Humor as emotion regulation: The differential consequences of negative versus positive humor

Abstract

Humour is often seen as an adaptive coping strategy; however, the empirical literature is inconclusive. One possible explanation is that different types of humour have different adaptive consequences. In the present research, we predicted that positive (good-natured) humour would be more effective at regulating negative emotions than negative (mean-spirited) humour. In Study 1, participants were shown negative pictures two times. First, they simply viewed the pictures and rated their levels of positive and negative emotions. Second, they were instructed to: (a) view; (b) use positive humour; or (c) use negative humour, and then rate their reactions. Compared to negative humour, positive humour was more successful at down-regulating negative and up-regulating positive emotion. In Study 2, we replicated these findings and showed that these effects cannot be explained by differences in difficulty between the two humour conditions, participants' expectations, or social desirability. Taken together, these findings suggest that positive (but not negative) humour may be an effective form of emotion regulation.

Full text

This article was downloaded by: [Andrea Samson]
On: 11 February 2012, At: 17:00
Publisher: Psychology Press
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office:
Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Cognition & Emotion
Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription
information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/pcem20
Humour as emotion regulation: The
differential consequences of negative versus
positive humour
Andrea C. Samson
a
& James J. Gross
a
a
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Available online: 15 Jul 2011
To cite this article: Andrea C. Samson & James J. Gross (2012): Humour as emotion regulation: The
differential consequences of negative versus positive humour, Cognition & Emotion, 26:2, 375-384
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2011.585069
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial
or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or
distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the
contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae,
and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not
be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or
howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this
material.

BRIEF REPORT
Humour as emotion regulation: The differential
consequences of negative versus positive humour
Andrea C. Samson and James J. Gross
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Humour is often seen as an adaptive coping strategy; however, the empirical literature is inconclusive.
One possible explanation is that different types of humour have different adaptive consequences. In
the present research, we predicted that positive (good-natured) humour would be more effective at
regulating negative emotions than negative (mean-spirited) humour. In Study 1, participants were
shown negative pictures two times. First, they simply viewed the pictures and rated their levels of
positive and negative emotions. Second, they were instructed to: (a) view; (b) use positive humour; or
(c) use negative humour, and then rate their reactions. Compared to negative humour, positive
humour was more successful at down-regulating negative and up-regulating positive emotion. In
Study 2, we replicated these findings and showed that these effects cannot be explained by differences
in difficulty between the two humour conditions, participants’ expectations, or social desirability.
Taken together, these findings suggest that positive (but not negative) humour may be an effective
form of emotion regulation.
Keywords: Emotion; Emotion regulation; Humour; Coping.
Humour has long been seen as a particularly
healthy and effective coping strategy. This is
because humour is thought to be a powerful
antidote to negative emotions (Freud, 1928;
Vaillant, 2000). For example, anecdotal reports
suggest that some concentration-camp survivors
in World War II and prisoners of war (POWs)
in North Korea coped by joking about their
miserable plight (Ford & Spaulding, 1973;
Henman, 2001).
Despite this consensus, the empirical literature
on the effects of humour is surprisingly incon-
clusive, and there is no agreement regarding the
likely mechanism by which humour exerts what-
ever effects it may have. In the present study, we
focus on humour’s role as an emotion-regulation
Correspondence should be addressed to: Andrea Samson, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall,
Bldg 420, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. E-mail: andrea.samson@stanford.edu
AS was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
The authors would like to thank A. Brauner, S. Malogajski, N. Schmid and S. Zurbru
¨
gg-Brechbu
¨
hler (Study 1), and K. Marton
and J. Rector (Study 2) for their help in recruiting participants.
COGNITION AND EMOTION
2012, 26 (2), 375384
375
#
2012 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
http://www.psypress.com/cogemotion http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2011.585069
Downloaded by [Andrea Samson] at 17:00 11 February 2012

mechanism, and test the possibility that different
forms of humour have markedly different effects
on negative emotion.
