Coping strategies : associations between perceived stress and humour styles

Abstract

The main focus of this study is the phenomenon of humour as an adaptive and maladaptive coping strategy in the event of perceived stress. A quantitative approach was undertaken to investigate the relationship between the four humour styles essential to this study: affiliative humour, self-enhancing humour, aggressive humour and self-defeating humour, and stress. A questionnaire consisting of the ‘Perceived Stress Scale’ (PSS) and the ‘Humour Styles Questionnaire’ (HSQ) was distributed through random sampling methods and social media. A total of 211 participants filled out the questionnaire, of which 179 participants were female and 32 participants were male. The findings showed that self enhancing humour may function as an adaptive coping strategy in relation to perceived stress and self-defeating humour may function as a maladaptive coping strategy in relation to stress. Affiliative and aggressive humour were not statistically significant in their relation with perceived stress and in terms of their potential as coping strategies. The findings imply that certain humour styles may be used as forms of coping. This study attends to the lack of humour studies in the local context and the need for more research on humour and its psychological functions.