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Title Humor styles, self-esteem and subjective happiness

Author(s) Liu, Katy Wing Yin (廖穎賢)

Liu, K. W. Y. (2012). Humor styles, self-esteem and subjective

happiness (Outstanding Academic Papers by Students (OAPS)).
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Issue Date 2012

URL http://hdl.handle.net/2031/6830

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 CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

Humor Styles, Self-Esteem and Subjective Happiness

A Report Submitted to
Department of Applied Social Studies
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Bachelor of Social Sciences in Psychology

by

Katy Wing Yin LIU

2012
 1

Humor Styles, Self-Esteem and Subjective Happiness

Katy W.Y. Liu

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between humor styles,
self-esteem and subjective happiness among Hong Kong Undergraduate students.
232 undergraduate students from 6 Hong Kong universities are asked to
complete a self-administered questionnaire in the current study. Results showed
that males considered themselves as more humorous than females. Meanwhile,
males used more aggressive humor styles than females. However, both genders
used more adaptive humor styles than maladaptive humor styles. Additionally,
positive correlations were found between adaptive humor styles, self-esteem and
subjective happiness. Adaptive humor styles were found to strengthen the
relationship between self-esteem and subjective happiness. The significant
findings on the relationship of humor styles, self-esteem and subjective
happiness can be used as reference for similar studies in Hong Kong. In addition,
the mediation effects of humor styles found in the present research provide
useful suggestions for future intervention and therapeutic purposes in promoting
mental health.

Introduction

“Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.”

- Mark Twain

Most people like humorous person. Humorists are entertaining, energetic, funny and
attractive. However, not everyone knows the mechanism behind the charm. People
cannot escape from getting touch with humor because it is commonly used every day.
It appears in daily events, parties and media. Humor does not only serve for social
purpose, but also strengthens our abilities in coping with stress.
Being one of the hot topics in positive psychology, many researches relating
humor have been done. In these researches, humor was found to be related to both
physical and psychological well-being. Greater sense of humor was assumed to be
relevant to several positive characteristics (Kuiper and Martin 1998). Humor tests
were found to be positively correlated to the measurement of self-esteem. In addition,
higher scores of humor scales were reported to be related to higher levels of emotional
health, positive mood and zest of life (Celso et al. 2003). Following the previous
studies, the current study aims to investigate the relationship between humor,
self-esteem and subjective happiness among Undergraduates in Hong Kong.

Literature Review

Definition of Humor
Literally, from The Oxford English Dictionary (Simpson and Weiner 1989), the
meaning of humor is “quality of action, speech, or writing which excites amusement,”
which is “the faculty of perceiving what is ludicrous or amusing, or of expressing it in
speech, writing, or other composition; jocose imagination or treatment of a subject.”
Since long time ago, humor has caught attentions of many psychologists. Humor
 2

was referred as the highest defense mechanisms by Freud and a few psychologists.
They considered humor is an acceptable way of expressing sex and aggressive
impulses (Vaillant 1977, Andrews et al. 1989). Moreover, humor can be referred
exclusively to a sympathetic, tolerant and benevolent form of amusement but not wit
(Wickberg 1998). Both cognitive and emotional elements are included in humor, thus,
humor could be a state or a trait (Martin 2000).
Also, it is believed that humor is beneficial to our mental health. People tend to
think more positively by seeing humor in disasters. This positive thinking style helps
in coping difficulties (Lyubomirsky and Tucker 1998). However, some humors are
very damaging to both individuals and social relationship. For example, some people
may enjoy disparagement humor when they have positive feeling toward the jokers
even they have negative feeling toward the victims of the jokes (Zillman and Cantor
1976). Easily angered people are more likely to perform hostile humor than the others
(Grziwok and Scodel 1956). In addition, Allport (1961) suggested that a mature
person should process a non-hostile, self-deprecating humor with self-acceptance. All
in all, humor can be hostile, disparaging and philosophical at the same time (Ruch
1998).

Styles of Humor
Recently, humor has grouped into two dimensions, adaptive and maladaptive.
Adaptive humor refers to humors that are beneficial to psychological well-being. It
includes affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor (Martin 2007). Affiliative humor
refers to the tendency to tell jokes or engage in spontaneous witty banter in order to
create amusement, lessen interpersonal tension and facilitate relationship. This kind of
humor is non-hostile and tolerant. It affirms self and others, hence, increases
interpersonal cohesiveness. Self-enhancing humor means the tendency to find
amusement from the incongruities in life.
On the other hand, maladaptive humor is detrimental to well-being. It involves
aggressive humor and self-defeating humor. The tendency to use humor for criticizing
or manipulating others was regarded as aggressive humor. Examples of aggressive
humor include teasing, ridicule, derision, disparagement. Some of the aggressive
humors would also appear in offensive or socially inappropriate forms. Meanwhile,
people who use self-defeating humor, tend to ingratiate themselves with others and try
to amuse others by making fun at their own weakness. They use humor as a means to
deny their underlying negative feelings or avoid dealing with certain problem (Stieger
et al. 2011).