The effects of humour
Studies that have empirically examined the impact
of humour have yielded mixed results. Some
studies have found a positive effect of humour
on mental health. For example, some studies
found support for the idea that the active use of
humour has a stress-moderating effect: creating a
humorous narrative while viewing a stressful film
resulted in a reduced physiological stress response,
less emotional distress and lower negative affect
than creating a serious narrative (e.g., Lefcourt &
Martin, 1986; Martin & Lefcourt, 1983; Newman
& Stone, 1996). This effect was found in
participants with both low and high trait humour,
suggesting that humour production may be an
effective coping strategy, even for individuals who
do not typically use humour (Newman & Stone,
1996).
Other studies on the impact of humour have
yielded negative results. For example, the positive
effects described above were only partially repli-
cated (e.g., Lehman, Burke, Martin, Sultan, &
Czech, 2001) and only weak and inconsistent
associations between trait measures of sense of
humour and well-being were found (e.g., Thorson,
Powell, Sarmany-Schuller, & Hampes, 1997).
Indeed, Simon (1990) found that situational and
coping humour did not predict perceived health
and sense of humour was not related to longevity
(Rotton, 1992). Furthermore*although experi-
mental studies demonstrated that passively
viewing humorous stimuli enhances mood*no
long-time effects on well-being and mental health
were found (e.g., Gelkopf, Kreitler, & Sigal,
1993). Finally, some studies have shown that
humour may even have detrimental effects on
stress and depression (Dorz, Novara, Sica, &
Sanavio, 2003), and that high cheerfulness at the
age of 12 is associated with high mortality rates
(Friedman et al., 1993), perhaps due to lower levels
of concern about health risks.
Positive versus negative humour
One possible reason for inconsistent findings
regarding humour is that there may actually be
many different kinds of humour, each with a
different set of consequences. Nearly a century
ago, Freud (1928) emphasised that humour must
be differentiated from other forms of laughter-
related phenomena such as joking, wit (as a form
of displacement, see Vaillant, 2000), sarcasm, and
irony. For Freud, humour referred specifically to a
sympathetic, tolerant, and benevolent amusement
at the imperfections of the world and the foibles
of human nature in general. It also carried the
connotation of not taking oneself too seriously
and being able to poke fun at oneself, accompa-
nied by a sort of philosophical detachment in one’s
outlook on life.
Contemporary humour researchers have also
emphasised the heterogeneity of humour (see
Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, & Weir,
2003, for an overview). Distinctions among forms
of humour are helpful, and one of the major
distinctions commonly drawn*from Freud to the
present day*is between more positive (good-
natured, benevolent, integrating, non-hostile) and
more negative (mean-spirited, aggressive, dispara-
ging) forms of humour. In particular, it has been
suggested that only positive forms of humour have a
positive effect on mental health (e.g., Martin, 2007).
Evidence favouring this perspective has largely
been correlational. Specifically, the Humour
Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin et al., 2003)
distinguishes between positive (affiliative and self-
enhancing) versus negative (aggressive and self-
defeating) humour styles. The two measures of
positive styles of humour are generally positively
related to indicators of psychological health and
well-being (e.g., self-esteem, positive emotions,
and optimism) and negatively related to negative
moods such as depression and anxiety. In contrast,
aggressive humour is positively correlated with
measures of hostility and aggression, and nega-
tively correlated with relationship satisfaction.
Similarly, self-defeating humour is positively
related to measures of psychological distress and
dysfunction (e.g., depression, anxiety, etc.), and
SAMSON AND GROSS
376 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2012, 26 (2)
Downloaded by [Andrea Samson] at 17:00 11 February 2012

negatively related with psychological well-being.
These findings support the view that positive and
negative humour styles are differentially related to
aspects of psychological health (e.g., Martin et al.,
2003; see Martin, 2007, for an overview).
