Researchers have increasingly focused on the positive aspects of mental health (e.g., happiness and resilience) rather than the negative aspects (e.g., depression and grief) since the advent of positive psychology in the 1980s (Snyder, 2000). Research has found that a sense of humor can improve an individual’s physical and mental health with regard to personality, physiology, and stress management (Cann et al. 2010; López-Pérez & Fernández-Castilla, 2018; Martin & Lefcourt, 1983). Furthermore, among the environmental factors that affect the psychosocial development of university students, continual engagement in informal campus organizations (e.g., club activities and other extracurricular activities [ECAs]) give students a social support system and sense of purpose (Byl et al., 2016; Schulz, Schulte, Raube, Disouky, &Kandler, 2018). Astin (1993) found a significant correlation between weekly amount of time spent engaged in ECAs and the quality of students’ leadership ability and interpersonal relationships. Accordingly, engagement in ECAs may mediate the relationship between sense of humor and personal well-being, and an investigation of the correlations among degree of engagement in ECAs, humor styles, and subjective well-being (SWB) may deepen our understanding of the effect of the degree of university students’ engagement in ECAs on SWB.

Relationship between humor styles and SWB

The beneficial influence of humor on individuals’ physical and mental health merits attention and may derive from cognitive, emotional, or interpersonal aspects (Martin, 2016; Marino, Vieno, Lenzi, Fernie, Nikčević, & Spada, 2018). With regard to cognition, humor enables an individual to cope with life stressors and exhibits a moderating effect when individuals encounter stressful events and situations, allowing individuals to fend off threats to their physical and mental health and reducing their anxiety and sense of helplessness (Morrish, Rickard, Chin, & Vella-Brodrick, 2018; Morse, Xiong, Ramirez-Zohfeld, Seltzer, Barish, & Lindquist, 2018). With regard to emotion, humor is also a key mechanism for emotional regulation and stress management and can give individuals the equanimity to find solutions to stress-inducing problems (Franke, Huebner, & Hills, 2017; Fredrickson, 2001). Finally, with regard to interpersonal relationships, humor brings people closer together and ameliorates conflict (Denovan & Macaskill2017; Karakuş, Ercan, & Tekgöz, 2014; Yip & Martin 2006).

Humans express humor in a variety of ways. Martin et al. (2003) identified four humor styles, with positive (adaptive) styles consisting of affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor and with negative (nonadaptive) styles consisting of aggressive humor and self-defeating humor. In addition, that study developed the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) to assess differences among individuals’ use of humor. The HSQ measures potentially beneficial and potentially injurious humor styles and can shed light on styles spontaneously adopted by individuals in everyday life, including how individuals respond to social interaction and life stressors.

Furthermore, the HSQ can help illuminate the different effects of different humor styles on SWB. In a study involving 123 participants, Heintz (2017) found that positive humor behaviors and SWB were positively correlated; specifically, greater use of humor as a response mechanism enhanced the participants’ life satisfaction and positive affect. In addition, on the basis of a sample of 287 students, Çalışandemir and Tagay (2015) found that life satisfaction indicated SWB at the cognitive level and that a positive and harmonious humor style was positively correlated with life satisfaction. Nevertheless, regarding these research findings, a need to confirm the effects of the various dimensions of humor styles on SWB remains, and whether different humor styles or related factors have different effects on SWB warrants further investigation.

Mediating role of the degree of engagement in ECAs

Multiple intelligences (MI) theory, which was proposed by Gardner (1983) suggests that education should aim to not only convey knowledge but also develop MI in individuals; such MI can be cultivated through the autonomy and active exploration that ECAs provide. Many studies have revealed that ECAs offered by schools can positively affect students’ academic performance, learning motivation, interpersonal interactions, and social development (Balyer & Gunduz, 2012; Denault & Guay, 2017; Shulruf, Tumen, & Tolley, 2008). Additionally, engagement in organized ECAs can affect adolescents’ self-esteem and well-being, and in particular, the establishment of social networks through participation in ECAs can provide adolescents with spaces to engage in further learning, acquire skills, and receive emotional support (Kort-Butler & Hagewen, 2011; Nie, Teng, Bear, Guo, & Liu, 2018; Zaborskis, Grincaite, Lenzi, Tesler, Moreno-Maldonado, & Mazur, 2018). Larson (2000) suggested that by enabling teenagers to engage in healthy ECAs, school clubs can help them use their leisure time effectively and can promote growth and personal development.

Notably, humor helps individuals maintain positive personality traits and cope with negative affect. A sense of humor can benefit not only physical and mental health but also SWB (Cann et al. 2010; Headey & Yong, 2019). Fritz (2020) found that social support indirectly mediated the relationship among self-enhancing and affiliative humor and health difficulties and that social support indirectly mediated the relationship between aggressive humor and increased health problems. That is, a sense of humor and social support are key factors that help individuals maintain their physical and mental health and well-being, and social activities can alleviate the negative effect of negative humor on mental health.