Gender and humor styles

Generally, males consider themselves to be more humorous than females. Men have
higher likelihood to joke, tease, and kid than women (Wong 2010). Women like to act
in an appreciative way and rather be a listener to the jokes. They are less likely to
produce humor by themselves (Freud 1905, Ehrenzweig 1957, McGhee 1979a). Males
and females are different in using and responding to both adaptive and maladaptive
styles of humors (Svebak 1974, Ziv 1984, Aries 1987, Eagly and Johnson 1990).
Studies showed males obtain significantly higher scores than females on the two
maladaptive humor styles (Martin et al. 2003). The trend was more obvious when the
humor was related to sexual or aggressive issues (Spiegel et al. 1969).
Gender role and social status are important on the perception on humor. Men
may establish dominance and social control by using humor (Martin et al. 2003).
Females are more careful about their responses on humor to avoid being derisive or
 3

immodest. Because of the appropriate behavior assigned on women, they are less
likely to show their enjoyment on humors. Some women may not be brave enough to
pay the cost since some humors may carry risks (Brown and Levinson 1987).

Humor and self-esteem

Self-esteem is positively correlated with adaptive humor but not with maladaptive
humor. Previous studies showed that healthy humor styles will lead to higher
self-esteem (Martin et al. 2003). Particularly, affiliative humor style was proved to be
positively related to various measures of self-esteem (Martin et al. 2003, Kuiper et al.
2004). Meanwhile, self-defeating humor style was negatively associated with
self-esteem (Thorson et al. 1997). People who prefer self-defeating humor style tend
to have damaged self-esteem because of their derogatory view of self-perception
(Stieger et al. 2011). The reason is largely related to the endorsement of
self-evaluative standards. Increase in endorsement of positive self-evaluative
standards increases the use of affiliative humor, hence, causing higher levels of social
self-esteem. Meanwhile, increased endorsement of negative self-evaluative standards
leads to more frequent use of self-defeating humor and results in lower levels of social
self-esteem (Martin et al. 2003).

Humor and happiness

Humor is globally accepted to be an indicator of positive mental health (Paul et al.
1986). Previous studies agreed that happiness and sense of humor were positively
correlated (Paul et al. 1986). Sense of humor is one of the best predictors in
differentiating happy and unhappy individuals. In contrast to unhappy students, happy
students were more often reported reviewing negative event with a sense of humor
and thinking about how much better of the present while comparing to the negative
event (Lyubomirsky and Tucker 1998).
Positive emotions are the consequences rather than the cause of humorous
amusement. Study found that perception of humor induces positive emotions by the
expressions of smiling and laughter (Ruch 1998). When people are confronted with
humor, they will have a cheerful smile and tend to laugh more. Factors of
cheerfulness and low seriousness were repeatedly found to be the result of various
humor instruments. Humorous behavior was shown to be related to high cheerfulness
and low seriousness. In contrast, humor did not predict bad mood at all (Ruch et al.
2011).
In a more general perspective, humor affects people’s outlook on life.
Participants who watched comedy video were found to have significant level of
hopefulness than those who had watched non-humorous video (Vilaythong et al.
2003). Indeed, humor was one of the characteristics that lead to higher life satisfaction.
Peterson et al. (2006) found that individuals who had recovered from a serious illness
or psychological disorder showed increased endorsement of character strengths that
contributed to increased life satisfaction. Humor is one of the most frequently used
character strength (Linley and Harrington 2006). Humor also indicates ones’ social
interest; the degree of social interest determines the possibility for happiness (Adler
1964).
Humor not only facilitates positive moods but also counteracts negative emotion
as well (Gross and Munoz 1995). After being exposed to four minutes of humorous
film, participants showed significant reduction in anxiety (Moran 1996). Besides,
humor is able to provide positive short-term emotional effect comparable to the effect
brought by doing vigorous physical exercise. Study found that watching comedy
 4

videos increased positive mood and decreased negative distress in similar level as
doing aerobic exercise. Moreover, watching comedy videos result in greater reduction
in anxiety than doing aerobic exercise (Szabo et al. 2005).
In addition, humor can even counteract the effects of experimentally induced
depression (Danzer 1990). Humor can make boring tasks interesting. From a previous
study, participants reported higher level of energy and elation, and rated the boring
proofreading tasks to be more challenging and invigorating after they had watched a
comedy video (Dienstbier 1995).
Happiness is positively correlated with adaptive humor styles, and is negatively
correlated with maladaptive humor styles. Many findings proved the use of different
humor styles relates to happiness in several dimensions, ranging from optimism to
lower aggressiveness. For example, Yue et al. (2008) found that optimism and mental
health were positively correlated with affiliative and self-enhancing humor but
negatively related to hostile and self-defeating humor. Affiliative humor was found to
be negatively associated with depression (Martin et al. 2003). Self-enhancing humor
was positively related to well-being and negatively associated with anxiety and
depression (Thorson et al. 1997). Besides, aggressive humor was used more often
with measures of hostility and aggressiveness. Findings show that individuals with
higher aggressive humor might generate indirect costs by distancing themselves from
others through their humor. Their humor reduces their happiness because they are
lack of extensive or supportive social network to call upon when dealing with
stressors (Kuiper et al. 2004). Meanwhile, self-defeating humor style was negatively
correlated with well-being and social support, but positively associated with anxiety,
depression, hostility, and aggression (Thorson et al. 1997).
To conclude, only affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor were believed to
be positively correlated to elements related to happiness. Meanwhile, the two
maladaptive humor styles were related to elements lead to lower happiness.