Humour as emotion regulation
Even if we focus solely on ‘‘healthy’’ forms of
humour, we still must ask: How might humour
facilitate coping? One possibility is that humour
processing (particularly the incongruity-resolution
process) requires attentional resources, which re-
duces attentional resources available for processing
negative emotion (e.g., Strick, Holland, Van
Baaren, & Van Knippenberg, 2009). Another
possibility is that the positive emotions that
accompany humour ‘‘undo’’ negative emotions
(Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998). A related possi-
bility is that the change of perspective associated
with humour permits distancing from negative
situations (Keltner & Bonnano, 1997; Martin &
Lefcourt, 1983). Another variant on this same idea
is that the negative event gets reappraised from a
less threatening point of view (Lefcourt et al.,
1995), which is in line with the view that humour
allows people to look directly at what is painful
but*by reappraising the situation*in a less
harmful way (Vaillant, 2000).
Each of these ideas highlights a somewhat
different form of emotion regulation. The first
focuses on the possibility that humour might serve
as a form of distraction. The second suggests that
humour-related positive emotions directly undo
negative emotion. The third and fourth perspec-
tives both suggest the possibility that humour
changes the way a person appraises or evaluates a
potentially stressful event, thereby changing the
meaning it has, and hence the person’s emotional
response. Unfortunately, it is not clear which*if
any*of these mechanisms might underlie the
apparently beneficial effects of humour.
The present research
The goal of the present research was to test the
hypothesis that positive and negative humour
might have different effects on negative emotion
regulation. More specifically, in two studies, we
tested the hypothesis that positive (good nat-
ured) humour would be more effective than
negative (mean-spirited) humour in regulating
negative emotional responses (i.e., increasing po-
sitive emotions and reducing negative emotions).
STUDY 1: EFFECTS OF POSITIVE
AND NEGATIVE HUMOUR
The goal of the first study was to assess whether
positive and negative humour have differential
consequences on positive and negative emotions.
Method
Participants. Forty participants (15 men) with a
mean age of 24.7 years (SD5.2, range 1940)
took part in this study. Thirty-six were students at
the University of Fribourg; the others were
community members. Participants were paid 10
Swiss Franks (US$9.50) and written consent was
obtained prior to the experiment.
Procedure. Participants were tested individually
and saw 30 negative pictures twice. Pictures were
selected from the International Affective Picture
System (IAPS; Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1995)
and covered a variety of negative stimuli and
situations (e.g., skulls, corpses, soldiers, handi-
capped individuals, aggressive or dangerous ani-
mals, dental exams, car accidents and attacks).
These stimuli were selected to be negatively
valenced (M2.78; SD0.76) and arousing
(M5.89, SD0.81).
In the first trial, participants simply viewed the
pictures and rated their emotional responses.
Research has shown that two broad factors reliably
capture emotional experience (usually labelled
positive and negative activation, e.g., Watson,
Clark, & Tellegen, 1988), and several studies on
humour have measured not only positive (funni-
ness) but also negative reactions (aversion) towards
humorous stimuli (e.g., Ruch, 1992). For this
reason, we assessed positive and negative emotions
HUMOUR AS EMOTION REGULATION
COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2012, 26 (2)
377
Downloaded by [Andrea Samson] at 17:00 11 February 2012

separately, each on one scale from 0 (not at all)
to 6 (very strong), in order to assess whether
negative and positive humour might have differ-
ential effects on positive and negative emotions.
In the second trial, participants viewed each of
the pictures a second time, under instructions
either to: (a) simply view; (b) use positive humour;
or (c) use negative humour. In the positive humour
condition, participants were instructed to cogni-
tively reappraise the pictures by experiencing a
sympathetic, tolerant, and benevolent amusement,
focusing on the imperfections of life and human
beings or on absurdities of the situation without
becoming hostile or depreciating. In the negative
humour condition, participants were instructed to
laugh at these situations in a hostile, superior way,
mocking others in order to create an emotional
distance. In the ‘‘watch’’ condition, participants
simply viewed the picture a second time.
