Mo Ka Ng & Shanaz Nazeefa Fijudeen: Humor & Cross-Cultural Adaptation

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 When individuals cross cultures they face a myriad of personal and social challenges, one of which is learning and understanding humor patterns in the new culture. This project seeks to answer a specific research question related to Singaporean humor understanding and friendship network formation in Singapore. Mo Ka and Shanaz conducted research and examined findings that could potentially advance cross-cultural adaptation theory, humor styles theory, and inform international educators. Here is what both students had to say about their experiences:

Mo Ka - What I Did and Learned:

"I did a mentored research project on cultural adaptation and humor. Our questionnaire asked international students in Singapore to rate their understanding of Singaporean standup comedians' jokes, and to complete the humor style questionnaire to compare against Singaporeans' humor styles. The idea was that the more similar the humor style to Singaporeans', the better adapted the student. Results showed that those with habits beneficial to adaptation (e.g. having local friends, consuming local media) also showed a higher level of Singaporean humor understanding. Our study is the first to link humor styles and cultural adaptation and highlights the importance of humor in cultural adaptation. Throughout the project, most memorable were gift card collection and data analysis. I kept a list of participants, contacted them for the collection, and recorded the gift cards and receipts. Our professor also demonstrated how to use SPSS in data analysis and how to link to our hypotheses. I learned to keep clear and thorough records, and to link complex, abstract data to real life conclusions. I believe that this experience will help me greatly during graduate school when I take on my own research project. Learning to keep thorough records and to think analytically and apply them to the situation at hand are invaluable skills in the workplace. As such, I believe that participating in any research project is not only a valuable item on anyone's resume, but also gives one an array of useful tools for the future. I would recommend this greatly to anyone who is interested in preparing for their future." 

Shanaz - What I Did and Learned:

"In this project, we looked at adaptation to a new culture through humor. Our main target for this project is international students in Singapore. We mainly looked at 3 variables: friendships of international students (friends from the same country as participant, different county from participant, Singapore), understanding of Singaporean humor, and participant's humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, self-defeating, aggressive). Through this project we found that international students largely have friends mainly from their own country, and that international students with Singaporean friends were better able to understand and appreciate Singaporean humor. One really interesting finding we got was that mass media and new media did play a role in allowing international students to understand Singaporean humor better. I got to learn many new things through this project, such as how literature reviews should be done in research papers, and how cultural diversity affects different aspects of adaptation. I was also able to gain intercultural knowledge and competence through research on the topic of cultural adaptation. These together helped me to be a better critical thinker and have deeper understanding on different issues. Therefore, I strongly believe that being involved in such projects would expand your view on the topic of research, and increase your global awareness."