styles consistently impact their interactions.