In the second trial, pictures were randomly
assigned to each of the three conditions (with 10
pictures assigned to each instruction). Pictures
were presented in 10-picture blocks, and the
blocks were presented in random order. Each
block was preceded by two negative pictures
with examples for positive or negative humour,
respectively*dependent on what type of humour
the block instruction was, in order to clarify what
was meant by either positive or negative humour.
In both humour conditions, each picture was
accompanied by a written example of positive or
negative humour, respectively, taken from the
comments made by participants in a pilot study,
in order to guide the participants.
1
However,
participants were free to provide their humorous
remark before having read the example, as the
example comment was provided on a slide
presented after the picture, and the participant
could move to the next slide whenever he or she
wanted. The experimenter noted if the participant
was able to come up with a humorous remark and
whether the participant used the non-target type
of humour (e.g., positive instead of negative)
according to the participant’s report of being
able or not to come up with the required type of
humour. Participants could take as much time as
they wanted. After each picture, participants rated
their emotional responses to that picture. The
whole procedure lasted approximately one hour.
Data reduction and analysis. Because we were
interested in the change in ratings from Trial 1 to
Trial 2, the difference scores (T2  T1) for each
picture in each condition (‘‘positive humour’’,
‘‘negative humour’’, ‘‘watch negative’’) were com-
puted. Repeated measure analyses, with the three
conditions as within-subjects variables, were com-
puted. Trials were excluded if the wrong type of
humour was used (e.g., negative instead of
positive humour, see Appendix). This was based
on the verbal responses of the participants. On
average, participants complied with instructions
well. Participants failed to use any form of
humour for less than one picture (M0.90,
SD1.90, range from 0 to 8). When they did
use humour, they used the wrong type of humour
infrequently, using negative instead of positive
humour on 0.30 pictures (SD0.65, range from
0 to 3) and positive instead of negative humour on
0.75 pictures (SD1.21, range from 0 to 6). All
of these cases were excluded from further analyses
(a maximum of 9 trials per participant).
Results and discussion
Manipulation check. During Trial 1, the negative
pictures evoked strong negative emotions
(M3.42, SD0.75) and low levels of positive
emotions (M1.41, SD0.30).
Affective consequences of negative and positive
humour. For positive emotion, there was a main
effect of Condition, F(2, 78) 27.15, pB.001.
Follow-up t-tests revealed that positive (M0.66,
SD0.64) and negative (M0.32, SD0.64)
humour led to significantly greater positive emo-
tion than the ‘‘watch’’ condition (M0.05,
SD0.30, both psB.001). Furthermore, positive
1
This procedure was developed after extensive piloting, which revealed that participants were better able to come up with a
humorous remark after seeing an example.
SAMSON AND GROSS
378 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2012, 26 (2)
Downloaded by [Andrea Samson] at 17:00 11 February 2012

and negative humour differed significantly, with
positive humour being more effective at increasing
positive emotions than negative humour (pB.001,
see Figure 1).
For negative emotion, there was also a main
effect of condition, F(2, 78) 12.85, pB.001.
Follow-up t-tests revealed that positive (M
0.89, SD0.69) and negative (M0.58,
SD0.97) humour led to significant decreases in
negative emotions in contrast to the ‘‘watch’’
condition (M0.26, SD0.47, pB.001 for
positive humour, pB.05 for negative humour).
Furthermore, regarding the negative emotions, the
two types of humour differed significantly (pB.05)
from each other; positive humour was more
effective at down-regulating negative emotions.
Limitations. This initial study suffers from
several limitations. First, we neither assessed the
difficulty of coming up with positive and negative
humour nor did we measure the cognitive effort
associated with the attempt to reappraise the
negative pictures with humorous remarks. Differ-
ences in difficulty and cognitive effort might have
influenced the subsequent emotional ratings. Sec-
ond, we did not assess the participants’ awareness
about our study hypotheses, which might have
influenced the outcome substantially. Third, we
did not include any measures of social desirability.
