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Relations of Humor with Perceptions of Stress
Abstract and Figures
Humor has cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components but may be conceptualized as a multidimensional personality trait, comprised of both negative and positive dimensions and styles. Sense of humor may influence other evaluations of life, including perception of stress. Analysis of responses from 51 community adults and 131 undergraduates in psychology, nonrepresentative, random samples, indicated that styles of humor were correlated with self-perception of perceived stress; the largest correlations account for less than 50% of the common variance. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical links to coping literature, potential for therapeutic interventions, and areas for research.
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... We assumed that crew member would report feelings of social support from their colleagues and mutual trust in each other. In addition, based on research that indicated the importance of sense of humor as an important tool in coping with stress situation (e.g., Abel, 2002; Abel and Maxwell, 2002; Mauriello and McConatha, 2007) we expected that crew members would report the use of much humor as part of daily routine during voyage mission. ...
... Using positive thinking, optimism and humor are well known in professional literature as successful coping strategies with stress. These results are in accordance with research indicating that humor, positive attitudes and optimism reinforce resilience against the negative effects of distress (Abel and Maxwell, 2002; Connor and Zhang, 2006; Martinez, Reyes, Garcia, and Gonzalez, 2006; Mauriello and McConatha, 2007; Southwick, Vythilingam, and Charney, 2005; Wooten, 1996). It is possible to view the positive perception of submarine service by the submarine interviewee as corresponding to the salutogenic model research (e.g., Sagy and Anotnovsky, 1986). ...
... It was assumed that crew member would report feelings of social support from their colleagues and mutual trust in each other. In addition, based on research that indicated the importance of sense of humor as an important tool in coping with stress situation (e.g., Abel, 2002; Abel & Maxwell, 2002; Mauriello & McConatha, 2007) it was expected that the subjects would report the use of much humor as part of daily routine during voyage mission. ...
... Using positive thinking, optimism and humor are well known in professional literature as successful coping strategies with stress. These results are in accordance with research indicating that humor, positive attitudes and optimism reinforce resilience against the negative effects of distress (Abel & Maxwell, 2002; Connor & Zhang, 2006; Martinez, Reyes, Garcia , & Gonzalez, 2006; Mauriello & McConatha, 2007; Southwick , Vythilingam, & Charney, 2005; Wooten, 1996). It is possible to view the positive perception of submarine service by the submarine interviewee as corresponding to the salutogenic model research (e.g., Sagy & Anotnovsky, 1986). ...
The present study is based on in-depth interviews with 12 Israeli submarine crew members. The study examines various aspects of coping with submarine service and its unique characteristics from the crew members’ points of view. Content analysis reveals the following salient themes: First, positive perception of submarine service: positive thinking, optimism and sense of humor, accompanied by cynicism. Second, the submarine team is characterized by high moral standards, high team spirit and a sense of the importance of the service. Third, so-cial relationships are characterized by avoidance of conflicts, while maintaining a good atmosphere and high so-cial cohesion. Fourth, crew members perceived separation from home, friends and daily life as the most difficult aspects to deal with. Fifth, they perceived the submarine as dangerous place but reduced aspects of danger by developing a sense of trust in their submarine and in their ability to control potential dangers. Study results are discussed in light of relevant theories. This study is unique in that it was a rare opportunity to get a glimpse into the unknown world of an Israeli submarine crew which is mostly secret and not open to researchers.
... For example, retirees with greater self-enhancing humour reported lower levels of role limitations due to emotional problems than those with low self-enhancing humour scores when stress was high. However, since affiliative humour serves a function in building social relationships instead of coping with stress as associated with self-enhancing humour, the former may not be a strong buffer against stress and life adversities compared with the latter (Mauriello & McConatha, 2007). ...
In this study, we report on the relationship between positive humour and burnout among 379 secondary school teachers in Hong Kong, and explore whether the relationship varies according to gender. The moderating effects of both affiliative and self-enhancing humour on each burnout component were then examined. High affiliative and self-enhancing humour were found to be associated with lower emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation but higher personal accomplishment. Further, the results indicated that low levels of affiliative and self-enhancing humour were related to more depersonalisation among females than among males. The results also partially supported the stress-moderating hypothesis, as affiliative humour was found to buffer the stress–depersonalisation relationship in this sample. These findings suggest that schools can design continuing education programmes based on the use of positive humour in helping teachers to cope with burnout.
... Humour has other positive effects. People who have a sense of humour are less likely to worry (Mauriello and McConatha, 2007). Humour may be a means of channelling aggression in socially acceptable ways (McCreaddie and Wiggins, 2008). ...
