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Humor Types Show Different Patterns of Self-Regulation, Self-Esteem, and

Well-Being

Article in Journal of Happiness Studies · April 2012

DOI: 10.1007/s10902-012-9342-6

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J Happiness Stud
DOI 10.1007/s10902-012-9342-6

RESEARCH PAPER

Humor Types Show Different Patterns

of Self-Regulation, Self-Esteem, and Well-Being

Anja K. Leist • Daniela Müller

Ó The Author(s) 2012. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com

Abstract Humor styles have been found to be associated with well-being, however, no
study has addressed the distinct well-being associations of combinations of humor styles,
that is, humor types, yet. The present study thus aimed at investigating which combinations
of humor styles exist and to which extent these humor types are associated with well-being.
In an online questionnaire, the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ, Martin et al. J Res Pers
37:48–75, 2003), self-regulatory strategies, self-esteem, and well-being instruments were
administered to a German sample. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses replicated
the underlying structure of the HSQ. With hierarchical clustering, we found evidence for
three humor types (endorsers, humor deniers, and self-enhancers), which differed in group
means for self-esteem, self-regulatory strategies, and well-being. Findings provide further
evidence for the positive well-being correlates of self-enhancing humor, and distinctly
address the positive correlates of aggressive and self-defeating humor being absent. It is
discussed that humor styles cannot be conceptualized as beneficial or detrimental per se,
but have to be regarded in context.

Keywords Humor styles
Self-esteem
Self-regulation
Well-being

1 Introduction

It is widely believed that humor is an important resource for well-being. Confronted with a
difficult life situation, a German saying goes ‘‘have a sense of humor’’ and reveals the
implicit assumption that making jokes or enjoying absurdities of current life circumstances
A. K. Leist (&)
Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education, University of Luxembourg,
Research Unit INSIDE, Route de Diekirch, 7220 Walferdange, Luxembourg
e-mail: [email protected]

A. K. Leist
Department of Public Health, Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

D. Müller
University of Trier, Trier, Germany

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 A. K. Leist, D. Müller

might help in overcoming a stressful life situation. Humor, conceptualized as a habitual

behavior pattern with the general tendency to laugh or tell funny stories, is a multifaceted
construct that might be used, for example, to cheer up others as well as oneself or to engage
in personal relations (see Martin et al. 2003, for a review of literature). One might also
differentiate humor-related behaviors by the manner in which the humor is delivered, for
example, if humor is used to devaluate oneself or others or to appraise one’s or others’
abilities, respectively. The manner in which humor is delivered is widely accepted as
disposition and therefore as certain style of humor. There is reason to believe that humor
plays an important role in explaining well-being. Several sayings, like the one introduced
earlier, remind us of the ‘‘healing nature of laughter’’ or the effectiveness of ‘‘coping with
humor’’. Empirical evidence, particularly by Martin et al. (2003), shows important asso-
ciations of humor styles with well-being. However, humor as a psychological construct is
characterized by styles that are closely interrelated but not equally adaptive for well-being
(e.g., Martin et al. 2003; Ruch 2007). By investigating different constellations of humor
styles, new associations might emerge and advance the understanding of humor styles and
their association with well-being. Therefore, the present study will develop and use a
typology of humor styles similar to the approach of Galloway (2010). Building upon the
framework of Martin et al. (2003), and in an attempt to further clarify the associations
between humor styles and their contribution to promote well-being, this contribution will
investigate how humor types are related to self-regulatory strategies, quality of life, and
well-being.

1.1 Typology of Humor Styles

To assess differences in humor styles, Martin et al. (2003) developed the Humor Styles
Questionnaire (HSQ), an instrument designed to assess habitual humor-related behavior
patterns, that is, different styles of humor. They distinguish four humor styles on the two
continua ‘‘humor to enhance self versus relationships with others’’ and ‘‘benign versus
potentially detrimental humor’’. To define these humor styles, Martin et al. (2003) illustrate
the humor styles with their potential outcomes in terms of well-being and social interac-
tions. Firstly, affiliative humor reflects a humor style that is used to enhance one’s rela-
tionships with others in a relatively benign way. It is the tendency to tell jokes and funny
stories, in order to amuse and laugh with others. Self-enhancing humor refers to humor to
enhance the self in a tolerant way and is the tendency to maintain a humorous outlook on
life to cheer oneself up (Kuiper et al. 1993). Aggressive humor is a hostile form of humor to
enhance the self at the expense of others and included sarcastic or criticizing humor.
Lastly, self-defeating humor is used to enhance relationships with others at the expense and
detriment of the self. A self-defeating use of humor is to make fun of oneself for the
enjoyment of others, that is, to use humor in a self-disparaging way, or laughing along with
others when being made fun of (cf. Chen and Martin 2007). Although there are many
concurrent approaches that aim at assessing humor as a form of creativity, i.e., productive
ability (e.g., Brodzinsky and Rubien 1976) or as moral value (Ruch et al. 2010a, b),
dispositional humor styles have been found to be validly assessed by the HSQ. For
example, humor styles have been shown to distinctly correlate with the ‘‘dark triad’’ traits
of personality, namely aggressive humor with narcissism, Macchiavellism, and psychop-
athy (Veselka et al. 2010). However, it is unclear why only singular, one-dimensional
associations of humor styles with well-being and personality measures have been inves-
tigated to date. First, one-dimensional associations of humor styles with well-being might
be inconclusive because different motivational strivings could underlie the use of humor.