It is possible that some of the participants were
actually amused more intensely using negative
humour than they indicated, but felt concerned
about expressing these responses. Therefore, we
conducted a second study to replicate the findings
of the first study by controlling for the above-
mentioned limitations.
STUDY 2: REPLICATION AND
EXTENSION
The goal of the second study was to replicate the
findings of the first study. In addition, we sought to
assess: (1) whether the beneficial effects of positive
humour over negative humour are related to the
difficulty of creating positive or negative humorous
reappraisals; (2) whether participants’ expectations
affect the emotional ratings; and (3) whether social
desirability affects the use of positive and negative
humour and its emotional consequences.
Method
Participants. Thirty-seven participants (19 men)
with a mean age of 19.9 years (SD0.91,
range 1821) took part in this study. All
participants were students at Stanford University.
Participants obtained credit for their participation
Figure 1. Average difference scores (Trial 2 minus Trial 1) with standard errors for positive and negative emotions in the watch condition,
negative humour condition, and positive humour condition (Study 1, N 40).
HUMOUR AS EMOTION REGULATION
COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2012, 26 (2)
379
Downloaded by [Andrea Samson] at 17:00 11 February 2012

and written consent was obtained prior to the
experiment.
Procedure. Study 2 employed the same procedure
as Study 1, with the following changes. First,
we inserted difficulty questions in each trial after
the emotional ratings. These ratings were made
using a scale from 0 ( not at all)to6( very
difficult). Second, after the experiment, we asked
participants what they thought the experiment
was about. Third, after these additional questions,
the participants completed a 13-item short version
of the MarloweCrowne Social Desirability Scale
(MCS; Crowne & Marlowe, 1960; Reynolds,
1982). The scale yielded moderate reliability
(Cronbach’s alpha.64) in the present study.
Fourth, unlike Study 1, which was conducted in
German, Study 2 was conducted in English.
Data reduction and analysis. As in Study 1, the
difference scores between Trial 1 and Trial 2
(T2  T1) were computed for each condition
(‘‘positive humour’’, ‘‘negative humour’’, ‘‘watch
negative’’). Repeated measure analyses, with the
three conditions as within-subjects variables, were
computed with subsequent post hoc tests. In view
of the specific predictions derived from Study 1,
post hoc tests were one tailed. Trials were
excluded if participants were not able to come
up with the required humorous reappraisal (based
on verbal responses of the participants).
On average, participants complied with instruc-
tions well. Participants failed to use any form of
humour for less than one picture in both condi-
tions (positive humour: M0.83, SD1.44,
range from 0 to 5; negative humour: M0.83,
SD1.27, range from 0 to 4; no significant
difference between the two conditions). These
trials were excluded from further analyses. In both
conditions, the participants viewed the captions
equally often (positive humour: M3.49,
SD2.04, range from 0 to 8; negative humour:
M3.46, SD2.35, range from 0 to 10; no
significant difference between the two conditions).
Participant responses to the question as to what
the experiment was about (asked after the study
was completed) were coded by two independent
raters into the following categories: (1) correct:
‘‘We want to measure the effect of using positive
and negative humour to change positive and
negative emotions, humour as emotion regulation
strategy’’; (2) only partially correct, but close (e.g.,
mentioning positive and negative humour, but
neither whether they have differential conse-
quences on positive and negative emotions, nor
emotion regulation); (3) only partially correct
(e.g., mentioning emotion regulation, humour as
coping mechanism, but without differentiating
between positive and negative humour); or (4)
incorrect. The inter-rater reliability was satisfac-
torily high: kappa.83.
Results and discussion
Manipulation check. During Trial 1, the negative
pictures evoked strong negative emotions
(M3.92, SD0.74) and low levels of positive
emotions (M1.87, SD0.70).
Difficulty ratings. There were no differences in
difficulty ratings between positive (M3.87,
SD0.87) and negative humour trials (M3.81,
SD0.61), t(26) 0.63, p.53.
