o Does humor impact relationship satisfaction?
o Four different styles of humor (Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, & Weir, 2003)
Humor which enhances/protects the self
• Self-enhancing: tolerant, accepting; humorous perspective in the face of stress
• Aggressive: ridicule, sarcasm; humor without regard for impact on others
Humor which enhances relationships with others
• Affiliative: jokes, spontaneous humor; occasional putting down of oneself (while maintaining acceptance)
• Self-defeating: excessively self-disparaging; allowing oneself to be the target of ridicule to gain approval
o Self-enhancing and affiliative humor will result in greater relationship satisfaction
o Aggressive and self-defeating humor will result in lower satisfaction
o Humor style assessed through 32-item questionnaire adapted from Martin et al. (2003)
• Participants asked to rate their partner’s sense of humor as opposed to their own
o Relationship satisfaction measured using 7-item questionnaire from Hendrick and Hendrick (1997)
o Asked not to consult partners while taking surveysExample Items – Humor
Styles
oSelf-enhancing
• “If my partner is feeling depressed, he/she can usually cheer himself/herself up with humor”
oAffiliative
• “My partner enjoys making people laugh”
oAggressive
• “If someone makes a mistake, my partner will often tease them about it”
oSelf-defeating
• “My partner lets people laugh at him/her or make fun at his/her expense more than he/she should”
Example Items – Satisfaction
o“How well does your partner meet your needs?”
o“To what extent has your relationship met your original expectations?”
Love to Laugh, Laugh to Love: Humor Styles and Relationship
SatisfactionGabe Persons, Jake Gorman, & John Buri, Faculty Advisor • Dept of Psychology, University of St.
Thomas
o Scores were obtained for humor (8 items corresponded to each)
o A bivariate correlation was used to compare satisfaction scores with the 4 humor scores
o 70 participants – 18 years of age or older
• 21 males; 49 females
o Recruited online through University of St. Thomas Sona Systems and Facebook
o Positive correlation between self-enhancing humor and satisfaction when responses were pooled
• Females approached significance
o Males who reported having partner with aggressive humor showed higher self-reports of relationship satisfaction• Female results inverse of this• Neither were significant
o Future research would benefit from comparing self-ratings of humor to those ratings made by partner
o Individuals more satisfied with relationships tend to report higher positive humor use and lower negative humor use (Butzer & Kuiper, 2008)
o Perception of a partner’s humor style predicts relationship satisfaction (Cann, Zapata, & Davis, 2011)
• Positive forms of humor predict higher levels of relationship satisfaction
Background
Present Study
Participants
Methods
Results
Aggressive Humor
Self-Defeating
HumorSatisfactio
n (all)r = -.121p = .318
r = .116p = .340
Satisfaction (males)
r = .080p = .729
r = .251p = .273
Satisfaction
(females)
r = -.247p = .088
r = .054p = .710Self-
Enhancing Humor
Affiliative Humor
Satisfaction (all)
r = .269p = .024
r = .187p = .122
Satisfaction (males)
r = .224p = .287
r = .233p = .310
Satisfaction
(females)
r = .256p = .076
r = .160p = .271
Discussion
References• Butzer, B., & Kuiper, N. A. (2008). Humor use in romantic
relationships: The effects of relationship satisfaction and pleasant versus conflict situations. Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 142(3), 245-260.
• Cann, A., Zapata, C. L., & Davis, H. B. (2011). Humor style and relationship satisfaction in dating couples: Perceived versus self-reported humor styles as predictors of satisfaction. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 24(1), 1-20.
• Hendrick, S. S., & Hendrick, C. (1997). Love and satisfaction. In Satisfaction in close relationships. (pp. 56-78) New York, NY, US: Guilford Press.
• Martin, R. A., Puhlik-Doris, P., Larsen, G., Gray, J., & Weir, K. (2003). Individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: Development of the humor styles questionnaire. Journal of Research in Personality, 37(1), 48-75.
Hypotheses
