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Humor Styles, Self-Esteem, and Subjective Happiness

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 Psychological Reports: Mental & Physical Health
2014, 115, 2, 517-525. © Psychological Reports 2014

HUMOR STYLES, SELF-ESTEEM, AND SUBJECTIVE HAPPINESS1

XIAO DONG YUE AND KATY WING-YIN LIU

City University of Hong Kong

FENG JIANG NEELAM ARJAN HIRANANDANI

Central University of Finance and Economics City University of Hong Kong

Summary.—This study examined how humor styles could mediate the effect of
self-esteem on subjective happiness. 227 Hong Kong undergraduate students com-
pleted the Humor Styles Questionnaire, the Roxsenberg Self-esteem Scale, and the
Subjective Happiness Scale. Results showed adaptive humor styles (affiliative humor
and self-enhancing humor) significantly predicted self-esteem and subjective happi-
ness and mediated the relationship between self-esteem and subjective happiness.
Maladaptive humor styles (aggressive humor and self-defeating humor) did not
strongly predict self-esteem or subjective happiness. The mediation effects of humor
styles found in the present research provided useful suggestions for future studies.

Past research has demonstrated that adaptive humor is positively re-

lated with self-esteem (Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, & Weir, 2003
[affiliative humor β = 0.21, self-enhancing humor β = 0.28]; Kuiper, Grim-
shaw, Leite, & Kirsh, 2004 [affiliative humor β = 0.23, self-enhancing humor
β = 0.27]; Hiranandani & Yue, 2014 [Indian university students: affiliative
humor β = 0.35, self-enhancing humor β = 0.33; Chinese university students:
affiliative humor β = 0.20, self-enhancing humor β = 0.28]) as well as with sub-
jective happiness (Dixon, Willingham, Chandler, & McDougal, 1986). Com-
pared with unhappy individuals, happy individuals experienced more posi-
tive affect and less negative affect as a result of humor (Lyubomirsky & Tucker,
1998 [Cohen’s d = 0.82]; Ruch, 1998). In addition, individuals with higher self-
esteem were assumed to also report greater happiness; however, this is yet to
be verified (Thorson, Powell, Sarmany-Schuller, & Hampes, 1997). As previ-
ous studies have found positive correlations among humor styles and sub-
jective happiness and self-esteem, this study examines whether humor styles
could have mediating effects on self-esteem and subjective happiness in a
Hong Kong sample.
According to Martin, et al. (2003), humor can be categorized as adap-
tive and maladaptive humor styles. Adaptive humor styles include affili-
ative and self-enhancing humor. Affiliative humor refers to the tendency
1
Address correspondence to Dr. Xiao Dong Yue, Department of Applied Social Studies, City
University of Hong Kong, 81 Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong SAR, China or e-mail
(ssxdyue@cityu.edu.hk). Some findings were reported on Discovery – SS Student E-Journal
and in Outstanding Academic Papers by Students (OAPS) Collection of the CityU Institu-
tional Reposit—please note that this repository is not a journal.

DOI 10.2466/07.02.PR0.115c18z6 ISSN 0033-2941

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 518 X. D. YUE, ET AL.