Affective consequences of negative and positive
humour. For positive emotion, there was a
main effect of Condition, F(2, 72) 15.95,
pB.001. Follow-up t-tests revealed that positive
(M0.79, SD0.68) and negative (M0.50,
SD0.71) humour led to significantly greater
positive emotion than the ‘‘watch’’ condition
(M0.09, SD0.53, pB.001 for positive hu-
mour, pB.01 for negative humour). Furthermore,
positive and negative humour differed signifi-
cantly, with positive humour being more effective
at increasing positive emotions than negative
humour (pB.01, see Figure 2). These results
replicate the findings from Study 1.
For negative emotion, there was also a main
effect of Condition, F(2, 72) 13.04, pB.001.
Follow-up t-tests revealed that positive (M
0.78, SD0.88) and negative (M0.54,
SD0.94) humour led to significant decreases
in negative emotions in contrast to the ‘‘watch’’
SAMSON AND GROSS
380 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2012, 26 (2)
Downloaded by [Andrea Samson] at 17:00 11 February 2012

condition (M0.11, SD0.76, pB.001 for
positive humour, pB.01 for negative humour).
Furthermore, regarding the negative emotions,
the two types of humour differed significantly
(pB.05) from each other; positive humour was
more effective at down-regulating negative emo-
tions. These results replicate the findings from
Study 1.
Awareness check and social desirability. Only one
participant had the correct idea of what the
experiment was about. However, the exclusion
of this participant did not change any of the
reported results. Seven participants had only
partially correct but close ideas of what the
experiment was about, three participants had
only partially correct ideas and four had comple-
tely incorrect ideas (e.g., that the study was about
ethnicity, or measured the effect of mood on
perception). These ideas had no affect on diffi-
culty ratings, positive emotions, or negative emo-
tions. We also examined whether social
desirability was associated with the participant
ratings (difficulty, positive emotions, negative
emotions). The MCS yielded a mean score of
4.14 (SD2.28) and did not correlate with any of
the ratings (positive emotion, negative emotion,
difficulty) in either positive or negative humour
contexts.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Humour has long been seen as an adaptive means
of coping with negative emotions. However, our
findings from two studies suggest that positive
and negative humour may have importantly
different affective consequences. Compared to
negative humour, positive humour yielded better
effects for up-regulating positive and down-
regulating negative emotions. This finding could
not be explained by differences in difficulty,
expectations, or social desirability.
Humour as an emotion-regulation strategy
Our results are consistent with the idea that
positive humour leads to a reinterpretation of a
negative event in line with Lefcourt et al. (1995)
or Vaillant (2000). We cannot exclude the
possibility that using humour requires attentional
resources, which distracts people from a negative
event (e.g., Strick et al., 2009). However, it is not
very likely that one would be more distracted from
a negative event by using positive instead of
negative humour.
We assume that the mechanisms of positive
and negative humour differ: one possibility is that
positive humour is closely related to reappraisal of
the situation, whereas negative humour may help
Figure 2. Average difference scores (Trial 2 minus Trial 1) with standard errors for positive and negative emotions in the watch condition,
negative humour condition, and positive humour condition (Study 2, N 37).
HUMOUR AS EMOTION REGULATION
COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2012, 26 (2)
381
Downloaded by [Andrea Samson] at 17:00 11 February 2012

more to create an emotional distance from the
negative event without being able to look on the
bright side of the negative event. However, as our
study does not allow us to infer conclusions about
mechanisms, we suggest that future studies need
to be conducted in order to determine which
mechanisms underlie positive and negative types
of humour*or humour in general.
Extending our conception of positive
humour
We have shown that positive humour is more
effective than negative humour in regulating emo-
tions when confronted with highly negative pic-
tures. However, we know from the literature that
deprecating humour (e.g., humour directed against
an aggressor) can also be helpful under some
circumstances. For example, POWs have reported
finding this type of humour useful in dealing with a
very stressful and threatening situation (e.g., Hen-
man, 2001). By cracking jokes about the guards and
about the hardships they endured, the POWs were
able to gain a sense of mastery and invincibility in a
situation over which they had no real control (Ford
& Spaulding, 1973; Henman, 2001).
