How Humor Styles Affect Self-Compassion and Life Satisfaction: A Study in Hong Kong (original) (raw)
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Describes the development and initial validation of the Humor Styles Questionnaire, which assesses four dimensions relating to individual differences in uses of humor. These are: relatively benign uses of humor to enhance the self (Self-enhancing) and to enhance oneÕs relationships with others (Affiliative), use of humor to enhance the self at the expense of others (Aggressive), and use of humor to enhance relationships at the expense of self (Self-defeating). Validation data indicate that the four scales differentially relate in predicted ways to peer ratings of humor styles and to measures of mood (cheerfulness, depression, anxiety, hostility), self-esteem, optimism, well-being, intimacy, and social support. They also relate to all five dimensions of the Five Factor Model and to Agency and Communion. The first two scales overlap with previous humor tests, whereas the Aggressive and Self-defeating humor scales largely tap different dimensions. Males scored higher than females on Aggressive and Self-defeating humor. It is expected that the HSQ will be useful for research on humor and psychological well-being by assessing forms of humor that may be deleterious to health as well as those that are beneficial.
Journal of Happiness Studies
Benevolent and corrective humor are two comic styles that have been related to virtue, morality, and character strengths. A previous study also supported the viability of measuring these two styles with the BenCor in 22 countries. The present study extends the previous one by including further countries (a total of 25 countries in 29 samples with N = 7,813), by testing the revised BenCor (BenCor-R), and by adding two criterion measures to assess life satisfaction and four broad humor dimensions (social fun/entertaining humor, mockery, humor ineptness, and cognitive/reflective humor). As expected, the BenCor-R showed mostly promising psychometric properties (internal consistency and factorial validity). Consistent with previous studies, benevolent humor correlated positively with life satisfaction in most countries, while corrective humor was uncorrelated with life satisfaction. These relationships were only slightly changed when controlling for social fun/entertaining humor and mockery, respectively. Benevolent humor was mostly positively associated with cognitive/reflective humor, followed by social fun/entertaining humor and mockery. Corrective humor was mostly positively associated with mockery, followed by cognitive/reflective and social fun/entertaining humor, although these relationships differed between the countries. Overall, the present study supports the viability of benevolent and corrective humor, which have yet received insufficient attention in psychology, for cross-cultural investigations and applications of humor, well-being, and morality.
Humor Types Show Different Patterns of Self-Regulation, Self-Esteem, and Well-Being
Journal of Happiness Studies, 2013
Humor styles have been found to be associated with well-being, however, no study has addressed the distinct well-being associations of combinations of humor styles, that is, humor types, yet. The present study thus aimed at investigating which combinations of humor styles exist and to which extent these humor types are associated with well-being. In an online questionnaire, the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ, Martin et al. J Res Pers 37:48-75, 2003), self-regulatory strategies, self-esteem, and well-being instruments were administered to a German sample. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses replicated the underlying structure of the HSQ. With hierarchical clustering, we found evidence for three humor types (endorsers, humor deniers, and self-enhancers), which differed in group means for self-esteem, self-regulatory strategies, and well-being. Findings provide further evidence for the positive well-being correlates of self-enhancing humor, and distinctly address the positive correlates of aggressive and self-defeating humor being absent. It is discussed that humor styles cannot be conceptualized as beneficial or detrimental per se, but have to be regarded in context.
Humor Styles, Subjective Happiness and Self-Esteem Among Indian Adolescents
This study examined how humor styles could mediate the effect of self-esteem on subjective happiness. 150 Indian school students completed the Humor Styles Questionnaire, the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, and the Subjective Happiness Scale. Results showed adaptive humor styles (affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor) significantly predicted self-esteem and subjective happiness and mediated the relationship between self-esteem and subjective happiness. Maladaptive humor styles (aggressive humor and self-defeating humor) did not strongly predict self-esteem or subjective happiness. The mediation effects of humor styles found in the present research provided useful suggestions for future studies.
Humor styles and emotional competence among young adults
International journal of Indian psychology, 2020
Humor's relationship to emotions has been addressed by a numerous study within the field of psychology. It is an essential component of social interaction as well as the very essence of an individual's personality. The purpose of this study is to uncover the association between humor styles and emotional competence and measure the strength of that relationship. Also, to understand the gender differences between them. This research is an attempt toward better understanding of how humor styles impact the crucial social skills to acknowledge, understand, and respond productively to emotions in individuals. The four humor styles as given by Martin, Affiliative, Self-enhancing, Aggressive and Self-deprecating were correlated with Emotional competence using the Humor styles questionnaire (HSQ) and the Emotional competence (EC) scale. A sample of 100 Indian young adults was taken for the study. The research concluded a positive correlation of Self-enhancing humor with Emotional competence in male young adults whereas indicated a significant positive correlation of Self-enhancing humor and negative relationship between Aggressive humor style and emotional competence in female young adults. The findings also revealed significant distinction in the use of Affiliative and Aggressive humor style between male and female young adults.