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Humor Types and Well-Being

For example, aggressive humor can be seen as antisocial and detrimental for social
interactions, but could also be useful in enhancing one’s feelings of being superior to others
or useful in keeping one’s place in the social hierarchy, which both might involve a sense
of competence, control, and well-being. Self-defeating humor, as a second example, might
be useful to (re)negotiate one’s place in the social hierarchy, to amuse others by making a
fool of oneself, and therefore, in general, to affiliate with others. In this line of reasoning,
different humor styles might be combined according to motivational strivings. Second,
one-dimensional approaches might be less fruitful than multi-dimensional approaches
considering that it is highly implausible that individuals make use of only one certain
distinct humor style. Nonetheless, there are—to the best of our knowledge—no assump-
tions about individual patterns in the use of humor styles. Thus, an exploration of the
individual differences in combining the four humor styles would certainly enhance
knowledge in this domain. A study conducted parallel to the present contribution provided
valuable results in an Australian sample on regrouping humor styles into more broader
categories of humor types (Galloway 2010). Galloway showed several associations of the
humor types with personality trait measures as a means to explain humor types. A further
comparison of the present and Galloway’s study will be provided in more detail later. In
sum, there are several reasons for preferring multi-dimensional over one-dimensional
approaches in the investigation of humor styles, which should thus not be considered as
beneficial or detrimental per se. In the present contribution, we therefore aim at further
enhancing knowledge on the combinations of dispositional humor styles by investigating
which combinations of humor styles exist and thus to develop a typology of humor styles.
Investigating the assocations of these humor types with quality of life and well-being
measures might advance the understanding of the contribution of humor in explaining
quality of life and well-being.

1.2 Humor and Well-Being

Concerning the beneficial versus detrimental nature of humor, what do we know about the
associations between humor and well-being so far? Empirical evidence on links between
physical health, humor, and laughter is ‘‘weak and inconclusive’’ (Martin 2001) and some
components of humor even seem detrimental for physical health (Kerkkanen et al. 2004).
However, much research has been conducted concerning the associations between compo-
nents of humor and psychological well-being (e.g., Kuiper et al. 2004; Lefcourt and Thomas
1998; Marziali et al. 2008; Olson et al. 2005; Thorson and Powell 1993; Yip and Martin
2006). In general, humor seems to facilitate psychological health and well-being (Thorson
et al. 1997) and seems to buffer the impact of stressful life events (Nezu et al. 1988). The
positive relationship between sense of humor and well-being is moderated by personality
constructs, for example feelings of agency and communion (Kuiper and Borowicz-Sibenik
2005). Also, humor styles have been shown to mediate the association between self-evalu-
ative standards and psychological well-being (Kuiper and McHale 2009). In the present
study, we will focus on humor styles and take into account Martin et al.’s findings (2003):
They examined the four humor styles regarding their associations with well-being and found
multiple significant associations with different well-being measures, especially for self-
enhancing and affiliative humor. There, affiliative humor was positively associated to
measures of well-being and self-esteem, and negatively related to anxiety and depression.
Self-enhancing humor showed the same, and an even stronger, correlation pattern, but was
also significantly associated with optimism. Aggressive humor was associated with
aggression and hostility, but not with well- or ill-being measures of any kind. Self-defeating

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 A. K. Leist, D. Müller

humor, lastly, correlated highly positively with anxiety, depression, hostility, aggression,
and psychiatric and somatic symptoms, and, negatively, with self-esteem and well-being.
These correlation patterns have for the most part been replicated in an Armenian sample
(Kazarian and Martin 2006). However, aside from findings on straightforward associations
of humor styles with well-being and pathology, it is unclear to which extent individuals are
equipped with different combinations of humor styles and if these combinations of humor
styles show different associations with well-being. It is highly plausible, considering the
moderate, but not too strong associations between the humor styles, that individuals differ in
the constellations of humor styles. Differential constellations of humor styles might lead to
differential associations with well-being. For example, it is intuitively likely that high levels
of aggressive humor in combination with high self-enhancing humor are beneficial, whereas
aggressive humor in combination with high self-defeating humor is detrimental for well-
being. However, these differential associations might not be visible in correlative, mean-
level analyses. Therefore, we believe that it is important to use a person-centered, typological
approach to investigate combinations of humor styles, that is, humor types. These humor
types will then be investigated with regard to associations with different well-being mea-
sures. First, self-esteem has been found to be an important resource for well-being dependent
upon humor styles (Martin et al. 1993). The construct life satisfaction, also investigated
earlier in humor research, represents the cognitive-evaluative component of quality of life or
well-being (Diener et al. 1985). Further extending the study of humor and its associations
with self-esteem and well-being, we were interested in examining associations of humor and
self-regulatory strategies. Self-regulatory strategies are behavior patterns concerning the
pursuit of goals and can be differentiated in the general tendencies to pursue goals even in the
face of obstacles (tenacious goal pursuit) or to adjust personal goals when faced with
situational constraints (flexible goal adjustment; Brandtstädter and Renner 1990). To our
knowledge, no study has investigated the associations of humor styles and self-regulatory
strategies yet. Self-regulatory strategies have been conceptualized as resources that have
been shown to be differentially associated with well-being (Brandtstädter and Greve 1994;
Forstmeier and Maercker 2008; Wrosch et al. 2003). Self-regulatory strategies are regarded
as important precursors to well-being even in the face of adverse circumstances (Brandt-
städter and Greve 1994). Both self-regulatory strategies and humor styles have been con-
ceptualized as disposition ‘‘buffering’’ stressful events and as means to cope with adversities.
Further, both affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles and flexible goal adjustment share a
positive reinterpretation of a (perhaps adverse) situation. Therefore, it can be assumed that
affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles (and humor types characterized by these styles)
are positively associated with flexible goal adjustment. The relationship of humor styles and
humor types with tenacious goal pursuit will be investigated without specific assumptions.