This raises the question whether and under
what circumstances it might be equally or even
more effective to use negative instead of positive
humour. Further studies might address the ques-
tion whether in really difficult, life-threatening
and desperate situations even more negative forms
of humour become helpful.
Limitations and future directions
Our findings shed important new light on the
distinction between positive and negative humour.
They also suggest the important emotion-regula-
tory role positive emotion can play in shaping
affective responses to negative situations. How-
ever, these studies have several limitations.
First, the present studies used a limited set of
negative stimuli, as well as a relatively small
number of participants (and it bears noting that
these studies were conducted in two different
languages and cultural contexts). In future studies,
other negative stimuli such as negative memory
entries might be used. It will also be useful to
broaden the participants who are included, e.g., by
differentiating between different ethnicities and
cultural backgrounds. It might also be interesting
to include psychopathology in order to investigate
humour as successful reappraisal strategies.
Second, the present studies were not able to
address the issue of specificity of humorous
reappraisal in contrast to other reappraisal stra-
tegies. Future studies should include a non-
humorous condition such as serious reappraisal
in order to distinguish humour-specific effects
from effects associated with reappraisal in gen-
eral. Another question is whether positive hu-
mour more strongly enhances mood than
negative humour, and whether the effect is
related to the fact that positive humour is better
able to undo negative emotions. Future studies
will be required to more fully address questions
about underlying mechanisms.
Third, we assessed the effects of humour in a
single laboratory context, and emotional responses
were assessed via self-report measures only.
Further studies might additionally assess psycho-
physiological parameters. It would also be very
interesting to investigate whether there are spe-
cific correlates in the brain for using positive and
negative types of humour to regulate emotions*
this could be done using electroencephalography
(EEG) or functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI).
A fourth limitation is that we measured
participants’ emotional responses at a single point
in time, rather than looking at dynamic changes in
emotional responding over a longer time period.
One interesting question is what the time course
of the emotional changes induced by using
different types of humour is. Do positive and
negative types of humour have different long-term
effects? For example, using hostile humour to deal
with a difficult situation might create a certain
instant relief, but only positive humour might
help to overcome the problem in the longer term.
In future studies, it will be important to address
these issues by using continuous and time-sensi-
tive measures of emotional responding.
SAMSON AND GROSS
382 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2012, 26 (2)
Downloaded by [Andrea Samson] at 17:00 11 February 2012

Manuscript received 10 June 2010
Revised manuscript received 5 April 2011
Manuscript accepted 18 April 2011
First published online 15 July 2011
REFERENCES
Crowne, C. P., & Marlowe, D. (1960). A new scale of
social desirability independent of psychopathology.
Journal of Consulting Psychology, 24(4), 349354.
Dorz, S., Novara, C., Sica, C., & Sanavio, E. (2003).
Predicting burnout among HIV/AIDS and oncol-
ogy health care workers. Psychology & Health, 18,
677684.
Ford, C., & Spaulding, R. (1973). The Pueblo incident.
Archives of General Psychiatry, 29, 340343.
Fredrickson, B. L., & Levenson, R. W. (1998). Positive
emotions speed recovery from the cardiovascular
sequelae of negative emotions. Cognition and Emo-
tion, 12, 191220.
Freud, S. (1928). Humour. International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, 9,16.
Friedman, H. S., Tucker, J. S., Tomlinson-Keasey, C.,
Schwartz, J. E., Wingard, D. L., & Criqui, M. H.
(1993). Does childhood personality predict long-
evity? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65,
176185.
Gelkopf, M., Kreitler, S., & Sigal, M. (1993). Laughter
in a psychiatric ward: Somatic, emotional, social,
and clinical influences on schizophrenic patients.
Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, 181, 283289.