to tell jokes or engage in spontaneous witty banter to create amusement,

lessen interpersonal tension, and facilitate relationships. Self-enhancing
humor is the tendency to find amusement from the incongruities in life.
Maladaptive humor styles include aggressive humor and self-defeating
humor. Aggressive humor is the tendency to use humor at the expense of
others to amuse oneself, such as teasing, ridicule, derision, and disparage-
ment, in order to criticize or manipulate others. Self-defeating humor de-
scribes the tendency to amuse others by making fun of oneself or by ex-
posing one's own weaknesses. Previous studies showed that men used
significantly more maladaptive humor styles than women, particularly
sexual or aggressive jokes (Spiegel, Keith-Spiegel, Abrahams, & Kranitz,
1969; Svebak, 1974; Ziv, 1984; Aries, 1987; Eagly & Johnson, 1990; Martin,
et al., 2003; Stieger, Formann, & Burger, 2011). Women, in contrast, used
significantly more adaptive humor styles than men (Brown & Levinson,
1987). Research has also demonstrated that symptoms of negative mental
health, as assessed by the Symptom Checklist-90–R, are negatively corre-
lated with adaptive humor styles and positively with maladaptive humor
styles (please refer to Table 2 of Yue, Hao, & Goldman, 2010).
With regard to the relationship between humor styles and self-esteem,
previous studies showed that self-esteem is positively correlated with
adaptive humor styles but not with aggressive humor [Hiranandani & Yue,
2014 (aggressive humor: Indian university students β = −.11; Chinese univer-
sity students β = −.01); Martin, et al., 2003 (aggressive humor: β = .03); Kuiper,
et al., 2004 (aggressive humor: β = −.13)], and that adaptive humor styles also
correlated with self-esteem (Martin, et al., 2003), while self-defeating humor
was negatively associated with self-esteem (Thorson, et al., 1997; Stieger,
et al., 2011). Thus, increased endorsement of positive self-evaluative stan-
dards should increase the use of affiliative humor, whereas increased en-
dorsement of negative self-evaluative standards should correlate with
higher use of self-defeating humor (Martin, et al., 2003). As such, previous
studies argue that humor style would not only correlate with self-esteem
and subjective happiness but would also act as a mediator (e.g., Kuiper &
McHale, 2009; Hiranandani & Yue, 2014). Specifically, previous research
examined how adaptive humor styles mediate the relation between pos-
itive self-evaluative standards and self-esteem (Kuiper & McHale, 2009)
and the relations between self-esteem and gelotophobia, the fear of being
made fun of (Hiranandani & Yue, 2014). In a similar manner, the goal of the
current study was to assess whether certain humor styles mediated the re-
lation between self-esteem and subjective happiness.
Humor has been infrequently studied in Chinese societies (Chen &
Martin, 2007; Yue, 2010), and Sun, Guo, and Lee (2009) explained that the
Chinese tended to be more conservative, traditional, and collectivist and

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 HUMOR STYLES, SELF-ESTEEM, HAPPINESS 519

influenced by Confucian teachings. This study examined the mediating

effects of humor styles on self-esteem and subjective happiness.
Hypothesis 1. Self-esteem and subjective happiness would be posi-
tively associated with affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor
but negatively associated with aggressive humor and self-defeat-
ing humor.
Hypothesis 2. The effect of self-esteem on subjective happiness would
be mediated by the adaptive humor styles.

METHOD
Participants
There were participants in this study (N = 227; 135 women, 92 men).
The participants’ age ranged from 18 to 28 years (M = 20.9, SD = 1.7). All
participants were randomly selected and were undergraduate students
from City University of Hong Kong.
Measures
Participants were asked to complete the Humor Styles Questionnaire,
the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, and the Subjective Happiness Scale.
Humor.—The Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin, et al., 2003)
assesses the four humor styles: affiliative humor (8 items; e.g., “I enjoy
making people laugh”), self-enhancing humor (5 items; e.g., “If I am feel-
ing depressed, I can usually cheer myself up with humor”), aggressive
humor (7 items; e.g., “If someone has a shortcoming, I will often tease
him/her about it”) and self-defeating humor (5 items; e.g., “I let people
laugh at me or make fun at my expense more than I should”). The measure
comprises 25 items to be rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale with anchors
1: Totally disagree and 7: Totally agree. In this study, the Chinese version
of the HSQ was used. This version has acceptable internal consistency reli-
ability, with Cronbach's αs for subscales ranging from .61–.81 (Chen, 2007;
Chen & Martin, 2007; Chen, Watkins, & Martin, 2013). In the present study,
the Cronbach's αs of affiliative humor, self-enhancing humor, aggressive
humor, and self-defeating humor were .82, .72, .65, and .77, respectively.
Self-esteem.—The Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSES) measures how
one evaluates himself/herself (Rosenberg, 1965). The scale consists of 10
general statements about the self (e.g., “On the whole, I am satisfied with
myself”) in which participants are required to rate the items on a four-
point Likert-type scale with anchors 1: Strongly agree and 4: Strongly dis-
agree. This scale has been widely used and has shown good reliability
and validity (Rosenberg, 1965; Greenberger, Chen, Dmitrieva, & Farrug-
gia, 2003). The Chinese translated version of the RSES scale (Hamid, Yue,