2 Research Questions

Our study is guided by three steps: First, the structure of the Humor Styles Questionnaire
found by Martin et al. (2003) will be replicated in a German sample to ensure compara-
bility of results. Secondly, patterns of humor styles will be investigated guided by the
question if individuals can be grouped according to different combinations of the four
humor styles and develop a typology of humor styles. Lastly, the research question will be
explored if humor types differ with respect to associations with self-regulatory strategies,
and in their contribution to explaining self-esteem and well-being.

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Humor Types and Well-Being

Table 1 Description of the sample concerning age and relationship status for men and women
Men (n = 97, 28.4 %) Women (n = 245, 71.6 %)

Mean age 30.04 27.68

Age range 17–73 15–67
Relationship status Single n = 43 (44.3 %) Single n = 88 (35.9 %)
In relationship n = 37 (38.1 %) In relationship n = 114 (46.5 %)
Married n = 17 (17.5 %) Married n = 42 (17.1 %)
Divorced n = 0 (0.0 %) Divorced n = 1 (0.3 %)

This research question was investigated in a sample of adolescents and adults in young
and middle adulthood. In exploratory and confirmatory analyses, the factor structure of the
HSQ was investigated. Secondly, with hierarchical clustering, three humor types were
identified. Lastly, in analyses of variance, the associations between humor types, self-
regulatory strategies, self-esteem, and well-being were examined.

3 Method

3.1 Data Collection

Data collection took place within the work on the diploma thesis of the second author. Due
to time limitations, the convenience sample was acquired through e-mail distribution of a
link to the online questionnaire.1 A total of 348 individuals participated in the study. Data
of three persons were eliminated because of too short duration of processing the ques-
tionnaire and another three persons because of missing data. So, the data of N = 342
participants could be used. Reported age ranged from 15 to 73 years (M = 28.35 years,
SD = 10.52). However, after data screening and due to the nonnormal distribution of the
age variable (see below), data of N = 305 individuals with an age range of 15–40 years
were retained for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Slightly different sample
sizes are due to some randomly missing data in the self-regulation inventory (Brandtstädter
and Renner 1990, see below). A total of 218 participants were female (71.6 %). When
asked for relationship status, 44.2 % reported to be in a relationship, 38.3 % to be single,
17.3 % to be married, and 0.3 % were divorced. In Table 1, age range and relationship
status are presented for men and women.
Participants were asked to report their professional status or their profession, respec-
tively. Unfortunately, no information about educational status was available. Therefore,
information on profession was recoded with regard to jobs requiring a graduate degree or
not. According to this information, more than half of the sample were students (n = 193,
56.4 %) and n = 83 (24.3 %) were employed in jobs without graduate degree. A total of
40 participants (11.7 %) worked in jobs requiring a university degree, n = 11 (3.2 %) were
students in a secondary school (comparable to a US high school or college), n = 6 (1.8 %)
were retired, and n = 4 (1.2 %) in an apprenticeship.

1
Weaknesses of online surveys concern the perception of the online questionnaire as junk mail, as
impersonal, or the low response rate (Evans and Mathur 2005). However, those weaknesses were overcome
by the distribution of the link to the online questionnaire via personal invitation and by publication in the
university newsletter with a remark that questionnaire data were basis for a diploma thesis and only used for
scientific purposes.

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 A. K. Leist, D. Müller

3.2 Instruments

3.2.1 Self-Esteem

The revised German version of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was used (Ferring and
Filipp 1996; Von Collani and Herzberg 2003). An example item is ‘‘All in all, I am
satisfied with myself’’. The widely used scale contains 10 items with a four-point response
format and the anchors not at all true and completely true (M = 3.17, SD = 0.54,
a = .90).

3.2.2 Self-Regulatory Strategies

We used an instrument developed by Brandtstädter and Renner (1990) to assess self-

regulative strategies in German language. We administered the scales tenacious goal
pursuit (TEN) and flexible goal adjustment (FLEX), each containing 15 items. Tenacious
goal pursuit reflects an assimilative tendency to ‘‘adjust developmental situations to per-
sonal preferences’’ (Brandtstädter and Renner 1990, p. 64). An example item for tenacious
goal pursuit is ‘‘The harder a goal is to achieve, the more desirable it often appears to me’’
(M = 3.42, SD = 0.58, a = .85). Flexible goal adjustment is an accommodative tendency
and measures the extent to which one adjusts personal preferences to situational con-
straints. An example item for flexible goal adjustment is ‘‘I can adapt quite easily to
changes in a situation’’ (M = 3.37, SD = 0.57, a = .85). Respondents were asked to rate
their agreement with the items on a five-point rating scale with the end points not at all true
and completely true.

3.2.3 Well-Being

The widely used Satisfaction with Life Scale (Pavot and Diener 1993) was administered.
The scale contains five items with a seven-point rating scale with the anchors totally
disagree and totally agree (M = 4.87, SD = 1.37, a = .86). An example item is ‘‘I am
satisfied with my life’’. All measures were presented with a response format providing only
the scale anchors due to formatting issues. Descriptives, internal consistencies, and
interrelations of self-regulatory strategies, self-esteem and well-being are also presented in
Table 2. Interrelations were highly significant, which is to be expected regarding the
already mentioned relations between the constructs.