Among studies regarding the relationship between engagement in ECAs and SWB, Fredricks and Eccles (2006) found that adolescents’ engagement in ECAs predicted favorable psychological skills and peer relationships and positively influenced academic performance and situational adaptation. In addition, studies have found that humor style and SWB are correlated; for example, university students who tend to employ affiliative and self-enhancing humor experience greater life satisfaction and fewer negative symptoms. Studies have also shown that humor styles can predict well-being (Dyck & Holtzman 2013). SWB concerns the manner in which people assess their lives in relation to two key aspects: the individual’s overall life satisfaction at the cognitive level and their positive and negative emotional responses at the affective level (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999; Helliwell, 2017). Furthermore, positive humor styles and SWB are positively correlated, and individuals’ preferred humor styles and their humor behaviors are also correlated (Heintz, 2017; Wang, Zou, Zhang, & Hou, 2018). Thus, humor styles and SWB are key factors affecting university students’ physical and mental health and subjective perceptions.

In summary, university students’ engagement in ECAs is crucial in both school and everyday life, and research has clearly indicated that students’ engagement in ECAs is closely correlated with humor styles and SWB. Hence, the degree of university students’ engagement in ECAs may have a mediating effect on their humor styles and SWB.

Present study

Although previous studies have clearly demonstrated that humor style is correlated with SWB (Cann et al. 2010; Dyck & Holtzman, 2013), further empirical research is required to explain the factors and subjective mechanisms explaining how and why individuals use a given humor style and experience SWB. At present, we are certain that humor style is correlated with life satisfaction, that positive and negative affect are correlated with SWB, and that individuals’ engagement in ECAs is a key indicator of situational adaptation and psychological health (Booker & Dunsmore, 2018; Kort-Butler & Hagewen, 2011; Park & Wang, 2018). Hence, engagement in ECAs, humor style, and SWB are correlated. However, few studies have investigated the effect of university students’ engagement in ECAs on their humor styles or their SWB. Accordingly, the present study explored the humor styles of college students, differences between male and female students in SWB, the relationship between humor style and the degree of engagement in ECAs, and the relationship between SWB and the degree of engagement in ECAs. In addition, this study analyzed the mediating effect of the degree of engagement in ECAs on the relationship between humor styles and SWB. Accordingly, the following study hypotheses were developed:

1. Hypothesis 1: Men and women differ in humor style and SWB score.

2. Hypothesis 2: Humor styles and SWB are related to engagement in ECAs.

3. Hypothesis 3: Engagement in ECAs mediate the relationship between humor styles and SWB.

Method

Participants and procedure

We sampled 640 university students who regularly engaged in ECAs. Male students accounted for 43% of the sample, and female students accounted for the remaining 57%. The percentages of freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, and graduate students in the sample were 18%, 25%, 39%, 14%, and 4%, respectively (M = 2.61, SD = 1.05). The students were distributed among the northern, central, southern, and eastern regions of Taiwan and came from 11 different schools. The researchers first explained the study’s goals, implementation procedures, and instructions for completing the questionnaire to the participating students and informed them that the results of the experiment would not be factored into their class evaluations. The students were then allowed to decide whether to participate in the study. This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee. All the participants were informed of the study procedure and provided informed consent before the commencement of this study.

Instruments

The HSQ (Chan et al., 2011) covers four humor styles: affiliative and self-enhancing humor, which are considered positive styles; and aggressive and self-defeating humor, which are considered negative styles. The HSQ-TC used in this study is a translated version of the HSQ developed by Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray and Weir (2003). Each subscale of the HSQ consists of eight questions, resulting in a total of 32 questions, and each subscale is scored on a 7-point Likert-type scale, with a higher score indicating a greater tendency for the humor style under analysis. The Cronbach’s α values for the four subscales of affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating humor were 0.88, 0.82, 0.73, and 0.77, respectively, indicating that the questionnaire had excellent reliability and reasonable construct validity. In summary, the HSQ-TC used in this study had excellent reliability and validity.

The Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) (Watson et al. 1988) employs descriptive language ranging from positive- to negative-sounding language and helps assess subjects’ impressions of positive affect and negative affect. The PANAS is completed using a 5-point scale and consists of 20 questions designed to discern positive and negative emotional traits. The internal consistency ratings of positive affect and negative affect were indicated by Cronbach’s α values of 0.87 and 0.88, respectively. Previous testing of the reliability and validity of the PANAS scale indicated that this scale possessed excellent reliability and validity.

