Humour
Humour as a Character Strength
Positive psychologists have a keen interest in the role of character
strengths, which have been described as virtues that are crucial to
human thriving (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).
Humour is considered one of the character strengths associated
with with a positive mood (Edwards, 2013),increased life
satisfaction and a pleasurable and engaged life (Ruch, Proyer, &
Weber, 2010).There is a good deal of evidence suggesting that
humor and laughter confer adaptive cognitive and social benefits
for individuals, including a way to relieve tension, regulate
emotions, and cope with stress.
Components of Humour
From a psychological perspective, the humor process can be divided into four
essential components: (1) a social context, (2) a cognitive-perceptual process, (3)
an emotional response, and (4) the vocal-behavioral expression of laughter.
The Social Context of Humour
Humor is fundamentally a social phenomenon. We laugh and joke much more
frequently when we are with other people than when we are by ourselves (R. A.
Martin and Kuiper, 1999).Humor can (and frequently does) occur in virtually any
social situation. It can occur between spouses who have lived together for fifty
years or between strangers waiting at a bus stop. It can take place in the
conversation of a group of close friends casually sitting around a table in a coffee
shop, or in the interactions of a group of business people participating in formal
negotiations. It can be used by public speakers, such as politicians or religious
leaders, addressing large audiences either in person or via the media.
Cognitive-Perceptual Processes in
Humour
To produce humor, an individual needs to mentally process information coming
from the environment or from memory, playing with ideas,words, or actions in a
creative way, and thereby generating a witty verbal utterance or a comical
nonverbal action that is perceived by others to be funny. In the reception of humor,
we take in information (something someone says or does, or something we read)
through our eyes and ears, process the meaning of this information, and appraise it
as nonserious, playful, and humorous. Most investigators would agree, however, that
humor involves an idea, image, text, or event that is in some sense incongruous,
odd, unusual, unexpected, surprising, or out of the ordinary.
In addition, there needs to be some aspect that causes us to appraise the stimulus
as nonserious or unimportant, putting us into a playful frame of mind at least
momentarily.
Emotional Aspects of Humour
The perception of humor invariably also evokes a pleasant emotional
[Link] studies have shown that exposure to humorous
stimuli produces an increase in positive affect and mood (Szabo, 2003).
The emotional nature of humor is also clearly demonstrated by recent
brain imaging research showing that exposure to humorous stimuli
activates the wellknown reward network in the limbic system of the
brain (Mobbs et al., 2003). From other research,we know that these
same brain circuits underlie pleasurable emotional states associated
with a variety of enjoyable activities including eating, listening to
enjoyable music,and even ingestion of mood-altering drugs. This
explains why humor is so enjoyable and why people go to such lengths
to experience it as often as they can: whenever we laugh at
something funny, we are experiencing an emotional high that is rooted
in the biochemistry of our brains.
Behavioural Aspects of Humour
Humor also has an expressive component, namely laughter and smiling. At low
levels of intensity, this emotion is expressed by a faint smile, which turns into a
broader grin and then audible chuckling and laughter as the emotional intensity
increases.
Styles Of Humour
Humour style refers to the various ways individuals employ humour to
communicate and cope with daily stress. (Martin et al., 2003).
Depending on how it is used in daily life, humour can positively or negatively
relate to a wide variety of manifestations of psychological well-being.
The two adaptive humor styles are affiliative and self-enhancing styles; the two
maladaptive styles are aggressive and self-defeating styles.
Adaptive styles have been associated with optimism, social support, and
resilience. (Rnic et al., 2016).
Affiliative humor - This involves telling jokes about things that everyone might
find funny. The goal is to use humor to bring people together to find the humor
in everyday life. People who have an affiliative humor style use humor to attain
interpersonal or social rewards. They use humor to entertain others in order to
enrich the quality of social relationships.
Styles Of Humour
Self enhancing humour- People who have a self-enhancing humor style use humor
to achieve intrapersonal rewards, that is, to enhance or maintain positive
psychological well-being and distance themselves from adversity. They maintain a
humorous outlook on life, coping with difficult circumstances by viewing them from
a humorous perspective. Thus, self-enhancing humor is closely related to coping
sense of humor (Cann et al., 2010; Martin et al., 2003).
Styles Of Humour
Aggressive humour Style – Those with an aggressive humor style use humor, not to
make interpersonal relationships more rewarding for the self and others, but rather
as a means of criticizing or manipulating others. They tease and ridicule others to
demonstrate their superiority over others, without concern for others’ well-being
(Martin et al., 2003). Not surprisingly, the aggressive humor style has been shown to
be detrimental to interpersonal relationships (e.g., Cann, Zapata, & Davis, 2011;
Kuiper, Kirsh, & Leite, 2010).
Styles Of Humour
Self – defeating humour style- Finally, people who have a self-
defeating humor style poke fun at their own weaknesses in order to
ingratiate themselves to others. They also use humor as a means to
avoid confronting problems and dealing with negative feelings
(Stieger, Formann, & Burger, 2011).Self-defeating humor involves
amusing others by doing or saying humorous things at one’s own
expense (Martin et al., 2003).
In general, these four humor styles have been found to be more strongly and
consistently related to personality and well-being, compared to studies that have
examined humor as a unidimensional construct (Martin et al., 2003). Positive humor
styles are typically related to more desirable traits and characteristics, such as
optimism and self-esteem (Martin et al., 2003), positive affect and life satisfaction
(Karou-ei, Doosti, Dehshiri, & Heidari, 2009), and less depression and anxiety (Martin
et al., 2003). Conversely, aggressive humor has been linked to aggression and
hostility (Martin et al., 2003), and self-defeating humor has been related to lower life
satisfaction (Karou-ei et al., 2009) and greater depression and anxiety (Martin et al.,
2003).
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