Table 2 Descriptive statistics and internal consistencies of self-regulatory strategies, self-esteem, and well-
being measures (N = 294–305)
Descriptives Correlations

Min Max M SD SE TEN FLEX LS

Self-esteem (SE) 1.20 4.00 3.17 0.54 .90

TEN 1.67 4.73 3.42 0.58 .49*** .85
FLEX 1.27 4.67 3.37 0.57 .44*** .18** .85
Life satisfaction (LS) 1.40 7.00 4.87 1.24 .65*** .33*** .41*** .86

* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001. Internal consistencies (Cronbach’s alpha) in diagonals of correlation
matrix. TEN tenacious goal pursuit, FLEX flexible goal adjustment

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Humor Types and Well-Being

3.2.4 Humor Styles

We administered a German version of the Humor Styles Questionnaire, translated by the

second author. The translation was checked by a native English speaker. The Humor Styles
Questionnaire contains 32 items, each of the four scales consists of 8 items (see Martin et al.
2003, for the original scales; see Müller 2009, for the German version). Respondents rated
their agreement with the items on a seven-point rating scale (totally disagree–totally agree).

3.3 Strategy of Data Analysis

Data screening revealed a nonnormal distribution of the age variable since only 10 % of
the sample was aged over 40 years (n =37). With respect to interpretability of results, a
transformation of this variable was considered to be contraindicated. The exploratory and
confirmatory factor analyses were conducted for the whole sample. However, to exclude
age as a possible confound and to acknowledge potential developmental changes in humor
styles and associations with well-being over the life course, we used a subsample of
participants aged up to 40 years for cluster and variance analyses. In this subsample, age
was normally distributed. This subsample consisted of N = 305 participants aged
15–40 years (M = 25.17, SD = 4.60). Supporting the assumption of age-differences over
the life course and the strategy of investigating a less age-heterogeneous sample, differ-
ences between retained and screened sample emerged in the way that affiliative humor
scores were higher, whereas scores of aggressive humor were lower in the screened sample
(both p values \ .001). Other differences did not get significant. Age-related differences in
humor styles will be discussed below.
Firstly, to examine the underlying structure of the Humor Styles Questionnaire, explor-
atory and confirmatory factor analyses with the whole sample were performed. Secondly,
differential constellations of humor styles, so called humor types, were investigated.
Therefore, in order to find different humor types, hierarchical clustering was performed.
Lastly, to answer the research question on whether humor types differ in self-regulatory
strategies, self-esteem, or well-being, analyses of variance (ANOVAs) and post hoc tests
were performed. Analyses were carried out with Amos 17.0 and PASW (former SPSS) 18.0.

4 Results

4.1 Factor Structure of the German HSQ

To ensure validity of the HSQ, we aimed at comparing the underlying factor structure of
the HSQ in our German sample with Martin et al.’s (2003) findings. Assumptions for data
analysis with exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were met. The 32 items of the
German version of the HSQ were factor analyzed with exploratory factor analysis (prin-
cipal axis factoring and varimax rotation). Firstly, after running an exploratory factor
analysis, a factor solution emerged that was highly consistent with Martin et al.’s (2003)
findings. As in the Canadian sample, according to the scree plot a four factor solution
seemed optimal that explained 45.8 % of the total variance. The first four initial eigen-
values were 6.18, 3.84, 2.75, and 1.89 (the next three eigenvalues were 1.3, 1.2, and 1.0).
Items loaded on the same factors as presented in Martin et al.’s (2003) analyses. Some,
mainly minor, differences in factor loadings were found: For items constituting the self-
enhancing scale, item 30 (‘‘I don’t need to be with other people to feel amused—I can

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 A. K. Leist, D. Müller

usually find things to laugh even when I’m by myself’’) had a significant factor loading in
the original but not in the German sample (aG = .16 vs. aor = .58). For the scale
aggressive, items 11 and 19 (‘‘When telling jokes or saying funny things, I am usually not
very concerned about how other people are taking it’’ and ‘‘Sometimes I think of something
that is so funny that I can’t stop myself from saying it, even if it is not appropriate for the
situation’’) showed slightly lower factor loadings in the German sample (aG = .33 vs.
aor = .53; and aG = .26 vs. aor = .48, respectively). In fact, item 19 had a slightly higher
loading on the factor constituted by items of affiliative humor (aG = .34). However, items
of the scale self-defeating and affiliative were all similar in value and significance.
Additionally, a confirmatory factor analysis was carried out that tested the model of Martin
et al. (2003). Hu and Bentler (1999) suggest to accept RSMEA values close to .06 or below
as reasonably good. The model showed acceptable fit (German sample: RMSEA = .06,
CMIN/DF = 2.319). The indices in the German sample were only slightly lower than in
Martin et al.’s findings (Canadian sample: RMSEA = .05, CMIN/DF = 3.37).

4.2 Descriptive Analyses

The humor scales affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating were con-
structed according to the original HSQ scales presented in Martin et al. (2003). Internal
consistencies of the German HSQ scales were moderate to good and comparable to
findings of Martin et al. (2003). Participants scored highest on affiliative humor (M = 5.87,
SD = 0.78; a = .78), followed by self-enhancing humor (M = 4.60, SDSD = 1.04;
a = .83), and aggressive humor (M = 4.04, SD = 0.94; a = .74). The lowest scores were
found on self-defeating humor (M = 3.39, SD = 1.10; a = .84). Most correlations
between the German HSQ scales were quite similar to the original HSQ scales in absolute
value and significance level (see Table 2). However, two notable differences in the cor-
relation pattern emerged: While the original affiliative and self-defeating scales were not
correlated, we found a small association of the scales in the German sample (r = .13,
p \ .05). Similarly, self-enhancing and self-defeating humor did not correlate in the ori-
ginal study, whereas in the German sample, we found a quite remarkable association
(r = .18, p \ .01). Descriptive statistics are reported in Table 3.