The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) (Diener et al. 1985) was employed in the present study to assess the participating university students’ overall life satisfaction. The SWLS is completed using a 7-point scale and consists of five questions, with a higher score indicating greater overall satisfaction with life. The scale’s internal consistency and reliability were both 0.88.

The ECA Engagement Degree Scale enabled the students in the present study to assess their degrees of engagement in ECAs. Created by the present authors, this scale employs both quantitative and qualitative definitions, with the quantitative portion inquiring into years of participation in ECAs and time spent engaged in ECAs each week and with the qualitative portion inquiring into personal impressions of the respondent’s degree of engagement in ECAs. The scale on years of participation was constituted by the points of less than 1 year, 1–2 years, 2–3 years, and more than 3 years of being involved in an ECA. The scale on weekly time spent on ECAs was constituted by the points of less than 10 hours, 10–20 hours, 20–30 hours, and more than 30 hours weekly. Finally, the participants indicated whether their degree of engagement in ECAs was low, moderate, moderate to high, or high. The scale on degree of ECA involvement was reliable, with a Cronbach’s α of 0.64.

Finally, SWB was assessed in this study using the SWLS and PANAS, both of which were administered to groups of students (in an on-site group setting). The researchers first explained the content of the questionnaire, asked each participant to sign an informed consent form, and instructed the students regarding how to complete the questionnaire. The questionnaire was then completed in approximately 40 minutes.

Results

This study used the Sobel test (Sobel, 1982) and bootstrapping (Preacher & Hayes, 2008) to investigate the mediating effect of the degree of university students’ engagement in ECAs on the relationship between these humor style and SWB (Figure 1).

Analysis of gender differences

Table 1 presents the mean SWB values and standard deviations of scores on the humor styles scale for the two different genders. Women tended to use affiliative humor significantly more than did men ((t = -2.53, p < 0.05, d = -0.20), whereas men tended to use aggressive humor significantly more than did women (t = 6.73, p< 0.001, d= 0.53). The women’s overall SWB score and life satisfaction were significantly higher than those of the men (t= -2.84, p<0.01, d= -0.22), indicating a significant gender difference.

Relationship between humor style and SWB

Table 2 presents the correlations among humor styles, life satisfaction, and negative affect. The positive humor styles (i.e., affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor) were positively correlated with overall SWB score, life satisfaction, and positive affect. Furthermore, affiliative humor was positively correlated with overall SWB score (r = 0.31, p < 0.001), life satisfaction (r = 0.25, p < 0.001), and positive affect (r = 0.42, p < 0.001). Self-enhancing humor was also positively correlated with overall SWB score (r = 0.39, p < 0.001), life satisfaction (r = 0.40, p < 0.001), and positive affect (r = 0.49, p < 0.001). With regard to negative humor styles, aggressive humor was negatively correlated with overall SWB score (r = -0.15, p < 0.001), life satisfaction (r = -0.16, p < 0.001), and positive affect (r = -0.19, p < 0.001). Self-defeating humor was negatively correlated with life satisfaction (r = -0.14, p < 0.001) and positively correlated with negative affect (r = 0.34, p <0.001). In addition, self-defeating humor had no direct relationship with the overall SWB score or with positive affect. In summary, the positive humor styles were positively correlated with the overall SWB score, life satisfaction, and positive affect, whereas the negative humor styles were negatively correlated with life satisfaction and positively correlated with negative affect.

Relationship among engagement in ECAs, humor style, and SWB

As indicated in Table 3, degree of engagement in ECAs was linked to affiliative humor, overall SWB score, life satisfaction, and positive affect. Specifically, degree of engagement in ECAs was positively correlated with affiliative humor (r = 0.14, p< 0.01), the overall SWB score (r = 0.17, p< 0.001), life satisfaction (r = 0.1, p< 0.05), and positive affect (r = 0.19, p< 0.001). In addition, the correlations of the degree of engagement in ECAs with self-enhancing humor, aggressive humor, self-defeating humor, and negative affect did not differ significantly. These findings indicate that engagement in ECAs was directly and positively correlated with affiliative humor, the overall SWB score, life satisfaction, and positive affect.

Mediation analyses

This study used mediation analysis to investigate the influence of engagement in ECAs on the relationship between humor styles and SWB. Our results indicated that the degree of engagement in ECAs had a mediating effect on the relationship between affiliative humor and SWB (Figure 1). We tested ECAs in these mediation models, with age and gender controlled for. The Sobel test indicated that engagement in ECAs had a mediating effect on the relationship between affiliative humor and SWB (Z = 2.39).