Self-esteem and Happiness

Self-esteem has a strong correlation with happiness not only because high level of
self-esteem leads to happy and productive lives, but also its direct predictive power on
happiness (Baumeister et al. 2003). Previous research revealed that higher self-esteem
would lead to greater happiness. Under some circumstances, low self-esteem is more
likely to lead to depression. Various studies proposed different points of view on the
relationship. Buffer hypothesis was supported by some studies. Some suggested that
self-esteem mitigates the effects of stress. However, opposite conclusion was found in
other studies, indicating the negative effects of low self-esteem are mainly felt in good
times while others still found that high self-esteem brings happier outcomes
regardless of stress or other circumstances (Baumeister et al. 2003).

Humor as mediators between self-esteem and happiness

All in all, higher use of adaptive humor styles strengthens the positive relationship
between self-esteem and subjective happiness while less use of maladaptive humor
styles weakens the relationship. Previous findings suggested that individuals who
scored higher on the Coping Humor Scale, reported more enjoyment in their
interactions with others and more confident in those interactions. With increased
social self-esteem, they are more likely to be associated with greater levels of
happiness (Thorson et al. 1997). In fact, humor showed significant relations with all
character strengths subgroups when self-esteem and self-efficacy are accounted
 5

(Linley and Harrington 2006). Being one of the five most commonly-endorsed
character strengths, humor is related to self-esteem in the sense that when we use our
strengths, we feel good about ourselves and able to achieve things in a better way and
work toward to fulfill our potential, thus, increased our life satisfaction (Linley and
Harrington 2006).
Another research supported that high self-esteem individuals use more adaptive
self-regulatory strategies than low self-esteem individuals. These strategies were
factors causing their higher levels of reported happiness and satisfaction (Baumeister
et al. 2003). And humor was believed to be one of the self-regulatory strategies.
The humor style chosen by an individual is also under concern. The relations
were indicated in a research, which suggested lower levels of depression went alone
with increased use of affiliative humor. For participants with greater endorsement of
negative self-evaluative standards, they tend to use more self-defeating humor, and
resulted in lower levels of social self-esteem and higher levels of depression (Kuiper
and McHale 2009). Self-defeating humor was strongly negatively correlated with
explicit self-esteem and positively correlated with depression, anxiety, and several
psychiatric and somatic symptoms (Martin et al. 2003). Furthermore, individuals with
damaged self-esteem used self-defeating humor as a form of defensive mechanism to
deny and hide their negative feelings, suppress anger and to mask their social and
personal anxieties. And they are prone to depression, nervousness and have higher
chance in suffering psychiatric disorders (Martin et al. 2003, Kuiper et al. 2004).

Nomination of Top Ten Humorists

With little mention on people in other occupations, Chinese undergraduates in
Huhehot mostly nominated comedians to be humorists representatives (Yue et al.
2006). And 64.2% of nominated humorists among the Hong Kong students are
comedians. This suggests that Chinese people tend to believe that humor is an
exclusive expertise or special talent for comedians (Yue 2011).

Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses

The present study aims to investigate the relationship of humor style, happiness and
self-esteem among University students in Hong Kong. Although previous studies had
already revealed abundant information on the issue, few of them studied the gender
effect and role of mediator played by humor styles on self-esteem and happiness.
Several hypotheses were made on the relationships among humor styles,
self-esteem and happiness. First, present study would like to continue the
investigation of the gender difference in humor styles. Second, it also attempted to
test whether adaptive humor style relates to higher self-esteem and more happiness
while maladaptive humor style relates to lower self-esteem and less happiness. Under
the circumstances of the mediating effect of humor in previous study on psychological
well-being and self-esteem, hypotheses were theorized that use of adaptive humor
styles would strengthen the relationship between self-esteem and subjective happiness
while the use of maladaptive humor styles would weakens the relationship. The
conceptual framework for mediation was illustrated in Figure 1.
 6

Figure 1. The conceptual framework for Hypothesis 5 and 6

The followings are hypotheses for the present study:

H1: Males consider themselves to be more humorous than females
H2: Males use more maladaptive humor styles than females while females use more
adaptive humor styles than males.
H3: Self-esteem is positively correlated with adaptive humor styles but is negatively
correlated with maladaptive humor styles.
H4: Subjective happiness is positively correlated with adaptive humor styles but is
negatively correlated with maladaptive humor styles.
H5: Self-esteem is positively correlated with subjective happiness.
H6: Use of adaptive humor styles strengthens the relationship between self-esteem and
subjective happiness while the use of maladaptive humor styles weakens the
relationship between self-esteem and subjective happiness.
H7: Hong Kong people will mostly nominate comedians as representatives of humor.

