NCBI ROFL: Gelotophobia: more common than you might think.

Gelotophobia in Israel: on the assessment of the fear of being laughed at. "Gelotophobia is defined as the fear of being laughed at. Empirical studies revealed that it is a valid and useful concept which deserves further attention. Furthermore, gelotophobia is of relevance among nonclinical groups, and it should be best conceptualized as an individual differences phenomenon that ranges on a dimension from low to high fear of being laughed at. The present study presents the first empirical data on the fear of being laughed at in Israel (N = 220). It describes the adaptation of an instrument for the subjective assessment of gelotophobia to Hebrew. The translation yielded good psychometric properties in terms of high reliability . The Hebrew-GELOPH is best described with a one-dimensional factor solution. Items referring especially to the avoidance of places where one has made an embarrassing impression yielded higher endorsements. Gelotophobia was more prevalent ...