Psychological Reports: Disability & Trauma

2013, 113, 1, 345-351. © Psychological Reports 2013

A PILOT STUDY OF THE RELATION BETWEEN HUMOR STYLES AND

THE PAST-POSITIVE AND PAST-NEGATIVE TIME PERSPECTIVES1

WILLIAM HAMPES

Black Hawk College

Summary.—Those who use self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles tend to

recall positive experiences with their parents and primary caretakers, whereas those
who use the self-defeating humor style tend to recall negative experiences with
them. Considering the importance of experiences with parents and primary care-
takers for life satisfaction and happiness, it was hypothesized that the affiliative
and self-enhancing humor styles would be positively correlated with past-positive
experiences and negatively correlated with past-negative experiences, and that the
self-defeating humor style would be positively correlated with past-negative expe-
riences and negatively correlated with past-positive experiences. The Humor Styles
Questionnaire and the Past-Positive and Past-Negative subscales of the Zimbardo
Time Perspective Inventory were administered to 114 undergraduates. The hypoth-
eses were partially supported despite the retrospective nature of the Past-Positive
and Past-Negative Subscales and the correlational nature of the study, indicating
further research is needed.

Humor Styles
Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, and Weir (2003) developed a multi-
dimensional model of humor styles based on whether a humor style is
adaptive (affiliative or self-enhancing) or maladaptive (aggressive or self-
defeating), or intrapersonal (self-enhancing or self-defeating) or interper-
sonal (affiliative and aggressive). The affiliative humor style entails using
humor (saying funny things, telling jokes, witty banter, etc.) to amuse oth-
ers, to put others at ease, and to improve relationships. The self-enhanc-
ing humor style involves finding something humorous in even the most
difficult situations and is thus effective in reducing stress. Both of these
adaptive humor styles are positively correlated with self-esteem, life sat-
isfaction, and extraversion and are negatively correlated with depression
and anxiety (Martin, et al., 2003; Kazarian & Martin, 2004; Jovanovic, 2011).
The self-defeating humor style “involves excessively self-disparaging
humor, attempts to amuse others by doing or saying funny things at one's
expense as a means of ingratiating oneself or gaining approval, allowing
oneself to be the ‘butt’ of others' humor and laughing along with others
when being ridiculed or disparaged” (Martin, et al., 2003, p. 54). It is posi-

1
Address correspondence to William Hampes, Ph.D., Department of Social, Behavioral and
Educational Studies, Black Hawk College, 6600 34th Avenue, Moline, IL 62165-5899 or e-mail
(hampesw@bhc.edu).

DOI 10.2466/16.10.PR0.113x17z9 ISSN 0033-2941

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 346 W. HAMPES

tively correlated with shyness, loneliness, depression, and anxiety, and is

negatively correlated with self-esteem and agreeableness (Martin, et al.,
2003; Hampes, 2005, 2006). The aggressive humor style is the tendency to
use humor to attack or put down other people, and thus involves ridicule,
derision, sarcasm, teasing, disparagement, and hostility. Those high in this
style of humor tend to be high in hostility and low in agreeableness and
conscientiousness (Saraglou & Scariot, 2002; Martin, et al., 2003).
Several studies have found a relationship between the different humor
styles and individuals' early experiences with primary caretakers. Kazar-
ian, Moghnie, and Martin (2010) found that the affiliative and self-enhanc-
ing humor styles were correlated positively with a warm mother and
father and negatively with overall rejection from the mother and father.
Conversely, aggressive and self-defeating humor styles were correlated
negatively with the warmth of the mother and father and positively with
overall rejection by the mother and father. Furthermore, hostility/aggres-
sion, indifference/neglect, undifferentiated rejection, and overall rejection
(by both mothers and fathers) were correlated negatively with subjective
happiness, and self-enhancing humor mediated the relationship between
parental warmth and rejection with happiness.
Dozois, Martin, and Bieling (2009) studied the relationships between
the four humor styles, depression, and early maladaptive schemas. Early
maladaptive schemas are core beliefs about others and oneself that are
formed early in childhood through interactions with important others.
They found that self-enhancing humor was correlated negatively with four
early maladaptive domains: disconnection (core beliefs such as being infe-
rior, unlovable, and unwanted as a result of rejection, emotional detach-
ment, and/or abuse), impaired limits (develops when parents are overly
permissive and lack discipline and results in the child's sense of entitle-
ment, refusal to maintain sufficient self-control or low frustration toler-
ance), impaired autonomy (results from an early environment that hinders
a child's perceived competence and does not reinforce a child appropri-
ately for becoming autonomous), and exaggerated standards (involves
a child's excessive willingness to sacrifice oneself and striving for unre-
lenting standards). Affiliative humor was correlated negatively with dis-
connection and impaired autonomy; self-defeating humor was correlated
positively with all four early maladaptive domains and aggressive humor
was correlated positively with impaired limits. Disconnection, impaired
autonomy, impaired limits, and exaggerated standards were all correlated
positively with depression. The relations of disconnection, impaired auton-
omy, impaired limits and exaggerated standards with depression were
mediated by self-enhancing humor; the relation between disconnection
and depression was mediated by affiliative humor and the relations of dis-