Methodology

Participants
232 participants were sampled in Hong Kong in this study, consisting 92 males (39.7%)
and 135 females (58.2%). All participants were undergraduate students, who were
mainly from 6 Universities in Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong, the City
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, and The Chinese University
of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Hong Kong Shue Yan
University. Participants are aged between15 to 28 with a mean age of 20.87 years old.

Materials/Measures
A self-reported questionnaire was used in data collection for current study. It consists
of five parts.
In the first section, through a 10-point Likert scale, participants were asked to
evaluate four areas related to humor (1 = lowest, 10 = highest). The four areas
included the rating on the importance of humor, their self- humor and humor of their
parents. Moreover, they were asked to nominate maximally three best representatives
they remembered both in China and in foreign countries. Moreover, they ranked the
top ten important personality traits for humor. The following parts consist of three
scales: Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), Humor Style Questionnaire (HSQ)and
 7

Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS).

Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg 1965) is a 10-item scale of explicit
self-esteem (0 = totally disagree, 3 = totally agree). The higher the values, the higher
the explicit self-esteem an individual achieves.
Humor Style Questionnaire (Martin et al. 2003) is a 32-item scale. It measures
the four humor styles, affiliative humor, self-enhancing humor, aggressive humor and
self-defeating humor through a 7 point Likert scale (1 = lowest, 7 = highest). There
are 8 items for each style. The questionnaire was translated into Chinese version in
2005 by Chen and Martin.
Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky and Lepper 1997) is a 4-item scale.
Both absolute ratings and ratings relative to peers are included for participants to
characterize themselves in the first two items. And brief descriptions of happy and
unhappy individuals as well as the extent each characterization describes them were
offered in the other two items (Lyubomirsky and Lepper 1997).

Procedure
Participants were invited to participate in a voluntary basis. The distributed
Chinese-in-version questionnaire included five parts and takes about 10 minutes to
complete. Eventually the collected data were entered into PASW Statistics 18 for
further analysis by using independent sample t-test, Pearson correlation and
Regression.

Results

Descriptive Statistics of the Demographic Variables of the Present Study

Table 1. Demographic Information of the Participants (N = 232).

N Percentage
Gender Male 92 39.7
Female 135 58.2
Age 20 and below 92 40.9
21 and above 133 59.1
Year of study Year 1 76 32.8
Year 2 47 20.3
Year 3 99 42.7
Year 4 6 2.6

Table 1 shows the demographic data of the present study, including participants’
gender, age, and year of university study. As can be seen from the table, 58.2% of the
sample was females and 39.7% were males. The participants were aged from 15 to 28
years old. 40.9% of them aged 20 and below (N = 92), and 59.1% of them aged 21
and above (N = 133). Majority of them were studying Year 3(N = 99; 42.7%) and the
least were in Year 4 (N = 6; 2.6%).

Ratings of Importance of Humor and Self-Humor

Table 2 summarizes the ratings of the importance of humor and self-humor among
university students. Independent sample t-tests were run to compare the result for two
genders. In both gender, the rating on the importance of humor were quite high (M =
8.43 for male and M = 7.73 for female).
 8

Table 2. Means and Standard Deviations for rating of Importance of Humor and of
Self-humor in Males and Females.
Male Female
(n = 92) (n = 135)
M SD M SD t-value
Importance of Humor 8.43 1.499 7.73 1.218 3.916*
Self-Humor 6.68 2.080 6.03 1.424 2.817*
Father’s humor 5.35 2.326 5.76 2.008 -1.416
Mother’s humor 4.62 1.994 5.41 1.797 -3.102*
Note: *p<.05

9
8
7
6
Mean 5
Scores 4 Male
3 Female
2
1
0
Importance of Self humor Father's humor Mother's humor
humor

Figure 2. Ratings of Importance of Humor, Self-humor, father’s humor and mother’s

humor.

The ratings of the males’ importance of humor is significantly higher than

females (t = 3.916, p<.05). At the same time, the ratings of self-humor for males is
significantly higher than females (t = 2.817, p<.05). These findings provide full
support to Hypothesis One that males consider themselves to be more humorous than
females which are the same as the previous studies suggested (Yue 2011). There was
also significant result in their rating of their mother’s humor (t = -3.102, p<.05),
suggesting the different perception on humor in males and females. Although there
was no significant different in the score of their father’s humor, both genders rated
their fathers to be more humorous than mothers. Moreover, both genders rated their
self-humor much higher than their parents.