While humour is prevalent in social services, discussions of humour are rare in social work journals. The present article
discusses the uses of humour among a team of service providers in a child and family service agency where the families are
among the most high-risk in the county that the agency serves. We viewed humour as the amusement at incongruity, which appears
to be its essential feature, and recognised that humour can foster effectiveness but also can be cruel (
Morreall, 2010). The present research provides case examples of situations a team of service providers found amusing. We found that case
managers use humour to regulate negative emotions, to express frustration that led to tension relief and then to creative
problem solving, to diffuse anxiety and to express liking and admiration for service users. This article contributes to practice
and policy by highlighting the potential advantages of humour in high-stress service situations and by recommending that the
use of humour be evaluated in terms of the ethical imperative of doing no harm.
... 38 / No. 1 / 2009 complicaciones derivadas de ella o el desarrollo de trastornos posteriores más graves, relacionados con el estrés (8). Numerosas experiencias han demostrado que los pacientes evolucionan mejor y más rápido hacia la mejoría cuando esos niveles de estrés están disminuidos por un ambiente que favorezca la relajación y que reoriente la atención de los pacientes hacia otros intereses distintos de la enfermedad (9)(10)(11)(12). ...
Introduction: Pediatric patients are specially susceptible to stress. Humor has been used in many hospitals around the world as a strategy to decrease stress levels during hospitalization, specially in children. Methods: Periodic interventions were made in two intermediatecare pediatric units in a public hospital in Pereira, Colombia. The initial intervention was based on changes of the hospital environment by modifying the decoration of wards and implements used by the health workers. The groups, made up of volunteers, were trained in clown techniques, construction of characters, and personalized games. Results: 108 in-terventions were made in a period of 9 months with a mean of 12 interventions per month, during which the group worked with 648 children (72 children per month with 6 children per intervention), with ages between 2 months and 14 years. The favorable impact in hospital environment and the subjective sensation of welfare in the patients, their families and the health personnel is worth noting. Discussion and conclusions: The qualitative results of this intervention were as expected. The subjective opinion of health workers, patients and their families was satisfactory. This experience adds arguments to the discussion about the need to implement programs like this one in health institutions and to include laughter therapy in the curricula of health educational programs.
This past week (January 21 to 27, 2018) was National Activity Professional
week. Let us consider how activities departments in nursing homes are
part of the multidisciplinary team that facilitates healing after surgery.
Introduction : Pediatric patients are specially susceptible to stress. Humor has been used in many hospitals around the world as a strategy to decrease stress levels during hospitalization, specially in children. Methods : Periodic interventions were made in two intermediatecare pediatric units in a public hospital in Pereira, Colombia. The initial intervention was based on changes of the hospital environment by modifying the decoration of wards and implements used by the health workers. The groups, made up of volunteers, were trained in clown techniques, construction of characters, and personalized games . Results : 108 in-terventions were made in a period of 9 months with a mean of 12 interventions per month, during which the group worked with 648 children (72 children per month with 6 children per intervention), with ages between 2 months and 14 years. The favorable impact in hospital environment and the subjective sensation of welfare in the patients, their families and the health personnel is worth noting. Discussion and conclusions : The qualitative results of this intervention were as expected. The subjective opinion of health workers, patients and their families was satisfactory. This experience adds arguments to the discussion about the need to implement programs like this one in health institutions and to include laughter therapy in the curricula of health educational programs.
T he objective of the current study is to explore optimism as a predictor of personal and collective fear, as well as hope, following laboratory-induced stress. Students (N¼107; 74 female, 33 male) were assigned randomly to either the experimental (stress—political violence video clip) or the control group (no-stress—nature video clip). Questionnaires of fear and hope were administered immediately after the experiment (Time 1) and 3
weeks later (Time 2). Structural equation modeling indicated the following: (a) Optimism significantly predicted both fear and hope in the stress group at Time 1, but not in the no-stress group. (b) Optimism predicted hope but not fear at Time 2 in the stress group. (c) Hope at Time 1 significantly predicted hope at Time 2, in both the stress and the no-stress groups. (d) Gender did not predict significantly fear at Time 1 in the stress group, despite a significant difference between genders. This study supports previous studies indicating that
optimism plays an important role in people’s coping with stress. However, based on our research the data raise the question of whether optimism, by itself, or environmental stress, by itself, may accurately predict stress response.
In contrast with an early implicit "facilitative hypothesis" of humor, a revised specificity hypothesis predicts that the benefits of humor depend on the specific style of humor used. Information on predictors of these humor styles in turn enhances the ability to predict the effect on well-being.
We examined the relationships between interpersonal competence, self-esteem, and different styles of humor, while also examining the contributions of age and gender. Participants (n = 201) aged 18-63 years completed the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory, the Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire, and the Humor Styles Questionnaire, and gave demographic information.