15-PR_Yue_140047.indd 519 17/10/14 12:20 PM

 520 X. D. YUE, ET AL.

& Leung, 2003) had Cronbach's α of .73. In the present study, Cronbach's
α was .77.
Happiness.—The Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS; Lyubomirsky &
Lepper, 1997) consists of four general items about happiness (e.g., “Some
people are generally very happy. They enjoy life regardless of what is
going on, getting the most out of everything. To what extent does this
characterization describe you?”). Participants were required to rate the
items on a seven-point Likert-type scale with anchors 1: Not at all and
7: A great deal. Absolute ratings and ratings relative to peers are included
for participants to characterize themselves on the first two items. Brief
descriptions of happy and unhappy individuals as well as the extent to
which each characterization describes them were offered in the other two
items (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1997). The internal consistency was high
(α = .89; Lyubomirsky & Tucker, 1999). The Subjective Happiness Scale was
translated by the first author into Chinese and then back-translated into
English by an expert in Chinese language, to ensure the true meanings of
the items were retained. In the present study, Cronbach's α was .87.
Procedure
Participants were invited to participate in this study on a voluntary
basis. The questionnaires delivered to the participants were in Chinese
to eliminate language bias. The questionnaires were printed in simplified
Chinese characters. The whole questionnaire took about 20 min., to com-
plete.
RESULTS
Table 1 shows the correlation results between humor styles, subjective
happiness, and self-esteem. Affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor
were positively correlated with self-esteem and subjective happiness, re-
spectively. No significant results were found between aggressive humor
and self-defeating humor styles and self-esteem and subjective happiness.

TABLE 1
CORRELATION BETWEEN HUMOR STYLES, SUBJECTIVE HAPPINESS,
AND SELF-ESTEEM

1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Affiliative humor
2. Self-enhancing humor .33†
3. Aggressive humor .05 .02
4. Self-defeating humor .01 .28† .25†
5. Self-esteem .28† .39† −.004 −.12
6. Subjective happiness .32† .44† −.04 .04 .41†
†p < .01.

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 HUMOR STYLES, SELF-ESTEEM, HAPPINESS 521

Results showed that self-esteem was also positively correlated with sub-
jective happiness.
Table 2 shows the results of the regression analyses between humor
styles, self-esteem, and subjective happiness. Humor styles were found to
be significantly associated with self-esteem (R2 = .24) and subjective hap-
piness (R2 = .24). Self-esteem was positively associated with affiliative
humor (β = 0.16), self-enhancing humor (β = 0.29), and self-defeating humor
(β = –0.25). Subjective happiness was positively associated with affiliative
humor (β = 0.20) and self-enhancing humor (β = 0.39). No statistically sig-
nificant association was found between aggressive humor and self-esteem
and subjective happiness. Taken together, these findings offered partial
support for the hypotheses, that is, the two adaptive humor styles were
stronger correlates of self-esteem and happiness than the two maladap-
tive humor styles.

TABLE 2
MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSES ON HUMOR STYLES
Unstandardized Standardized
Model Coefficients Coefficients R2 F t p
B SE β
1 (constant)
Affiliative humor 0.12 0.05 0.16 2.48 .014
Self-enhancing humor 0.29 0.05 0.29 6.16 < .001
Aggressive humor 0.03 0.05 0.04 0.65 .52
Self-defeating humor −0.16 0.04 −0.25 −3.83 < .001
0.24 16.35‡
2 (constant)
Affiliative humor 0.12 0.04 0.20 3.02 .003
Self-enhancing humor 0.23 0.04 0.39 5.82 < .001
Aggressive humor −0.03 0.04 −0.06 −0.86 .39
Self-defeating humor −0.04 0.04 −0.07 −1.01 .32
0.24 15.76‡
Note.—Model 1 predicted Self-esteem scores df (4, 212) and Model 2 Subjective well-being df
(4, 203) scores. ‡p < .001.