Nomination of Top Ten Humorists

Table 3a and 3b show the ten most frequently nominated humorists by Hong Kong
University Students. Comedians and actors were found to be the mostly nominated
Chinese humorists, consisting around 45% of the whole nominations. In addition, the
most frequently nominated foreign humorists are actors, comedian and two presidents
of the United State, which consist of 33.3% of the total nominations. For the
nominated Chinese humorist, Stephen Chow, Wong Chi Wah, Jim Chim, Jan Lam are
still in the top ten, which is similar to result of previous study. And Mr. Bean is still
popular among students when they think of foreign humorist (Yue 2012).
 9

Table 3a. Ranking of the Top Ten Chinese Humorists nominated.

Humorists
Nominated Occupation Ranking Percentage
Wong Chi Wah 黃子華 Actor/ Comedian 1 14.4
Stephen Chow 周星馳 Actor/ Comedian 2 12.9
Jim Chim Sui-man 詹瑞文 Actor/ Comedian 3 3.7
Jan Lam 林海峰 Disk Jockey 4 2.9
Wong Cho Lam 王祖藍 Actor/ Comedian 4 2.9
Eric Tsang 曾志偉 Actor/ Comedian 6 2.4
Sum Mei 森美 Disk Jockey 7 2.3
Kong Zi 孔子 Philosopher 8 1.6
Louis Yuen 阮兆祥 Actor/ Comedian 8 1.6
Michael Hui 許冠文 Actor/ Comedian 10 1.4
Total 46.1

Table 3b. Ranking of the Top Ten Foreign Humorists.

Humorists Nominated Occupation Ranking Percentage
Mr. Bean Actor/Comedian 1 12.1
Jim Carrey Actor/Comedian 2 6.9
Charles Spencer Comedian 3 5.3
Obama President of U.S.A 4 3.0
Johnny Depp Actor/ Comedian 5 1.3
Will Smith Actor/ Comedian 6 1.1
Ben Stiller Actor/ Comedian 7 1.0
Russel Peters Disc Jockey/ Comedian 7 1.0
George Bush President of U.S.A 8 0.9
Yu Jae-seok Artist 9 0.7
Total 33.3

Table 3c. Top five Occupational categories of nominated Chinese and foreign
humorists.
Ranking Chinese % Foreign %
1 Actor 45.5 Actor 32.6
2 Disc Jockey/host 4.3 Politician 6.3
3 Writer/composer 4.2 Host 1.9
4 Philosopher 3.9 Singer 1.6
5 Politician 3.3 Celebrity 1.0

Table 3c shows the top five occupation categories of nominated Chinese and
foreign humorists. Most nominated humorists of Chinese and foreigners are actors, it
scored 45.5% of the Chinese humorists and 32.6% for foreign humorists. Politician
ranked within the top five in both Chinese and foreign humorists with slightly higher
ranking in the foreign humorist list. Politician occupied 3.3% in Chinese group and
6.3% in foreigners group.
 10

Gender Difference in Use of Humor Styles

Table 4. Gender Difference in the use of Humor Styles.

Male Female
(n = 92) (n = 135)
M SD M SD t-value
Affiliative Humor 33.32 6.68 34.02 5.50 -.862
Self-enhancing Humor 33.49 5.97 33.52 6.50 -.035
Aggressive Humor 28.92 5.87 26.14 5.78 3.482*
Self-defeating Humor 29.62 7.32 28.35 6.55 1.345
Note: *p<.05

Table 4 illustrates the use of four different humor styles in both genders. The
data were tested by using independent sample t-test to determine the significant
differences among genders. In general, the outcomes were satisfied that both genders
use more adaptive humor styles than maladaptive styles of humor. And male uses
significantly more aggressive humor than female (t = 3.482, p<.05). This finding
provides partial support to Hypothesis Two, indicating that females use more adaptive
humor than males and males use more maladaptive humor than females.

40
35
30
25
Mean
20 Male
Scores
15
Female
10
5
0
Affiliative Self-enhancing Aggressive Self-defeating
Humor Humor Humor Humor

Figure 3. Mean scores of humor styles.

Level of Self-Esteem and Subject Happiness among University Students

Table 5. Comparison of Self-Esteem Level and Subjective Happiness by Gender.

Male Female
(n = 92) (n = 135)
M SD M SD t-value
Self esteem 27.60 3.64 27.84 4.79 -.406
Subjective Happiness 17.18 3.81 16.92 3.42 .531
Note: *p<.05

Table 5 indicated the mean scores and standard deviation of self-esteem and
subjective happiness by gender. Analyzed by Independent sample t-test, there was no
significant difference in level of self-esteem and subjective happiness in two genders
(p > .05), indicating the similar level of self-esteem and subjective happiness in both
genders.
 11

Regressions on Humor Styles and demographic information

Table 6 presents the regression analysis of the four humor styles and four
demographic variables. They are gender, age, year of study, and religion of the
participants. Through these results, aggressive humor was significantly associated
with gender (β = -.223, t (226) = -3.085, p < .01). It confirms the previous result in
Independent sample t-test. Moreover, subjective happiness was significantly
associated with religion (β= .178, t (226) = 0.31, p < .05), implying that religion
influences people’s happiness.

