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This paper describes the adaptation of the French version of the GELOPH, a short questionnaire (15 items) that measures the fear of being laughed at (gelotophobia). The first empirical studies revealed that gelotophobia is a valid and useful new concept that should be interpreted as an individual differences phenomenon within the range of normality. Prior studies suggested that the GELOPH is reliable, and showed a one-dimensional factor solution. In order to test psychometric properties of the French version, N = 218 participants from the French part of Switzerland and N = 245 participants from Quebec (French Canada) took the test. One item that yielded a particularly high endorsement pertained to the interpretation of others' laughter as being laughter at oneself (Switzerland); another item with the same result reflected how unease experienced while dancing is due to the conviction that one is being assessed negatively by others (Quebec). The fear of being laughed at was independent of the participants' age, sex or marital status. Additionally, the mean gelotophobia scores in the French Canadian and Swiss samples did not differ from each other. The French version of the GELOPH provides a useful and reliable instrument for the subjective assessment of gelotophobia in French-speaking countries.

The current study examines whether the fear of being laughed at (gelotophobia) can be assessed reliably and validly by means of a self-report instrument in different countries of the world. All items of the GELOPH (Ruch and Titze, GELOPH〈46〉, University of Düsseldorf, 1998; Ruch and Proyer, Swiss Journal of Psychology 67:19–27, 2008b) were translated to the local language of the collaborator (42 languages in total). In total, 22,610 participants in 93 samples from 73 countries completed the GELOPH. Across all samples the reliability of the 15-item questionnaire was high (mean alpha of .85) and in all samples the scales appeared to be unidimensional. The endorsement rates for the items ranged from 1.31% through 80.00% to a single item. Variations in the mean scores of the items were more strongly related to the culture in a country and not to the language in which the data were collected. This was also supported by a multidimensional scaling analysis with standardized mean scores of the items from the GELOPH〈15〉. This analysis identified two dimensions that further helped explaining the data (i.e., insecure vs. intense avoidant-restrictive and low vs. high suspicious tendencies towards the laughter of others). Furthermore, multiple samples derived from one country tended to be (with a few exceptions) highly similar. The study shows that gelotophobia can be assessed reliably by means of a self-report instrument in cross-cultural research. This study enables further studies of the fear of being laughed at with regard to differences in the prevalence and putative causes of gelotophobia in comparisons to different cultures.