Bootstrapping involves the use of resampling procedures to obtain the mean values and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of mediating effects. If the 95% CI of a mediating effect after 5 000 rounds of sampling does not include 0, the null hypothesis of the absence of a mediating effect can be rejected (Shrout & Bolger, 2002). We applied bootstrapping to the 640 sets of raw data obtained from the participating students. Table 4 presents the effect of engagement in ECAs on the 95% CI of the relationship between humor styles and SWB. Our findings indicated that engagement in ECAs had a significant mediating effect on the relationship between affiliative humor and SWB (95% CI = 0.003–0.018 [0 not included]).

The results obtained through the aforementioned two statistical methods were consistent, demonstrating that engagement in ECAs mediated the relationship between humor styles and SWB and the relationship between affiliative humor and SWB.

Discussion

This study explored university students’ humor styles; SWB, including gender differences; the relationship between humor styles and the degree of engagement in ECAs; and the relationship between SWB and the degree of engagement in ECAs. In addition, this study analyzed whether the degree of university students’ engagement in ECAs had a mediating effect on the relationship between humor styles and SWB. The results of this study support the hypothesis that compared with men, women tend to use more affiliative humor and have correspondingly higher SWB and life satisfaction. Men, by contrast, appear to favor aggressive humor; this finding is also consistent with those of previous studies (Matud et al. 2014; Tsai et al., 2023; Wu et al., 2016). Furthermore, the results indicated that among the participating university students, affiliative and self-enhancing humor were positively correlated with overall SWB, life satisfaction, and positive affect; these findings are also consistent with those of previous studies (Heintz, 2017; Wang, Zou, Zhang, & Hou, 2018). Moreover, aggressive humor was negatively correlated with overall SWB, life satisfaction, and positive affect, and self-defeating humor was negatively correlated with life satisfaction and positively correlated with negative affect among the participating university students; these findings are partially consistent with those of previous studies (Civitci, 2015; Torres-Marín et al. 2018). Finally, engagement in ECAs was directly positively correlated with affiliative humor, overall SWB, life satisfaction, and positive affect.

This study is the first to demonstrate that university students’ engagement in ECAs mediate the relationship only between affective humor and SWB. The lack of any mediation effect of engagement in ECAs on the relationship between self-defeating humor and SWB was likely because self-defeating humor did not directly affect SWB. In addition, self-enhancing humor is an internally oriented form of humor (i.e., an intrapsychic function of humor), indicating that the university students who used self-enhancing humor already had relatively high levels of SWB and thus did not require engagement in ECAs to boost their SWB further. Moreover, aggressive humor proved to be an outwardly oriented (i.e., interpersonal) and injurious form of humor that may be detrimental to interpersonal relationships. The students who favored aggressive humor tended to use humor to attack others and were relatively unlikely to engage in ECAs. Consequently, aggressive humor was unable to influence SWB through engagement in ECAs.

Finally, our results support the finding of many related studies that men have a greater tendency to use aggressive humor, whereas women tend to employ affiliative humor (Dyck & Holtzman, 2013; Tsai et al., 2023; Wu et al., 2016). In addition, we discovered that the women in the present study had higher levels of SWB and life satisfaction than did the men. According to SWB theory (Oishi et al. 2018), when an individual has a positive affect balance, they tend to experience happiness, life satisfaction, and a high level of SWB. Regarding the influence of SWB, women tend to experience a higher level of life satisfaction, a key indicator of SWB, than do men (Kim & Hatfield, 2004; Zhou & Peng, 2018). The results of the current study suggest that when university students engage in ECAs, those who adopt affiliative humor are more likely to enhance their SWB. Affiliative humor is a positive humor style, and through engagement in ECAs, such humor can promote relationships with others, minimize tension in interpersonal interactions, and foster harmony with others through spontaneous goodwill, which in turn can boost the positive affect of the individual engaging in such humor.

In summary, this study discovered that engagement in ECAs affected university students’ SWB differently depending on the humor style adopted. Furthermore, by investigating the mediating effect of engagement in ECAs, this study found that university students who employ affiliative humor more frequently are more likely to experience greater SWB and to exhibit greater participation in ECAs, indicating that both engagement in ECAs and humor styles have an interactive effect on SWB. This finding suggests that a positive humor style can positively affect an individual’s SWB and that the social skill of using positive humor can increase an individual’s positive affect. Finally, this study deepens understanding of SWB among university students participating in ECAs with respect to differences in humor styles.

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences, Social Emotional Education and Development Center, and Chinese Language and Technology Center of National Taiwan Normal University from The Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan.

References

Notes

^* Research article.

Author notes

^a Autor de correspondencia. Correo electrónico: chcjyh@gmail.com

Additional information

How to cite: Huang, S. Y., Tsai, M. H., Chen, H. C., & Shih, H. F. (2023). The relationship between university students' humor styles and subjective well-being: extracurricular engagement as a mediator. Universitas Psychologica, 22, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.upsy22.rbus

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