Table 6. Regression analyses on Humor Styles, Self-Esteem, Subjective Happiness

and gender, age, year of study, religion.
Gender Age Year of study Religion
Adaptive Humor
Affiliative Humor .080 .082 .073 .039
Self-Enhancing Humor .013 -.043 -.141 -.005
Maladaptive Humor
Aggressive Humor -.223** .061 .066 -.099
Self-defeating Humor -.014 -.153 -.126 -.007
Self-Esteem .038 .135 .069 -.108
Subjective Happiness -.085 -.001 .027 .178*
R2 .058 .056 .045 .042
Note: Regression coefficients are standardized
** p< .01, *p<.05

Correlation of Self-Esteem, Humor styles and Subjective Happiness

Table 7a illustrates that self-esteem was positively correlated with affiliative Humor
(r= .275, p <.01), self-enhancing humor (r = .381, p <.01) and subjective happiness (r
= .410, p <.01), but not with aggressive humor and self-defeating humor. This finding
provides partial support to Hypothesis Three, which self-esteem is positively
correlated with adaptive humor and negatively correlated with maladaptive humor.
Despite the positive correlation of subjective happiness and self-esteem, subjective
happiness was significantly positively correlated with affiliative humor (r = .324, p
<.01) and self-enhancing humor (r = .443, p <.01), but it has no correlation with
aggressive humor and self-defeating humor.
The result provides partial support to Hypothesis Four, which implies that the
positive correlation of adaptive humor and negative correlation of maladaptive humor
with subjective happiness. And the finding supports Hypothesis Five that self-esteem
is positively correlated with subjective happiness.
Besides, affiliative humor was positively correlated with self-enhancing humor
(r = .332, p <.01), self-defeating humor was positively correlated to self-enhancing
humor (r = .277, p <.01) and aggressive humor (r = .247, p <.01), which is similar to
the findings of previous study (Hiranandani 2010).
 12

Table 7a. Correlations between Self-Esteem, Humor Styles and Subjective Happiness.
Affiliative Self Aggre Self- Self- Subjective
Humor Enhancing -ssive defeating Esteem Happiness
Humor Humor Humor

Affiliative - - - - -
Humor
Self- .332** - - - -
Enhancing
Humor

Aggressive .047 .024 - - -

Humor
Self- .007 .277** .247** - -
defeating
Humor

Self-Esteem .275** .381** -.004 -.121 - -

Subjective .324** .443** -.036 .043 .410** -

Happiness
Note: Correlation is significant if **p <.01

Additionally, Table 7b shows the correlation between self-esteem, humor styles

and subjective happiness in male and female students. For male, self-esteem was
significantly correlated with affiliative humor (r = .468, p <.01), self-enhancing
humor (r = .443, p <.01) and subjective happiness (r = .533, p <.01). Whereas, for
females, self-esteem was significantly correlated with self-enhancing humor (r = .354,
p <.01) and subjective happiness (r = .351, p <.01), but affiliative humor did not have
a significant correlation. Subjective happiness of both genders were positively
correlated with affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor.
The findings partly supported Hypothesis Three. In addition, for both female and
male students, self-enhancing humor was correlated to affiliative humor (male: r
=.372; female: r =.308, p <.01 ) and self-defeating humor (male: r = .340; female: r
= .240, p <.01). But only female’s aggressive humor was correlated with
self-defeating humor (r = .273, p <.01).
 13

Table 7b. Correlations between Self-Esteem, Humor Styles and Subjective

Happiness in male and female students.
Affilia Self Aggre Self- Self- Subjective
-tive Enhancing -ssive defeating Esteem Happiness
Humor Humor Humor Humor

Female
Affiliative - .308** .113 .039 .167 .313**
Humor
Self- .372** - .64 .240** .354** .407**
Enhancing
Humor
Aggressive -.005 -.023 - .273** .010 -.066
Male

Humor
Self- -.020 .340** .194 - -.132 -.018
defeating
Humor
Self- .468** .443** -0.10 -.100 - .351**
Esteem
Subjective .342** .499** -.009 .109 .533** -
Happiness

Note: Correlation is significant if **p <.01

Humor Style acts as a mediator of self-esteem and subjective happiness

Table 8. Multiple Regression Analyses on Humor Styles (N = 232).