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 HUMOR STYLES AND TIME PERSPECTIVES 347

connection; impaired limits and exaggerated limits with depression were

mediated by self-defeating humor.
In a second study, Dozois, Martin, and Faulkner (2013) found that
both affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor were correlated nega-
tively with both disconnection and impaired autonomy; self-defeating
humor was correlated positively with disconnection, impaired autonomy,
impaired limits, and exaggerated standards; and aggressive humor was
correlated positively with impaired limits and negatively correlated with
exaggerated standards.
Time Perspectives
Zimbardo and Boyd (2008) have hypothesized that there are five dis-
tinct time perspectives. Two of these are the past-positive and past-neg-
ative time perspectives. Those with a past-positive time perspective see
their past mainly filled with pleasant experiences, whereas those with a
past-negative time perspective see their past filled mainly with unpleas-
ant experiences. Distinct personality traits are associated with each time
perspective. Those high in past-positive time perspective tend to be high
in happiness, self-esteem, and friendliness and low in aggressiveness,
depression and anxiety, whereas those high in past-negative time perspec-
tive tend to be high in aggressiveness, depression, shyness, and anxiety
and low in happiness and self-esteem (Zimbardo & Boyd, 2008). As such,
the personality profile of those high in the past-positive time perspective
is similar to that of the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles, and the
personality profile of those high in the past-negative time perspective is
similar to those high in self-defeating humor (Martin, et al., 2003; Kazarian
& Martin, 2004; Jovanovic, 2011).
Considering the importance of a close, positive relationship between
parents/caregivers and children for the child's life satisfaction and hap-
piness (Huebner, 1991; Holder & Coleman, 2009; Kazarian, et al., 2010),
the research implies that those high in self-enhancing humor and affilia-
tive humor would tend to have more positive past experiences than nega-
tive experiences, and those high in self-defeating humor would have more
negative than positive past experiences.

Hypothesis 1. Affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles will be

correlated positively with the past-positive time perspective
and negatively correlated with the past-negative time perspec-
tive.
Hypothesis 2. Self-defeating humor style will be correlated posi-
tively with the past-negative time perspective and negatively
correlated with the past-positive time perspective.

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 348 W. HAMPES

METHOD
Participants
The participants were 114 students (39 men, 75 women) in five intro-
ductory psychology classes at a community college in the Midwest-
ern United States. These students ranged in age from 17 to 45 (M = 20.9,
SD = 5.01). The participants completed the Past-Positive and Past-Nega-
tive subscales of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) and the
Humor Styles Questionnaire in their respective classes.
Measures
Time perspective.—The Past-Positive subscale of the Zimbardo Time
Perspective Inventory is a self-report questionnaire, which contains nine
items (e.g., “Happy memories of good times spring readily to mind”).
The Past-Negative subscale of the ZTPI contains 10 items (e.g., “Painful
past experiences keep being replayed in my mind”). Each item has five
response options in a Likert-type format, anchored by 1: Very untrue and
5: Very true. The convergent and discriminant validity of the ZPTI is well
established. The test-retest reliability of the Past-Positive subscale was .76
and of the Past-Negative subscale, .70 (Zimbardo & Boyd, 1999). Cron-
bach's alpha coefficient for the Past-Positive subscale was .80 and for the
Past-Negative subscale, .82 (Zimbardo & Boyd, 1999). Cronbach's alphas
for the current sample were similar: Past-Negative (.83) and Past-Positive
(.77).
Humor style.—The Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) is a self-report
questionnaire with 32 items, eight items in each of the four subscales:
Affiliative Humor (e.g., “I enjoy making people laugh”), Self-Enhancing
Humor (e.g., “If I am feeling depressed, I can usually cheer myself up with
humor”), Aggressive Humor (e.g., “If I don't like someone, I often use
humor or teasing to put them down”), and Self-Defeating Humor (e.g., “I
will often get carried away in putting myself down if it makes my family
or friends laugh”). Each item has seven response options in a Likert-type
format, anchored by 1: Totally disagree and 7: Totally agree. Convergent
and discriminant validity has been well established. Cronbach's alphas
ranged from .77 to .81, and test-retest reliabilities ranged from .80 to .85
(Martin, et al., 2003). The Cronbach's alphas for the current sample were:
Affiliative Humor (.79), Self-enhancing Humor (.83), Aggressive Humor
(.76), and Self-defeating Humor (.79).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Pearson product-moment correlations were conducted between the
Affiliative, Self-Enhancing, and Self-Defeating Humor subscales and the
Past-Positive and Past-Negative subscales of the ZTPI. As predicted, Affil-
iative Humor (M = 46.74, SD = 6.32) and Past-Positive time perspective