4.3 Cluster Analysis

In a next step, it was examined with cluster analysis whether different patterns of humor
styles could be differentiated and could be thus regrouped into humor types. We z-stan-
dardized the humor style scales to facilitate interpretation of findings. These z-scores were
entered as grouping variables in a hierarchical cluster analysis with squared Euclidean
distance and Ward’s algorithm. The three-cluster solution proved to be most stable when
running analyses with the whole and the screened sample and to be most compelling in
both parsimony and interpretability of the clusters. The first cluster was characterized by an
above average amount of all four humor styles (humor endorsers, N = 134, 43.9 %), the
second cluster had below average scores in all humor styles, especially very low self-
enhancing humor (humor deniers, N = 109, 35.7 %), and the third cluster was charac-
terized by slightly above average affiliative humor, highly above average self-enhancing
humor, and below average aggressive and self-defeating humor (self-enhancers, N = 62,
20.3 %). Z-standardized values for each of the three clusters are presented in Table 4 and
Figure 1. We validated the three-cluster solution with k-means clustering. In a second
cross-validation procedure, we divided the sample at random in two subsamples with

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 Humor Types and Well-Being

Table 3 Descriptive statistics, internal consistencies, and interrelations of the german HSQ humor scales and zero-order correlations with well-being measures
(N = 301–305)
Descriptives Correlations

Min Max M SD AFF ENH AGG DEF SE TEN FLEX LS

Affiliative (AFF) 2.25 7.00 5.87 0.78 .78 .31*** .24*** .13* .18**
Self-enhancing (ENH) 2.00 6.88 4.60 1.04 .44*** .83 .37*** .20*** .53*** .33***
Aggressive (AGG) 1.75 6.63 4.04 0.94 .21*** .07 .74 -.01 -.07 -.13* .02
Self-defeating (DEF) 1.00 6.13 3.39 1.10 .13* .18** .35*** .84 -.22*** -.19** -.05 -.08
* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001. Internal consistencies (Cronbach’s alpha) in diagonals of correlation matrix. SE self-esteem, LS life satisfaction, TEN tenacious goal
pursuit, FLEX flexible goal adjustment

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 A. K. Leist, D. Müller

Table 4 Descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations) of z-standardized HSQ humor styles for the
three humor types (N = 305)
Cluster

Humor endorsers Humor deniers Self-enhancers

M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)

Affiliative 0.51 (0.61) -0.53 (1.10) 0.27 (0.71)

Self-enhancing 0.61 (0.75) -1.01 (0.72) 0.57 (0.48)
Aggressive 0.65 (0.87) -0.15 (0.85) -0.77 (0.64)
Self-defeating 0.72 (0.77) -0.31 (0.84) -0.91 (0.63)

Fig. 1 Values of HSQ humor 0.8

styles in the three humor types
0.6

0.4

0.2

-0.2

-0.4

-0.6
affiliative
-0.8 self-enhancing
-1 aggressive
self-defeating
-1.2
humor endorsers humor deniers self-enhancers

approximate 50 % of the cases and conducted additional hierarchical cluster analyses in

the subsamples.2 In both subsamples (n1 = 147 and n2 = 158), a highly similar three-
cluster solution emerged, which also mirrored the cluster results in the total sample. In this
solution, the first cluster showed above average levels in all humor styles (n1 = 52 and
n2 = 82), a second cluster showed below average levels in all humor styles (n1 = 57 and
n2 = 52) and a third cluster showed slightly above average affiliative humor, highly above
average self-enhancing humor and below average self-defeating and aggressive humor
(n1 = 38 and n2 = 24). One can fairly conclude by these results that the initial cluster
solution proved useful in the cross-validation procedure and we used this solution for
further analyses.
We checked for age and gender differences in the three clusters. The clusters did not
differ in age of the individuals, F(2, 302) = 2.05, p = .13; nor in gender distribution
between clusters, Cramèr’s V = .13, p = .09.

2
We thank an anonymous reviewer for the suggestion of cross-validation in subsamples.

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Humor Types and Well-Being

4.4 Correlates of Humor Types

In a next step, associations between humor styles, self-regulatory strategies, self-esteem,