Self-esteem Subjective Happiness
Affiliative Humor .158* .197**
Self-enhancing Humor .408** .391**
Aggressive Humor .040 -.055
Self-Defeating Humor -.247** -.067
R2 .236** .237**
Note. The regression coefficients are standardized.
*p<.05**p< .01

Table 8 presents the four styles of humor were found to be significantly associated
with self-esteem (R2 = .236, F[3, 228] = 16.348, p <.01) and subjective happiness (R2
= .237, F[3, 228] = 15.761, p <.01). More specifically, self-esteem was positively
affected by affiliative humor (β = .158, t = 2.477, p <.05) self-enhancing humor (β
= .408, t = 6.157, p <.01) and self-defeating humor (β = -.247, t = -3.826, p <.01). And
subjective happiness was positively associated with affiliative humor (β = .197, t =
3.023, p <.01) and self-enhancing humor (β = .391, t = 5.822, p <.01). The findings
partially support Hypothesis Four that self-esteem was positively correlated with
affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor, but negatively correlated with aggressive
humor and self-defeating humor as well as Hypothesis Four, which proposed that
 14

subjective happiness was positively correlated with affiliative humor and

self-enhancing humor, but negatively correlated with aggressive humor and
self-defeating humor.

Figure 4. Path model of relations between self-esteem, humor styles, and subjective
happiness **p<.01***p<.001

In the following analysis, the four humor styles were employed in examining the
mediating effect. Regression analysis showed that self-esteem had a significant
positive effect on happiness (β = .267, t = 3.941, p < .001).
The results indicated that, self-esteem was positively associated with affiliative
humor (β = .275, t = 4.317, p < .001), and self-enhancing humor (β = .381, t = 6.187,
p < .001), but the effect of aggressive humor (β = -.004, t = -.67, p = .947), and
self-defeating humor (β = -.121, t =-1.825, p = .069) were not significant.
Thirdly, the results showed that when the effect of self-esteem was adjusted,
self-esteem was positively affected by affiliative humor (β = 228, t =3.640, p <.001),
and positively influenced by self-enhancing humor (β = .336, t = 5.31, p < .001). The
effects of aggressive humor (β =-.037, t = -.587, p = .558) and self-defeating humor (β
= .102, t = 1.633, p = .104) were not significant. Finally, the effect of self-esteem on
subjective happiness remained significant (β = .410, t = 6.670, p < .001). As a whole,
both affiliative and self-enhancing humor mediated the effect of self-esteem on
subjective happiness. The finding supports Hypothesis Six that adaptive humor
strengthens the positive correlation of self-esteem and subjective happiness. The
results of the relevant regression analyses are summarized in Figure 4.
Besides, the total mediating effect of the four humor styles was not significant in
Sobel tests (Sobel 1982) (z = 2.32, p = .01). The mediating effect through affiliative (z
 15

=2.76, p = .002), and self-enhancing humor (z =4.02, p = .000) were significant. Thus,
the finding supports Hypothesis Six that adaptive humor strengthens the positive
relationship of self-esteem and subjective happiness.

Ranking of importance of personality traits

Table 9a. Ranking of importance of personality traits (n = 177).

Ranking M S.D.
Creative 富有創造力 1 4.80 2.797
Imaginative 想像力豐富 2 4.85 7.605
Articulate 善於表達 3 5.16 2.49
Funny 搞笑 4 5.35 3.11
Witty 機智 5 5.36 2.77
Rich insight 富有觀察力 6 5.53 2.81
Responsive 反應靈敏 7 5.59 2.71
Cheerful 性格開朗 8 6.03 3.08
Flexible 靈活 9 6.12 2.86
Confidence 自信 10 6.19 2.92

Table 9b. Gender Difference in Ranking on importance of personality traits.

Male Female
(n=71) (n=106)
Rank M S.D. Rank M S.D. t-value
Creative 富有創造力 1 5.41 11.56 2 4.48 2.74 -.58
Imaginative 想像力豐富 5 5.41 11.56 1 4.48 2.74 .81
Articulate 善於表達 4 5.38 2.55 3 5.02 2.45 .81
Funny 搞笑 6 5.59 3.30 4 5.19 2.97 .72
Witty 機智 3 5.35 2.83 6 5.37 2.74 .12
Rich insight 富有觀察力 2 5.08 2.52 7 5.82 2.96 -1.78
Responsive 反應靈敏 7 6.14 2.51 5 5.22 2.79 2.32*
Cheerful 性格開朗 9 6.21 3.12 8 5.92 3.06 .37
Flexible 靈活 8 6.15 2.85 9 6.09 2.88 .35
Confidence 自信 10 6.21 2.94 10 6.18 2.93 -.07
Note: *p <.05

The ranking of importance of personality traits was shown in Table 9a with

creative being the most important personality traits and confidence being the least.
Although both genders ranked confidence as the least important personality traits, in
Table 9b, the result indicated male considered ‘creative’ be the most important while
female stated the personality traits of ‘imaginative’. Analyzed by Independent sample
t-test, only the personality traits of ‘responsive’ (t =2.322, p<.05) scored significantly
different for the two genders while there were no significant result for the other
personality traits.
 16

7
6
5
4 Male
3
2
1
0
Female

Figure 6. Mean scores on the importance of personality traits.

