Sense of humor as a moderator of the relation between stressors and moods.

Abstract

Three studies are reported that investigated the hypothesis, long held by theorists, therapists, and laypersons alike, that a sense of humor reduces the deleterious impact of stressful experiences. In each study a negative-life-events checklist was used to predict stress scores on a measure of mood disturbance. These studies made use of different measures of subjects' sense of humor, including four selfreport scales and two behavioral assessments of subjects' ability to produce humor under nonstressful and mildly stressful conditions. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that five of the six humor measures produced a significant moderating effect on the relation between negative life events and mood disturbance. Subjects with low humor scores obtained higher correlations between these two variables than did those with high humor scores. These results provide initial evidence for the stress-buffering role of humor.

Attachment orientations and reactivity to humor in a social support context

“…Documenting a connection between invisible support -both emotional and practical -and humor use would not only establish the relevance of humor during the social support process; it would also broaden our understanding of invisible support. The use of humor by individuals is associated with an increased sense of mastery (Martin & Lefcourt, 1983), and invisible support may operate in a similar fashion by protecting recipients' sense of competency and efficacy during support discussions.…”

“…Humor, for example, can help people cope better with stressful situations and increase their positive affect (Abel, 2008;Martin, Kuiper, Olinger, & Dance, 1993). It can also lead people to believe they have greater mastery over life stressors (Martin & Lefcourt, 1983), report greater life satisfaction (Wanzer, Sparks, & Frymier, 2009), and experience improved physiological outcomes (Martin, 2002).…”

Rindo do que? Como consultores reagem ao humor crítico e à ironia sobre sua profissão

“…Dentro dessa perspectiva, o uso do humor em empresas tem sido associado ao aumento da moral entre os trabalhadores (Grunner, 1997), à criação de uma cultura organizacional mais positiva (Clouse e Spurgeon, 1995), à melhoria da coesão de grupos (Duncan, 1982), à redução de conflitos nas empresas (Duncan et al, 1990;Abramis, 1992;Rothwell, 1996;Smith et al, 2000), à facilitação da expressão de emoções negativas (Martineau, 1972;Pollio, 1995), à canalização da hostilidade (Wilson, 1979), à manutenção da ordem social (Dwyer, 1991), ao estímulo da criatividade individual e grupal (Csikszentmihaly, 1996;Murdock e Ganim,1993), ao aumento da motivação (Crawford, 1994;Dienstbier, 1995;Lippitt, 1982), ao incremento da produtividade (Clouse e Spurgeon, 1995;Duncan e Feisal, 1989;Avolio et al, 1999), ao aumento da eficácia de processos de mudanças nas empresas (Bovey, 2001;Kahn, 1989), ao estímulo de novas perspectivas (Dixon, 1980), ao estímulo ao comprometimento no grupo (Duncan, 1982;Martin e Lefcourt, 1983;Ziv e Gadish, 1990), e ao estímulo do aprendizado e do desenvolvimento (Boverie et al, 1994).…”

Introduction: Current issues in psychological humor research

“…Their research is based on a moderator variable approach which was pioneered in the field of humor by Martin and Lefcourt (1983). Basically, it is assumed that individuals differ habitually with respect to their "sense of humor," which is assessed with the help of questionnaires.…”