and well-being were investigated. Zero-order correlations of the humor scales, self-regu-
latory strategies, self-esteem, and well-being are presented in Table 3. Whereas affiliative
and self-enhancing humor were highly positively correlated with self-regulatory strategies,
life satisfaction, and well-being, aggressive humor showed null correlations with all
measures but a small negative correlation with flexible goal adjustment. Also, self-
defeating humor was not related with flexible goal adjustment and life satisfaction.
Finally, to examine associations of humor clusters, the so called humor types, with the
well-being variables, self-esteem, tenacious goal pursuit, flexible goal adjustment, and life
satisfaction were tested for mean differences between the three clusters (see Ferring et al.
2009, for an example using a comparable methodological approach). We performed uni-
variate analyses of variance (ANOVAs) for each dependent variable (DV), with appor-
tionment of a = .01. Post hoc tests were carried out; presented here are results of the
Bonferroni test that corrects error probability for the number of compared groups. Since the
DVs assess related constructs with significantly overlapping variance (see correlations in
Table 2), for the post hoc tests alpha was also set to .01. For self-esteem, tenacious goal
pursuit, and flexible goal adjustment, homogeneity of error variances was given. Since
error variances for life satisfaction were unequal (Levene’s Test, p \ .05), a robust Welch
test was performed. This test does not require variance homogeneity. Since there were no
differences in error probabilities between ANOVA and Welch test, only the results of the
ANOVAs are presented here. To test for cluster differences in life satisfaction, the post hoc
test Tamhane’s T2 test was carried out, which also does not require variance homogeneity.
The results concerning self-esteem, self-regulatory strategies, and life satisfaction will be
presented separately.
We found significant group differences in self-esteem, F(2, 302) = 15.75, p \ .001.
Self-enhancers and endorsers as well as self-enhancers and humor deniers types differed
significantly (both p values \ .01), in the sense that endorsers had an average score on self-
esteem, humor deniers a below average score, and self-enhancers an above average score.
The difference between humor endorsers and humor deniers did not quite reach signifi-
cance (p = .01). Humor types also showed differences on tenacious goal pursuit, F(2,
302) = 8.42, p \ .001. Only humor deniers and self-enhancers differed significantly
(p \ .01), whereas the other comparisons did not reach significance (p = .04). Like on
self-esteem, endorsers had average scores, humor deniers below average, and self-
enhancers above average on tenacious goal pursuit. Considering flexible goal adjustment,
humor types differed significantly, F(2, 302) = 18.26, p \ .001. While humor endorsers
and self-enhancers did not show differences in flexible goal adjustment (p = .63), the other
comparisons were significant (p \ .001): Humor deniers scored below average, humor
endorsers on average, and self-enhancers had the highest values on flexible goal adjust-
ment. Lastly, considering life satisfaction, humor types differed significantly in amount of
life satisfaction, F(2, 302) = 11.53, p \ .001. In particular, humor deniers and humor
endorsers as well as self-enhancers differed significantly (both p values \ .01), whereas
humor endorsers and self-enhancers did not differ in amount of life satisfaction (p = .20).
The z-standardized values of the DVs self-esteem, tenacious goal pursuit, flexible goal
adjustment, and life satisfaction for each cluster are presented in Table 5 and plotted in
Fig. 2.
In an attempt to quantify the effect sizes of variance in the well-being measures
explained by the humor types compared with humor styles, we calculated R from several

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 A. K. Leist, D. Müller

Table 5 Means and standard deviations of z-standardized DVs for the humor types

Cluster

Endorsers Humor deniers Self-

enhancers

N 134, 43.9 % 109, 35.7 % 62, 20.3 %

M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)

Self-esteem 0.00 (1.00) -0.36 (1.05) 0.51 (0.80)

TEN 0.04 (0.97) -0.23 (1.01) 0.40 (0.91)
FLEX 0.14 (0.98) -0.48 (1.00) 0.32 (0.80)
Life satisfaction 0.06 (0.88) -0.23 (1.10) 0.32 (0.95)

TEN tenacious goal pursuit, FLEX flexible goal adjustment

Fig. 2 Correlates of humor 0.6

types with self-regulatory self-esteem
strategies, self-esteem
TEN
and well-being 0.4
FLEX
life satisfaction
0.2

-0.2

-0.4

-0.6
humor endorsers humor deniers self-enhancers

Table 6 Effect sizes of associations of dichotomized humor scales and humor type with well-being
measures
Dichotomized humor scales Humor type

Affiliative Self-enhancing Aggressive Self-defeating

Self-esteem 0.016 0.028 0.001 0.012 0.047

TEN 0.004 0.020 0.000 0.001 0.035
FLEX 0.002 0.089 0.003 0.001 0.054
Life satisfaction 0.018 0.012 0.005 0.012 0.026
Effect sizes (R) derived by dividing sum of squares between groups by total sum of squares. TEN tenacious
goal pursuit, FLEX flexible goal adjustment

ANOVAs with humor type (presented above) and the dichotomized humor scales,
respectively, as factors. As Table 6 shows, aside from self-enhancing humor (low versus
high) explaining a larger amount of variance in flexible goal adjustment than humor type

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(R = 0.089 compared to R = 0.054); all other comparisons show a larger effect size of the
associations of humor type with the well-being measures compared to humor styles,
showing thus an advantage of investigating humor types instead of single humor scales.

5 Discussion

5.1 Factor Structure of the HSQ and Equivalence of the German and the Original HSQ

Firstly, to ensure validity of the findings gained with the HSQ in a German sample,
findings of Martin et al. (2003) concerning the factor structure of the Humor Styles
Questionnaire were compared and replicated in an age-heterogeneous sample in adoles-
cence, and young and middle adulthood.
The adequacy of the German and English version of the HSQ was confirmed with
exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, showing that fit indices were only slightly
different from Martin et al.’s (2003) model. One difference emerged in the fact that the
self-defeating humor was to a small extent correlated with both affiliative and self-
enhancing humor in the German sample, but did not correlate in the original sample. Since
the exploratory factor analytic results are highly comparable to earlier studies on the HSQ
and the correlations are rather small, it cannot totally be excluded that the different cor-
relation patterns might represent a sample-specific finding. It might even represent method-
specific common variance induced by similar wording, although the translation process had
been carried out carefully to prevent similar wording. Having ruled out alternative
explanations, it might also be the case that the differences in the correlations of the humor
styles reflect cultural differences between the original Canadian and the German sample. It
has been shown that humor styles differ between cultures, however these investigations
drew comparisons between Western and Eastern and Western and Arabic societies,
respectively (e.g., Chen and Martin 2007; Kalliny et al. 2006). Therefore, with both studies
relying on a sample of individuals of a Western society, one might suggest only small
differences between the Canadian and the German sample. A possible explanation is that
self-defeating humor is a common way of interaction for younger Germans; it might be a
culture-specific expectation in Germany to be able to laugh or make jokes about oneself.
Self-defeating humor might thus not necessarily be maladaptive in Germans as suggested
by Martin et al. (2003). However, to our knowledge, specific differences in humor
understanding between Canadians and Germans have not been investigated yet and would
desire a qualitative study investigating the meaning and reception of self-defeating humor
in both cultures.