Henman, L. (2001). Humor as a coping mechanism:
Lessons from POWs. Humor: International Journal
of Humor Research, 14,8394.
Keltner, D., & Bonnano, G. A. (1997). A study of
laughter and dissociation: Distinct correlates of
laughter and smiling during bereavement. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 687702.
Lang, P. J., Bradley, M. M., & Cuthbert, B. N.
(1995). International Affective Picture System (IAPS):
Technical manual and affective ratings. The Center
for Research in Psychophysiology, University of
Florida.
Lefcourt, H. M., Davidson, K., Shepherd, R., Phillips,
M., Prkachin, K., & Mills, D. E. (1995). Perspective-
taking humor: Accounting for stress moderation.
Social and Clinical Psychology, 14, 373391.
Lefcourt, H. M., & Martin, R. A. (1986). Humor and
life stress: Antidote to adversity. New York, NY:
Springer-Verlag.
Lehman, K. M., Burke, K. L., Martin, R., Sultan, J., &
Czech, D. R. (2001). A reformulation of the
moderating effects of productive humor. Humor:
International Journal of Humor Research, 14, 131161.
Martin, R. A. (2007). The psychology of humor:
An integrative approach. Burlington, MA: Elsevier
Academic Press.
Martin, R. A., & Lefcourt, H. M. (1983). Sense of
humor as a moderator of the relation between
stressors and moods. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 45, 13131324.
Martin, R. A., Puhlik-Doris, P., Larsen, G., Gray, J., &
Weir, K. (2003). Individual differences in uses of
humor and their relation to psychological well-being:
Development of the Humor Styles Questionnaire.
Journal of Research in Personality, 37,4875.
Newman, M. G., & Stone, A. A. (1996). Does humor
moderate the effects of experimentally induced
stress? Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 18, 101109.
Reynolds, W. M. (1982). Development of reliable and
valid short forms of the MarloweCrowne Social
Desirability scale. Journal of Clinical Psychology,
38(1), 119125.
Rotton, J. (1992). Trait humor and longevity: Do comics
have the last laugh? Health Psychology, 11, 262266.
Ruch, W. (1992). Assessment of appreciation of humor:
Studies with the 3 WD Humor Test. In C. D.
Spielberger & J. N. Butcher (Eds.), Advances in
personality (Vol. 9, pp. 2775). Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Simon, J. M. (1990). Humor and its relationship to
perceived health, life satisfaction, and morale in older
adults. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 11,1731.
Strick, M., Holland, R. W., Van Baaren, R. B., & Van
Knippenberg, A. (2009). Finding comfort in a joke:
Consolatory effects of humor through cognitive
distraction. Emotion, 9, 574578.
Thorson, J. A., Powell, F. C., Sarmany-Schuller, I., &
Hampes, W. P. (1997). Psychological health and sense
of humor. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 53, 605619.
Vaillant, G. E. (2000). Adaptive mental mechanisms.
Their role in a positive psychology. American
Psychologist, 55,8998.
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988).
Development and validation of brief measures of
positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063
1070.
HUMOUR AS EMOTION REGULATION
COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2012, 26 (2)
383
Downloaded by [Andrea Samson] at 17:00 11 February 2012

APPENDIX
Examples of positive and negative humour for four representative IAPS pictures
IAPS picture Positive humour Negative humour
1019 (constrictor snake with
prey)
Looks like someone’s bitten off more than they can
chew.
Nourishing my future handbag.
1930 (shark) Shauna the Shark braved leaving the ocean in her
desperate search for lip balm.
Is somebody missing a fin?
9415 (handicapped men waiting
in line)
The Jones family didn’t expect such a trick-or-treat
rush.
The wait feels shorter when you don’t
tap your toes.
9500 (disembowelling fish,
bloody)
He always wanted to work with animals. Ideal workplace for people with body
odour.
SAMSON AND GROSS
384 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2012, 26 (2)
Downloaded by [Andrea Samson] at 17:00 11 February 2012