High self-esteem was associated with higher use of affiliative, aggressive, and self-enhancing humor styles, but lower use of self-defeating humor. High interpersonal competence predicted greater use of affiliative humor, whereas low interpersonal competence predicted greater use of aggressive humor. Further analyses showed that initiation competence predicted affiliative humor (positively) but both initiation competence (positively) and conflict management competence (negatively) predicted aggressive humor.
The findings that both self-esteem and initiation competence contribute to use of aggressive humor add to knowledge of who is likely to use this potentially harmful humor style. We conclude that a readiness to initiate humorous interactions is not on its own a general and positive attribute contributing to "good" humor.
A common client concern is worry, However, an organized description of worry and how to treat it remains relatively unaddressed. This article provides 2 theoretical perspectives of worry and a brief review of the literature on worry. An operational definition of worry is offered, along with suggestions for counselors on how to better assist the worrisome client.
A 3-item humor measure derived from the Sense of Humor Questionnaire (SHQ: Svebak 1996) was included in a health survey of all adult residents of a Norwegian county (study n = 65,333). Health-related measures included subjective health satisfaction, prevalence of common bodily complaints (e.g., nausea, diarrhea, pounding heart, dyspnea, musculuskeletal pain), blood pressure, and body mass index. SHQ mean scores were slightly skewed toward high values. Overall, humor scores (metamessage sensitivity, liking of humor, laughter expressiveness) declined with age (r = -.29) and were slightly higher in males than females among younger age cohorts. Sense of humor was positively correlated with overall health satisfaction (r = .21) and negatively related to systolic blood pressure (r = -.14). However, after controlling for age, only the partial correlation with subjective health satisfaction remained greater than .10 (partial r = .12). Due to the large number of participants, coefficients were statistically significant despite very low explained variance. Overall, these data, comprising the largest study of humor and health ever undertaken, provide very little evidence for a direct relationship between sense of humor and physical health parameters.
Three studies, conducted with 143 undergraduates, are reported that investigated the hypothesis, long held by theorists, therapists, and laypersons alike, that a sense of humor reduces the deleterious impact of stressful experiences. In each study a negative-life-events checklist was used to predict stress scores on a measure of mood disturbance. These studies made use of different measures of Ss' sense of humor, including 4 self-report scales and 2 behavioral assessments of Ss' ability to produce humor under nonstressful and mildly stressful conditions. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that 5 of the 6 humor measures produced a significant moderating effect on the relation between negative life events and mood disturbance. Ss with low humor scores obtained higher correlations between these 2 variables than did those with high humor scores. Results provide initial evidence for the stress-buffering role of humor. (42 ref)
The present study examined the relationships between humor coping, health status, and life satisfaction among older residents of assisted living facilities. A structural equation model with latent variables was specified for the three variables. Health status was expected to directly affect humor coping and life satisfaction. Humor coping was hypothesized to have a direct association with life satisfaction and indirectly affect the relationship between health status and life satisfaction. Participants completed the Multidimensional Functional Assessment Questionnaire, Coping Humor Scale, and Life Satisfaction Index A. The relationships between health status and humor coping and health status and life satisfaction were statistically significant. Both the direct association of humor coping on life satisfaction and the intervening role between health status and life satisfaction were not supported. Humor as a coping strategy seems to be available to older adults who are in better health.
Abstract This study explored relationships between sense of humor, stress, and coping strategies. Undergraduate,students (N=258) from,introductory psychology courses completed a perceived stress scale, an everyday problems scale, a state anxiety inventory, a sense of humor scale, and a scale assessing their preferred coping strategies. High and low sense of humor,groups were determined,by selecting participants with self-reported sense of humor,at one standard deviation above and below the overall mean,on the sense of humor,scale. The high sense of humor,group,appraised,less stress and reported less current anxiety than a low sense of humor,group,despite experiencing a similar number,of everyday,problems,in the previous two months. The high humor,group was more likely to use positive reappraisal and problem-solving coping strategies than the low humor,group. A weaker relationship existed between,appraisal of stress and number,of problems in the low humor,group because this group perceived greater stress at low and average,number,of everyday,problems,than the high humor,group. The results were discussed as supporting the role of humor,in restructuring a situation so it is less stressful, and the relationship of humor to both emotion-focused and problem-focused coping strategies. Numerous,studies have supported,the anecdotal,view that humor,and
A popular view is that a greater sense of humor enhances both psychological well-being and physical health. The empirical evidence for this general facilitate effect of humor is quite equivocal, however, with only some research being supportive. As such, the present study investigated an alternative proposal, namely, that the distinct components of sense of humor may actually exhibit quite different relationships with psychological well-being, with only some being facilitative, and others being detrimental. This specificity hypothesis draws from contemporary multidimensional models of sense of humor, which have identified both adaptive and maladaptive components of humor (e.g., self-enhancing versus self-defeating). Accordingly, participants in this study completed measures of eight different components of sense of humor, as well as several indices of psychological well-being, including self-esteem levels, depression, anxiety, and self-competency judgments. Initial analyses indicated strong support for a multidimensional approach to sense of humor that demonstrated appropriate component distinctiveness, but also with the expected degree of convergence for key elements that are either adaptive (i.e., coping, affiliative, self-enhancing, and skilled humor) or maladaptive (i.e., self-defeating, belabored, aggressive, and rude humor). In accord with the specificity hypothesis, the adaptive components of sense of humor showed facilitative effects, being associated with greater self-esteem, lower depression and anxiety levels, and more positive self-competency judgments. In contrast, the maladaptive components of humor that were self-focused (e.g., self-defeating and belabored humor) showed the predicted detrimental effects, with higher levels on these specific components being associated with poorer self-esteem, greater depression and anxiety, and poorer judgments of self-competence. Also as expected, the two maladaptive forms of sense of humor that did not focus on the self, but rather on others (i.e., aggressive and rude humor), were unrelated to personal well-being. These findings were then discussed in terms of multidimensional models of sense of humor and the need to identify more clearly the possible mechanisms that may result in either facilitative or detrimental effects on psychological well-being.