5.2 Humor Types and Well-Being

To regroup humor styles into the broader constellation of humor styles, namely humor
types, a cluster analytic procedure was carried out. We found one type endorsing humor,
one type refusing to use humor, and one type using humor to enhance the self. Humor
styles were only to a small extent related to well-being. This points to the fact that humor
scales are not per se detrimental or beneficial, but have to be investigated within the
context of other humor styles and, perhaps, their situational dependency. Humor types were
related with well-being measures in a more coherent way and seemed more easy to
interpret than the associations of humor styles, which might once again justify the meth-
odological approach used in this study. Nonetheless, the results have to be regared with

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caution, since the sample was composed to more than two thirds by women and one can
thus only carefully draw broad conclusions.
The humor type—well-being relationships shall be described next before drawing
further inferences. The first humor type, ‘‘humor endorsers’’, showed across all humor
scales high scores (i.e., above average), which characterized a third of the sample (35.7 %).
This might reflect cheerfulness and generalized behavior patterns to make jokes, see ‘‘the
funny side of life’’ or to not take life too seriously. On the other hand, it might characterize
a behavior pattern that uses humor carelessly or without further reflection, to use jokes and
funny remarks with means that might even be harmful for oneself or another person. This
possible explanation was validated by the analyses of variance: Humor endorsers showed
average levels of self-regulatory strategies, self-esteem, and well-being. Even though the
cross-sectional associations must not be interpreted in a causal way, one might infer that
high levels of humor endorsers are not especially beneficial for well-being. This finding
particularly advances the understanding of earlier mono-dimensional results of relations
between humor styles and well-being (e.g., Martin et al. 2003): Despite high levels of self-
enhancement, the well-being pattern for endorsers is not particularly adaptive.
The second humor type, ‘‘humor deniers’’, showed below average levels of humor
styles, but especially low self-enhancing humor. This pattern reflects a behavior pattern
that humor is seldom used to cheer oneself up. The humor deniers showed lowest levels of
self-regulatory strategies, self-esteem, and well-being, implicating that this humor type is
not beneficial for well-being either.
Thirdly, the humor type ‘‘self-enhancers’’ was characterized by below average
aggressive and self-defeating humor, average affiliative humor, and clearly above average
self-enhancing humor. This reflects a humor type that focuses on humor to make oneself
feel better even when not in the company of others. Analyses of variance showed
impressively that this type might be most adaptive: On all measures of self-regulatory
strategies, self-esteem, and well-being, self-enhancers scored highest. This finding showed
that a self-enhancing humor style might be most beneficial for well-being and underlines
the adaptive correlates of self-defeating and aggressive humor being absent.
At this point, the findings shall be compared to the original intent to construct beneficial
and detrimental humor styles in the HSQ (Martin et al. 2003). It seems noteworthy that the
functional distinction between beneficial and detrimental humor is not reflected in the
cluster analytic results and we address this issue with three arguments. Firstly, by repli-
cating the factor structure of the HSQ in the German sample, we can fairly rule out the
assumption that failures in translation of the questionnaire might have caused these find-
ings. Secondly, these results confirm our initial assumption that humor styles cannot be
considered as beneficial or detrimental per se as these might be expressions of different
underlying motivational strivings. Thirdly, in conceptualizing humor styles, it has been
widely neglected that humor styles are to a certain extent context dependent. It might be
opportune to use self-defeating humor in the working context, aggressive humor with
friends, and affiliative humor in the family. These assumptions might explain why some
individuals, the so-called humor endorsers, apparently use humor in an undifferentiated
way—they might just adapt their humor styles according to the context. This conclusion
however can only be drawn cautiously, since subjective justifications for using humor or
context-dependent variations or stability of the humor styles, respectively, have not been
assessed. Further studies should evaluate on the context dependency of humor styles to
shed more light to the—apparently complex—associations of humor styles and well-being.
In addition, studies not limited by a cross-sectional sample might also investigate the
longitudinal associations between humor types and well-being; it might be the case that

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self-regulatory strategies act as mediators in the humor—well-being relationship. Another

open issue for further consideration is the inclusion of indicators of negative well-being,
like depression or anxiety, and investigate their associations with humor types.
In a further attempt to clarify the complex associations between humor styles and well-
being, it is noteworthy to distance from the functional implications of humor styles,
namely, their pre-defined associations with well-being. Instead, we looked into the item
contents to elaborate on the structural components of the humor styles.3 First, the items
constituting ‘‘affiliative humor’’ deal with the outcome of humorous behavior; humor is
presented as a means to ‘‘make other people laugh’’. Also, five of the eight constituting
items describe behaviors of affiliative humor being absent (reversely coded) and could—
theoretically—be affirmed by persons who are equipped with no humor style whatsoever.
Compared with other concepts of humor, the concept of affiliative humor resembles closest
to humor as strength of character (Peterson et al. 2005) or as moral value, belonging to the
core virtue ‘transcendence’ (humor as liking to laugh and joke and bringing smiles to other
people; Ruch et al. 2010b). Second, items constituting the scale ‘‘self-enhancing humor’’
deal–without exception–with the antecedents of humor, namely a feeling or state of being
depressed, sad, alone, or upset. Humor, in this line of reasoning, is described as a means to
cope. In sum, both humor styles resemble constructs that have been shown to be positively
related with well-being. Third, items constituting the scale ‘‘aggressive humor’’ describe
antisocial behaviors like teasing, offending, or criticizing someone with humor to enhance
oneself. Again, four of the eight items are negatively formulated and could be affirmed by
persons who do not see themselves as humorous persons. Lastly, the scale ‘‘self-defeating
humor’’ is constituted by a total of eight items, of which five items describe the means
‘‘putting’’ oneself ‘‘down’’. Also, the outcomes of humor are described, namely, to make
people, friends, and family laugh, like or accept the individual, and to keep one’s ‘‘friends
and family in good spirits’’. Thus, one can fairly say that self-defeating humor shows
affiliative, morally valued components. In sum, on a structural level, the humor scales
might contain multiple meanings. Consequently, instead of a functional distinction in
beneficial and detrimental humor styles, a typological approach investigating humor types
proved useful in our study. Thus, the study shows that examinations of bivariate associ-
ations considering humor styles and well-being do not show the ‘‘full picture’’ of the
multifold associations between these constructs. This was also shown by comparing effect
sizes of associations of humor types with well-being measures compared to the associa-
tions of humor scales. Aside from one advantage of humor scales (low versus high scores
on self-enhancing humor contributing more to flexible goal adjustment than humor type),
all other comparisons could be interpreted in favor of using humor types instead of humor
scales. However, the importance of this quantification should not be overestimated, since
the advantage of using humor types clearly lies in interpreting the contribution of humor
styles in the context of the other styles. For instance, self-enhancing humor is present in
both endorsers and self-enhancers, but the adaptive value of this humor style is only
reflected in the absence of the maladaptive styles.
In addition, it would now be interesting to examine the practical implications of these
humor types. With an experimental test, for example by presenting different scenarios in
vignettes, one could clarify if humor types differ in their social and self-related responses
to these scenarios.4 Another open research question would of course be the longitudinal
associations between humor types and well-being, and the attempt to examine if
3
We thank Prof. Willibald Ruch for this suggestion.
4
We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

