Psychometric Analysis and Cross‐Cultural Comparisons of the Italian and English Sense of Humor Scale Parallel Version Short Form

The Sense of Humor Scale parallel version short form (SHS-PSF) is a novel self-report measure aimed at describing personality traits related to enjoyment of humor, laughter, verbal humor, humor under stress, humor in everyday life, and laughing at oneself. The present study recruited Italian (N = 298) and Canadian (N = 910) participants to complete the Italian and English versions, respectively, to assess the measurement properties of the newly translated Italian SHS-PSF together with Canadian results. The bifactor and six-factor models show more optimal fit indices than the one-factor model, albeit insufficient incremental validity indices. Based on Samejima's graded response model, item discrimination parameters ranged from 0.32 to 2.58 (median = 1.24), with 27 of 29 items showing moderate to very high discrimination parameters. Conditional reliability estimates reveal accurate measurements across the latent continuum. Four items had uniform differential item functioning (DIF) when comparing the Italian and English SHS-PSF (McFadden's pseudo R2 > 0.035 or β > 0.10). The Italian SHS-PSF has insufficient-to-acceptable psychometric properties. Cross-language measurement evaluation comparisons suggest significant biases in 4 of 29 items using conservative DIF approaches.