The first goal of this research was to refine our concept of sense of humor as a multidimensional construct with both positive and negative characteristics. To this end, 166 participants completed the Coping Humor Scale, the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire, the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale, and a variant of the Humorous Behavior Q-Sort Deck. Results indicated the clear existence of a higher-order underlying positive sense of humor dimension relating to the socially skilled and adept use of humor. Also indicated were two higher-order negative dimensions. Bawdy humor encompassed both an appreciation of boorish humor and an aggressive use of humor, whereas belabored humor reflected a strained and incompetent use of humor to gain the approval of others. The second goal of this research was to then consider these three higher-order sense of humor dimensions with respect to the prominent personality themes of individualism (e.g., agency) and relatedness (e.g., communion). Participants completed a number of measures assessing these two themes, with our findings indicating that relatedness and individualism both have separate positive and negative elements. The primary sense of humor dimension, socially skilled and adept humor, was broad based, as it demonstrated significant relationships with both positive relatedness and positive individualism. Bawdy humor, in contrast, was much more specific, showing associations only with negative individualism (e.g., autonomy). The other remaining higher-order negative humor dimension, belabored humor, was primarily linked with negative relatedness (e.g., sociotropy), but did show some limited associations with negative individualism. These findings were then considered in terms of multidimensional approaches to sense of humor, individualism and relatedness themes, and various applied considerations stemming from this work.
This study addressed the combined effects of trait humor and a humorous situation designed to generate mirth on affective consequences following anagram tasks inducing either low or high stress, and differences between men and women. The results revealed an overall greater benefit from viewing a humorous video versus a nonhumorous video with reduction in state anxiety and improvement in positive affect under both low and high stress. However, an interaction with gender indicated women benefiting more from the humorous condition under low stress and men benefiting more under high stress. At low trait humor, significantly lower state anxiety existed for those experiencing high stress and viewing a humorous versus nonhumorous video; no significant difference for type of video existed at high trait humor. Finally, a significant negative relationship existed between trait humor and anxiety for highly stressed women regardless of video viewed, no significant relationship was obtained for men. Results were discussed as to differences in effects for trait humor and induced mirth on stress-related affective consequences including gender differences.
Both men and women prefer someone with a “good sense of humor” as a relationship partner. However, two recent studies have shown that men are not attracted to funny women, suggesting the sexes use the phrase good sense of humor differently. To investigate this question, we measured the importance participants placed on a partner's production of humor vs. receptivity to their own humor. Men emphasized the importance of their partners' receptivity to their own humor, whereas women valued humor production and receptivity equally. In a second task, participants chose whether they preferred a person who only produced humor or a person who only appreciated their own humor for several types of relationships. Women preferred those who produced humor for all types of relationships, whereas men preferred those who were receptive to their own humor, particularly for sexual relationships. Our results suggest that sexual selection may have operated on men's and women's preferences during humorous interaction in dramatically different ways.
The hypothesis that 20-minutes of humour would result in affective benefits that are comparable to those of a 20-minute bout of aerobic exercise was analysed by using a within-participants research design. 39 university students [from the UK] were tested, at weekly intervals, three times: running or jogging at self-selected pace; watching a humorous stand-up comedy; and watching a documentary video. Mood and state anxiety were determined 5-minutes before and after each treatment by using the Subjective Exercise Experience Scale and the Spielberger State Anxiety Inventory. Both humour and exercise had an equally positive effect on psychological distress and positive wellbeing. However, humour exerted greater anxiety-lowering effect than exercise. Based on these results, it is tentatively concluded that humour could induce positive psychological changes that are at least comparable if not superior to the effects of exercise.