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 HUMOR STYLES AND TIME PERSPECTIVES 349

(M = 3.63, SD = 0.65) were correlated positively (r = .20, p < .05, 95%CI = .02,
.37); although, contrary to the prediction, Affiliative Humor and the Past-
Negative time perspective (M = 3.20, SD = 0.80) were not correlated signif-
icantly (r = –.01, p > .05). As predicted, Self-enhancing Humor (M = 36.78,
SD = 8.78) and the Past-Positive time perspective were correlated pos-
itively (r = .34, p < .01, 95%CI = .17, .49) and Self-enhancing Humor and
Past-Negative time perspective were correlated negatively (r = –.22, p <
.05, 95%CI = –.39, –.04 ). As predicted, Self-defeating Humor (M = 27.07,
SD = 8.90) was correlated positively (r = .37, p < .01, 95%CI = .20, .52)
with Past-Negative time perspective; although, contrary to prediction, it
was not correlated significantly with the Past-Positive time perspective
(r = –.12, ns).
Although both Affiliative Humor and Self-enhancing Humor have
been reported to be correlated positively with subjective happiness and
warmth of both mother and father (Kazarian, et al., 2010) and life satisfac-
tion (Kazarian & Martin, 2004) and negatively correlated with hostility/
aggression, indifference/neglect, undifferentiated rejection, and overall
rejection of both the mother and father (Kazarian, et al., 2010), for each of
those correlations the relationship is stronger for Self-enhancing Humor
than it is for Affiliative Humor. This is consistent with the results of this
study, where the positive correlations between Self-enhancing and Affilia-
tive Humor with the Past-Positive time perspective and the negative cor-
relations between Affiliative Humor and Self-enhancing Humor with the
Past-Negative time perspective are stronger for Self-enhancing Humor
than for Affiliative Humor.
The statistically significant, positive correlation between Self-defeat-
ing Humor and Past-Negative time perspective is consistent with the
reports of low self-esteem and tendency towards depression of those who
use this humor style (Martin, et al., 2003; Dozois, et al., 2013). Ruminat-
ing over one's perceived negative experiences have been associated with
depression (Broderick & Korteland, 2004; Keisuke & Yoshihiko, 2009).
One of the limitations of this study, besides the relatively small,
homogeneous sample, is the retrospective nature of the responses to the
measures of past-negative and past-positive time perspectives. For exam-
ple, it is not clear whether those who use self-enhancing humor actually
have more positive and fewer negative experiences than those who use
self-defeating humor, or whether the difference between scores on the two
humor style measures is due to the greater ability of those who use the
self-enhancing humor style to frame their past experiences positively. One
way to correct this problem would be a longitudinal study where individ-
uals could be studied from early childhood to adolescence or adulthood,
as has been done with longitudinal studies investigating the relationship

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 350 W. HAMPES

between early attachment styles and later relationships (Grossman, Gross-

man, & Waters, 2005). In such a study, an individual's actual positive and
negative experiences could be investigated as they were occurring, rather
than having participants try to recall them.
The study design was correlational. Other designs could investi-
gate causality: for example, whether training participants with the self-
enhanced humor style would have increased tendency to recall positive
experiences and decreased tendency to recall negative experiences. If so,
training patients in therapy in how to use self-enhanced humor could
decrease their depressive symptoms.
Finally, the statistically significant correlations were less than robust.
The correlations between early maladaptive schemas and depression (Dozois,
et al., 2009) were much stronger. In addition, there is strong support for
the relationship between attachment during childhood and adolescence
with depression and anxiety (Warren, Huston, Egeland, & Sroufe 1997;
Muris, Mayer, & Meesters, 2000; Muris, Meesters, van Melick, & Zwam-
bag, 2001; Constantine, M. G., 2006). Therefore, the statistically significant
correlations between humor styles and past-positive and past-negative
time perspectives could be largely due to the fact that the affiliative, self-
enhancing, and self-defeating humor styles (Martin, et al., 2003; Dozois, et
al., 2009) and the past-positive and past-negative time perspectives (Zim-
bardo & Boyd, 1999) are correlated with anxiety and depression. The rela-
tions between the humor styles and the past-positive and past-negative
time perspectives should be confirmed in a study controlling for depres-
sion and anxiety. It is also of interest if humor styles mediate the relations
of the past-positive and past-negative time perspectives with anxiety and
depression.
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Accepted August 14, 2013.

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