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 A. K. Leist, D. Müller

self-enhancing humor is really ‘‘beneficial’’ in the causal sense, or if one or several third
variables, for example extraversion, emotional stability, or optimism, cause the associa-
tions between self-enhancing humor and well-being.

5.3 Age Differences

We did not assume age differences due to the sample in adolescence and young adulthood,
although age differences might occur at a later stage in life, when humor styles or humor
types might be dependent upon the time horizon of the individual. In line with this
reasoning, we did not find any age differences between the clusters. However, Martin
et al.’s (2003) findings suggest age differences in humor styles. This may be due to the fact
that age differences can only be found on the scale level, but not on the cluster level. In
fact, on the scale level, a further analysis regarding the whole sample revealed that age was
negatively related to affiliative humor (r = -.30, p \ .001) and aggressive humor (r =
-.26, p \ .001), but not to the other two humor scales. Also, the participants older than
40 years who had been screened from the sample due to unequal age distribution showed
lower aggressive and higher affiliative scores compared to the younger participants. Thus,
in general, older participants used humor less to enhance relationships with others or to
devaluate others with humor, which is consistent with Martin et al.’s (2003) findings.
Further studies with a larger older sample should be used to replicate this finding.

5.4 Further Considerations

Parallel to our study, Galloway has been investigating the combination of humor styles and
their relations to the Big Five traits of personality characteristics. Applying a clustering
method similar to our study, Galloway (2010) found four clusters with (1) above average
scores on all humor styles, (2) below average scores on all humor styles, (3) above average
on the positive styles and below average on the negative styles, and (4) above average on
the negative styles and below average on the positive styles. In our study, two of the four
clusters were comparable to those that had been found in the Australian sample by Gal-
loway (2010), namely, the humor endorsers of cluster No. 1 and the humor deniers of
cluster No. 2. Also, we found a cluster that showed high self-enhancing humor, average
affiliative humor, and below-average negative humor styles. This pattern replicates the
cluster solution of Galloway to a large extent. Considering the fact that the samples of the
studies were both to a large part university students with a similar mean age, why did our
study not totally replicate the findings of Galloway (2010)? Letting methodological caveats
considering the translated questionnaire in our study aside, we cannot totally rule out cross-
cultural differences in interpreting the HSQ items. Concerning methodological arguments
however, in our data, a fourth cluster solution was not stable and could not be cross-
validated. Therefore, we decided in favor of a three-cluster solution. This solution could
both be cross-validated with another clustering method and in two randomly splitted
subsamples.
In addition, Galloway (2010) examined associations of the four clusters with self-
esteem. With the different number of clusters, the results are not totally comparable with
our data. However, both studies showed that clusters low on affiliative and self-enhancing
humor styles showing below-average self-esteem, whereas clusters high on these styles
showing above-average self-esteem. Of the analyses both provided in this and Galloway’s
(2010) contribution, it can be concluded that especially the combination of self-enhancing
and affiliative humor styles is related with self-esteem.

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Humor Types and Well-Being

6 Conclusions

In a German sample of young and middle aged adults, we found different humor types of
the Humor Styles Questionnaire (Martin et al. 2003) via cluster analysis extending current
bivariate approaches to the study of humor and well-being. Humor types were differen-
tially associated with self-regulatory strategies, self-esteem, and well-being. Self-enhanc-
ers, characterized by high self-enhancing humor, mean affiliative, low aggressive, and low
self-defeating humor showed most favorable associations with quality of life and well-
being measures. In sum, these findings gained with a typological approach provide further
evidence for self-enhancing humor as important resource for well-being, and especially
underline the benefits when self-defeating and aggressive humor are absent.

Acknowledgments Data were collected within the framework of the second author’s diploma thesis at the
University of Trier, Germany (Müller 2009). The manuscript was prepared during a grant of the Fonds
National de la Recherche Luxembourg to the first author. We thank Prof. Willibald Ruch for helpful
comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of the manuscript. We would also like to thank three anon-
ymous reviewers for their suggestions and Bernhard Baltes-Götz for helpful support in the implementation
of the online questionnaire.

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License
which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the
source are credited.

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