Discussion
Hypothesis One assumed that males considered themselves significantly more
humorous than females. The present finding supports the hypothesized gender
difference. This result is consistent with Yue’s (2011) previous finding. It is interesting
to note that mother was considered more humorous than fathers by the females. This
perhaps owing to the types of humor presented by their mothers as women are more
likely to show a preference for real life anecdotal humor (Ruch 1998).
Most of the nominated humorists are comedians and DJs. The present high
percentage of nominated humorists is consistent with Yue’s (2011) finding which
Hong Kong students perceive comedians as being the sole representatives of humor.
Nevertheless, some differences are found in the occupational categories for the
nominated Chinese and foreign humorists that there are more writers are nominated in
the Chinese list, yet it is not included in the top five nominated occupation in the
foreign group.
Hypothesis Two proposed that males tended to use more maladaptive humor
styles than females, and females tended to use more adaptive humor style than males.
The present findings provide partial support to the hypothesis. It confirms the
correlation of gender and use of humor style as mentioned in previous studies (Martin,
et al., 2003) that males use more aggressive humor style than females. It is probably
because males used aggressive humor as a mean to achieve their status regardless the
expense of other people (Kazarian and Martin 2004). Besides, women tend to look for
intimacy, whereas men tend to seek self-presentation (Tannen 1986). This variation in
conversational goals seems to be reflected in their use of humor styles. And the
present findings are in the right direction in showing the gender difference.
Besides, self-esteem is positively correlated with affiliative humor and
self-enhancing humor, but not with aggressive humor and self-defeating humor. It
confirms previous finding that students with higher self-esteem tended to use more
adaptive humor (Martin et al. 2003). The present result provides partial support to
Hypothesis Three that adaptive humor styles tend to enhance self-esteem. In fact, the
negative correlation between maladaptive humors and self-esteem were also shown in
the result, but it was not significant due to the limitation of small sample size.
In addition, subjective happiness is shown to be significantly positively
correlated with affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor, which provides partial
support to Hypothesis Four. The positive relationship of happiness and adaptive
humor was caused by the social interaction resulted from the provoked humor. Some
indirect benefits were gained by individuals who were high on affiliative humor in
 17

dealing with stressors through the supportive social relationships encouraged by their
humor. Greater use of affiliative humor increases the available social support network
for individuals, providing resources to deal with potential stressors as well as higher
levels of social intimacy (Martin et al. 2003). On the other hand, people who use
self-enhancing humor, would be able to establish a positive mindset with
characteristics of greater happiness, hope, and optimism (Thorson et al. 1997).
Nevertheless, there is no significant correlation on subjective happiness with
aggressive humor and self-defeating humor because of the small sample size.
Significant positive relationship of self-esteem and subjective happiness is found,
providing similar results as the previous findings (Baumeister et al. 2003) did and
provide supports to Hypothesis Five.
Both affiliative and self-enhancing humor mediated the effect of self-esteem on
subjective happiness, providing partial support to Hypothesis Six. The result is
consistent with the study of Thorson and his colleagues in 1997.
There is correlation between self-enhancing humor and self-defeating humor.
According to previous study, individuals who engaged in self-enhancing humor
should employ their sense of humor effectively by avoiding self-defeating humor
(Thorson et al. 1997). However, our result shows a positive correlation between the
two humor styles. Further research can be done to investigate the correlation.
Moreover, the present finding shows correlation between aggressive humor and
self-defeating humor. It is consistent with the previous research that aggressive humor
is positively correlated with self-defeating humor, indicating people who use more
certain type of unhealthy humor style will be more potentially use the other (Martin
2007).
Creative is ranked as the most important personality traits for humor. It is
because humor and creativity may share many components, including playfulness,
risk-taking, resolution of incongruity, even insight (Kuhlman 1984). The present
finding provides support to Babad’s (1974) study that creativity tests were
significantly correlated with the rated funniness of subjects’ humor productions.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

Several limitations have to be noticed though significant findings are found in the
present study. The most obvious limitation is the small sample size which leads to
non-significant for the maladaptive humor styles. Larger sample size is suggested for
future study. Besides, since the present study merely focuses on the Hong Kong
university students, its generalization on the population is limited. Samples from
diverse culture or regions are suggested for future study.
Moreover, as the participants are recruited through convenient sampling method
and most of them are major in subjects related to social science, sample bias and
subject bias may be induced. Perception of humor and gender role may also influence
the result because of the high educational background of the sample. Confounding
variables such as education level, social status should be controlled for future studies.
Finally, being a self-reported measure, there are chances for participants to fill in the
questions in a social desirable way. Longitudinal and qualitative designs are suggested
for future studies.

Acknowledgements
First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Yue Xiao Dong, for his
patience and regular guidance throughout the present study. His sharing on his previous studies as
well as his valuable advice inspired me in exploring further on my topics.
Thankfulness would be given to all the people who have supported me in the present Final
 18

Year Project, especially to all the participants who had participated in this study.

Biographic Note
Miss Katy W.Y. Liu is the 2012 graduate of Bachelor of Social Sciences (Honours) in Psychology
at City University of Hong Kong. Her email address is [email protected].

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