In Fig. 1, the mediating effect of the four humor styles on the relation
between self-esteem and subjective happiness is presented. The outcome
variable (subjective happiness) was regressed on predictor variable (self-
esteem) and was found to be statistically significant (β = 0.27). The rela-
tionship between predictor, self-esteem, and mediator affiliative humor
(β = 0.28) and self-enhancing humor (β = 0.38), as well as the relationships

15-PR_Yue_140047.indd 521 17/10/14 12:20 PM

 522 X. D. YUE, ET AL.

Affiliative
humor
.14‡

.26‡
.38‡ Self-enhancing .34‡
humor

Total effect = .27‡

Self-esteem Happiness
Direct effect = .41‡

-.004 Aggressive -.04

humor

-.12
.10
Self-defeating
humor

FIG. 1. Path model of relations between self-esteem, humor styles, and subjective hap-
piness. ‡p < .001.

between mediator variable, affiliative humor, and self-enhancing humor

and outcome variable and subjective happiness were also found to be sig-
nificant. As a result, both affiliative and self-enhancing humor mediated
the relationships between self-esteem and subjective happiness. Hypoth-
esis 2 was supported, as adaptive humor styles were stronger correlates
and mediators of self-esteem on subjective happiness.
DISCUSSION
The present study shows that self-esteem was positively associated
with affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor and negatively associ-
ated with self-defeating humor. Higher self-esteem was predicted by the
greater use of adaptive humor styles in the present sample. This partially
confirms previous findings that students with higher self-esteem tended
to use more adaptive humor (Martin, et al., 2003; Hiranandani & Yue,
2014).
In addition, subjective happiness was found to be significantly and
positively associated with affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor.
This suggests that the more adaptive humor styles the Chinese students
used, the happier they tended to be. In fact, previous studies did show that
affiliative humor enhances one's interpersonal intimacy and social sup-
port network (Martin, et al., 2003), and that self-enhancing humor helped

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 HUMOR STYLES, SELF-ESTEEM, HAPPINESS 523

to establish a positive mindset for happiness, hope, and optimism (Thor-

son, et al., 1997; Yue, et al., 2010).
Both affiliative and self-enhancing humor mediated the effect of self-
esteem on subjective happiness, providing partial support to the study's
hypotheses. This means that the use of adaptive humor styles could affect
self-esteem and happiness in Chinese students. Happy students with high
self-esteem tend to use adaptive humor. In fact, previous studies have
shown that adaptive humor styles affected self-esteem and gelotophobia,
the fear of being laughed at (Hiranandani & Yue, 2014), and the positive
self-evaluative standards and self-esteem (Kuiper & McHale, 2009).
Finally, the present findings showed that the two maladaptive humor
styles were worse predictors than the two adaptive humor styles on either
self-esteem or subjective happiness. This may be due to the fact that the
Chinese sample tended to use little aggressive and self-defeating humor
because they generally felt ambivalent about humor (Yue, 2010, 2011).
With regard to using humor in their social communications, typically Chi-
nese consider face values and interpersonal harmony (Hwang, 1987; Yue,
1994; Cheung, Kwok, Zhang, Sun, Gan, Song, et al., 2001; Hiranandani &
Yue, 2014). This could also be attributed to the belief that people are ex-
pected to place their importance in interpersonal harmony, interdepen-
dence, and reciprocity, according to Confucianism (Bond, 1996). Alterna-
tively, it could be that aggressive humor was hard to assess on the HSQ
scale or the items were not fully reflective of aggressive humor. In fact,
some previous studies have shown that aggressive humor was not cor-
related with other factors such as life satisfaction and depressed mood
(Cheung & Yue, 2012) or psychological well-being (Martin, et al., 2003;
Kuiper & McHale, 2009). The HSQ may not be a good measure of aggres-
sive humor. Further studies are needed to verify the present finding.
Limitations and Future Directions
This preliminary study examined the mediating effect of humor styles
on self-esteem and subjective happiness in a Hong Kong context. Though
the study has generated intriguing findings, there are several limitations
that need to be addressed in future research. First of all, the present sam-
ple represents only university students in Hong Kong, so generalization
to other Chinese populations is limited. Second, the present study used
self-report measures; participants might have responded in a socially de-
sirable way. Therefore, collecting behavioral data are suggested for future
studies. Third, future studies need to confirm and verify the findings of
this study showing that adaptive humor styles would exert more proxi-
mal effects on subjective happiness than self-esteem. Finally, the present
findings show that the two adaptive humor styles positively mediated the
relation between self-esteem and subjective happiness.

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 524 X. D. YUE, ET AL.

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Accepted July 21, 2014.

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