Measuring the fear of being laughed at in Italian and Russian adolescents

Gelotophobia, or the fear of being laughed at, is the inability to enjoy positive aspects of humor and laughter. Most studies have been carried out on adults, but recently research on gelotophobia has turned to adolescents. The present cross-cultural study aimed to get the first comparative data on Italian (N = 1098, 13-20 y.o.) and Russian (N = 388, 12-17 y.o.) youths utilizing the GELOPH questionnaire. The results supported a one-factor structure of the gelotophobia scale for both the Italian and Russian samples, and its cross-cultural invariance in terms of structure and factor loadings. The scale showed good reliability in both the Italian (alpha = 0.79) and Russian samples (alpha = 0.78). The results revealed differences in agreement to specific items, which are more or less central to the description of gelotophobia in each country. Nonetheless, more similarities than differences emerged between Italian and Russian adolescents, in line with previous studies. A complicated interaction was shown for gelotophobia, age and gender factors, which could have higher impact than the possible cross-cultural differences. Nonetheless, in general, the fear of being laughed at showed higher levels during childhood, begin decreasing with age during the period of adolescence and it becomes lower in adults. Negative correlation between gelotophobia and humor coping was found in the Italian sample, which showed significant results in girls and in 18-age-years-old boys. It could be hypothesized that gelotophobia is inherent for the period of adolescence, when it has a universal pattern. The present findings have implications for identifying adolescents who need special attention.