The Conceptualization, Measurement, and Role of Humor as a Character Strength in Positive Psychology
In positive psychology, humor has been identified as one of 24 character strengths considered ubiquitously important for human flourishing. Unlike the other strengths, humor was a late addition to this classification system and its status as a strength continues to be somewhat controversial. Therefore, the first purpose of this study was to explore the associations between humor and several outcome variables of relevance to positive psychology (happiness, routes to happiness, resilience, and morality). The second purpose was to explore how best to conceptualize and measure humor as a character strength by comparing the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) Humor Scale with the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) in their ability to predict the outcome variables. A sample of 176 participants completed questionnaires assessing the humor and positive psychology constructs. The results indicated that the humor measures significantly predicted most of the outcome variables, supporting the importance of humor in positive psychology. Furthermore, although the VIA-IS Humor scale and positive humor styles on the HSQ showed considerable overlap, the negative humor styles added significantly to the prediction of outcome variables beyond these positive humor measures, supporting the importance of assessing maladaptive as well as adaptive uses of humor in research on positive psychology. These findings suggest that the HSQ may be a more useful measure than the VIA-IS Humor scale in future research in this field.
Recently, two forms of virtue-related humor, benevolent and corrective, have been introduced. Benevolent humor treats human weaknesses and wrongdoings benevolently, while corrective humor aims at correcting and bettering them. Twelve marker items for benevolent and corrective humor (the BenCor) were developed, and it was demonstrated that they fill the gap between humor as temperament and virtue. The present study investigates responses to the BenCor from 25 samples in 22 countries (overall N = 7,226). The psychometric properties of the BenCor were found to be sufficient in most of the samples, including internal consistency, unidimensionality, and factorial validity. Importantly, benevolent and corrective humor were clearly established as two positively related, yet distinct dimensions of virtue-related humor. Metric measurement invariance was supported across the 25 samples, and scalar invariance was supported across six age groups (from 18 to 50+ years) and across gender. Comparisons of samples within and between four countries (Malaysia, Switzerland, Turkey, and the UK) showed that the item profiles were more similar within than between countries, though some evidence for regional differences was also found. This study thus supported, for the first time, the suitability of the 12 marker items of benevolent and corrective humor in different countries, enabling a cumulative cross-cultural research and eventually applications of humor aiming at the good.
Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 2014
This study investigated the psychometric properties of the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) and the relation between humor and psychological well-being within the context of Italy. A total of 293 (178 females, 115 males) Italian high school and undergraduate university studentswhose ages ranged from 14 to 25 years -completed the Italian versions of the HSQ and the Ryff's Psychological Well-Being scales (RPWB). The HSQ scale reliabilities were generally acceptable, and intercorrelations among the scales were rather low; the confirmatory factor analysis supported the four-factor structure. Males reported significantly more use of Aggressive humor than did females; no differences were found between adolescents and young adults in the use of humor styles. Affiliative and Self-enhancing humor styles were positively associated with the six dimensions of the RPWB, whereas Self-defeating humor was negatively correlated with the RPWB scales. SEM analysis showed a significant and positive relationship between humor as measured by the HSQ and psychological well-being as assessed by the RPWB. Overall, the findings supported the theoretical structure and usefulness of the HSQ in an Italian context and the differential role of humor components in the various dimensions of psychological well-being.
Frontiers in psychology, 2017
How strongly does humor (i.e., the construct-relevant content) in the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin et al., 2003) determine the responses to this measure (i.e., construct validity)? Also, how much does humor influence the relationships of the four HSQ scales, namely affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating, with personality traits and subjective well-being (i.e., criterion validity)? The present paper answers these two questions by experimentally manipulating the 32 items of the HSQ to only (or mostly) contain humor (i.e., construct-relevant content) or to substitute the humor content with non-humorous alternatives (i.e., only assessing construct-irrelevant context). Study 1 (N = 187) showed that the HSQ affiliative scale was mainly determined by humor, self-enhancing and aggressive were determined by both humor and non-humorous context, and self-defeating was primarily determined by the context. This suggests that humor is not the primary source of the ...