Contemporary Research on Humor, Coping and Psychological Well-Being

It is worth mentioning that a distinct body of psychological literature has emerged in the past
two decades, focusing on the impact of humour on coping mechanisms, quality of life, and
psychological well-being. This research, although it often occurs simultaneously with the
aforementioned studies on resiliency and humour, has seldom been integrated into a framework
of resiliency. The current resurgence of psychology theory and research on humour has
primarily concentrated on advancing our comprehension of the beneficial or constructive
impacts of humour (Kuiper, 2010).
Therefore, a significant portion of this research focuses on the ways in which humour can aid
in dealing with stress, as well as how humour can improve personal and social connections
(Martin, 2007). Several mechanisms and processes have been proposed to explain these
facilitating effects. These strategies involve managing negative emotions by employing
humour and cognitive re-appraisals to create psychological distance from stressful life events
and circumstances (Kuiper, Martin, & Olinger, 1993). The extensive corpus of study has been
conducted independently from the theory and research on resiliency, as well as related
dimensions like happiness (Herzog & Strevey, 2008).
Given the information provided, the objective of the current study was to investigate how
previous research on the use of humour as a coping mechanism for stressful situations or life
events could also be relevant to the personal characteristics component of a resilience
framework (Windle, 2011; Zautra et al., 2008). In this perspective, a sense of humour is
considered a significant aspect of personal resilience that individuals may rely on while facing
significant challenges, such as adversity, trauma, or very stressful situations. The subsequent
section delineates many strands of evidence pertaining to humour that are important to our
proposal.

The concept that humour can serve as a method of managing both negative and good emotions
raises the question of whether the use of humour can be developed through training (Kuiper &
Olinger, 1998; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2007). Throughout the years, extensive literature has
been dedicated to exploring the utilisation and potential development of humour in various
fields, including psychology, education, employment, and social environments. Nevertheless,
most of the research conducted in this field has been based on personal accounts, descriptions,
and speculative theories. There has been a significant absence of controlled experiments and
rigorous methodologies, which is the standard in scientific reviews and comments. For more
information, refer to the works of Kuiper and Olinger (1998) and Martin (2007). An
encouraging aspect from a humour and resilience standpoint is the emergence of increasingly
advanced and rigorous evaluation studies. An instance of this is a study conducted by Crawford
and Caltabiano (2011) which examined the possibility of teaching effective humour skills to
community volunteers who were randomly allocated to one of three experimental groups: a
humour training group, a social control group, and a non-intervention group. Applying the
broaden-and-build theoretical framework mentioned earlier, this study conducted over a period
of time discovered that humour skills may be improved by eight training sessions. As a result,
individuals gained better control over managing their everyday positive emotions, leading to
an increase in their overall emotional well-being. The pattern of greater ratings of positive
affect, self-efficacy, optimism, and control was observed exclusively in the humour group.
These increases were sustained at a three month follow-up. In addition, this group also shown
reductions in subjective stress levels, despair, and anxiety. Previous research has found similar
results in a pilot project that focused on improving humour skills in a small group of persons
diagnosed with clinical depression (Falkenberg, Buchkremer, Bartels, & Wild, 2011). This
discovery implies that individuals who exhibit psychopathology can derive advantages from
both the inhibitory and stimulatory impacts of employing effective humour. However, there is
still a significant amount of work that has to be done in order to fully investigate the impact of
using humour on resilience, as there are many other factors that have not yet been explored.
An alternative research approach could involve comparing the effectiveness of humour use
training with training in other positive psychology approaches, such as savouring or
thankfulness expression, which also contribute to higher pleasant affect (Sin & Lyubomirsky,
2009). Another addition may explore the potential variations in how the four humour styles are
related to the successful training of humour use. The extent to which individuals utilise humour
as a coping mechanism for stress and trauma can vary significantly, both among different
persons and within the same individual (Aldridge & Roesch, 2008). It is important to remember
that certain individuals may consistently exhibit maladaptive patterns, while others may
employ more adaptive approaches (Galloway, 2010). Nevertheless, it remains uncertain if
individuals who exhibit aggressive and self-defeating humour may be instructed to not only
reduce the use of these maladaptive styles, but also substitute them with a greater utilisation of
affiliative or self-enhancing humour. It is unclear if those who lack humour in general (i.e.,
those with poor scores in all four humour styles; Galloway, 2010) would be suitable candidates
for humour training.

References:-

Aldridge, A. A., & Roesch, S. C. (2008). Coping with daily stressors: Modeling intraethnic variation in Mexican
American adolescents. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 30(3), 340-356.

Crawford, S. A., & Caltabiano, N. J. (2011). Promoting emotional well-being through the use of humor. The
Journal of Positive Psychology, 6(3), 237-252.

Falkenberg, I., Buchkremer, G., Bartels, M., & Wild, B. (2011). Implementation of a manual-based training of
humor abilities
in patients with depression: A pilot study. Psychiatry Research, 186, 454-457.

Galloway, G. (2010). Individual differences in personal humor styles: Identification of prominent patterns and
their associates.
Personality and Individual Differences, 48, 563-567.

Herzog, T. R., & Strevey, S. J. (2008). Contact with nature, sense of humor and psychological well-being.
Environment and
Behavior, 40(6), 747-776.

Kuiper, N. A. (2010). Introductory Comments: Special Issue of EJOP (August 2010) on Humor Research in
Personality and
Social Psychology [Editorial]. Europe's Journal of Psychology, 6(3), 1-8.
http://ejop.psychopen.eu/article/view/205doi:10.5964/ejop.v6i3.205

Kuiper, N. A., Martin, R. A., & Olinger, L. J. (1993). Coping humour, stress, and cognitive appraisals. Canadian
Journal of
Behavioural Science, 25, 81-96.

Kuiper, N. A., & Olinger, J. (1998). Humor and mental health. In H. Friedman (Ed.). Encylopedia of mental health
(Vol. 2, pp.
445-458). San Diego: Academic Press.

Martin, R. A. (2007). The psychology of humor: An integrative approach. New York: Academic Press.
Sin, N. L., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2009). Enhancing well-being and alleviating depressive symptoms with positive
psychology
interventions: A practice-friendly meta-analysis. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 65(5), 467-487.

Tugade, M. M., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2007). Regulation of positive emotions: Emotion regulation strategies that
promote
resilience. Journal of Happiness Studies, 8, 311-333.

Windle, G. (2011). What is resilience? A review and concept analysis. Reviews in Clinical Gerontology, 21, 152-
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Zautra, A. J., Hall, J. S., Murray, K. E., & Resilience Solutions Group. (2008). Resilience: A new integrative
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