www.ejop.org Humor Styles, Positiv e Personality and Health

The research examines the relationship of sense of humor differences and positive personality qualities with perceptions of stress and well-being. Positive and negative styles of self-directed humor were assumed to have opposing relationships with perceived stress, but the relationships were predicted to be mediated through positive personality qualities. University students provided data at two points in time separated by 8 weeks. Data from time 1 was used to verify the mediation of the relationship of sense of humor with perceived stress through the positive personality qualities. A more extensive theoretical model, using longitudinal data, was tested using the sense of humor measures from time 1 and positive personality qualities at time 2 to predict perceived stress and well-being at time 2. The results from the two analyses support the proposed mediator model in which the potential health benefits of a positive humor style and the potential damage to health associated with a negative humor style are mediated through the positive personality qualities. Thus, it would appear that good humor uses can support maintaining a stable positive personality style, which has positive associations with both psychological and physical well-being.


being
A good sense of humor has long been imagined to be a personal quality that can moderate the impact of stressors in one"s life (Lefcourt & Martin, 1986;Lefcourt, 2001).A sense of humor, it has been suggested, can help a person engage in positiv e reframing, and creativ e reinterpretation of ev ents to limit or dispel the negativ e affect associated w ith stressors (e. g.Abel, 2002;Abel & Maxw ell, 2002;Kuiper & Olinger, 1998;Nezu, Nezu, & Blissett, 1988).Support also comes from research indicating that a good sense of humor has been associated w ith higher lev els of cheerfulness (Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, & Weir, 2003) and positiv e affect (Celso, Ebener, & Burkhead, 2003) and low er lev els of negativ e affect and depression (Anderson & Arnoult, 1989;Ov erholser, 1992).How ev er, the results hav e not been consistent in confirming these positiv e relationships (see Martin 2007 for a recent ov erv iew ).I n quite a number of cases there has been little or no relationship found betw een the assessments of sense of humor and indicators of psychological health (e. g., Kuiper, & Borow icz-Sibenik, 2005;Kuiper & Martin, 1998a;1998b;Porterfield, 1987).
A similar body of research exists w hen looking at the potential relationship betw een humor, sense of humor, and physical health indicators.Studies hav e found exposure to humor had positiv e physiological effects (e.g.Berk et al., 1989;Berk, & Tan, 2009;Lefcourt, Dav idson-Katz, & Kueneman, 1990).How ev er, other inv estigations report no relationship (e. g., Harrison et al., 2000;Kerkkanen, Kuiper, & Martin, 2004;Njus, Nitschke, & Bryant, 1996).I n research on health symptom reporting, there also are examples of supportiv e findings (e.g., Carroll & Shmidt, 1992;Ruch & Kohler, 1999) and findings that fail to confirm a relationship (Labott & Martin, R. B., 1987;Porterfield, 1987).I n fact, in a recent rev iew of the literature (Martin, 2001;2004) the ov erall pattern of results did not support a reliable relationship betw een humor v ariables and physical health related indicators.
Virtually all of the research cited abov e looking at sense of humor and health, ev en in instances w here multiple measures of sense of humor w ere used in a study, focused on sense of humor as if it is exclusiv ely a positiv e, adaptiv e quality.Although other less positiv e forms of humor, inv olv ing sarcasm, ridicule, teasing and other forms of disparagement hav e long been recognized as common (Janes & Olson, 2000;Zillman, 1983), the av ailable measures of sense of humor hav e not adequately captured these styles of humor.Recent dev elopments in the assessment of sense of humor (Martin et al, 2003), reflecting an appreciation for the positiv e or adaptiv e uses of humor and the less adaptiv e or negativ e uses, hav e prov ided an opportunity Humor, Personality and Health 215 to clarify the potential relationships betw een sense of humor and psychological and physical health.The Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ: Martin et al., 2003) prov ides a more comprehensiv e assessment of the multiple styles of humor that hav e been observ ed.
The HSQ identifies four humor styles, includin g styles that could exacerbate stress rather than reduce it.The affiliativ e humor style, characterized by entertaining and supporting others through humor is most like the prev ious measures of sense of humor that focused on the positiv e uses of humor.An aggressiv e humor style reflects indiv iduals" use of humor to tease or demean others, in order to gain some status for oneself.A tendency to use this style of humor can be damaging to interpersonal relationships (Cann, Zapata, & Dav is, 2009;in press).
Of most importance to understanding the potential role of humor styles in limiting the negativ e impact of stressors are the tw o humor styles that are self-directed rather than focused on others.Self-enhancing humor is closely related to the notion of coping humor (Martin, 1996;Martin et al, 2003), and is characterized by uses of humor to maintain a positiv e outlook on life and to cope w ith stressors by finding new perspectiv es for interpreting them.Self-defeating humor, on the other hand, inv olv es ridicule or demeaning of the self in an effort to gain fav or w ith others, a style that has been found to be associated w ith higher lev els of anxiety and depression (Martin et al., 2003) and has the potential to low er rather than raise one"s positiv e affect.
I n a number of recent inv estigations, these tw o self-directed humor styles hav e demonstrated opposing relationships w ith health related outcome v ariables.Kuiper, Grimshaw , Leite, and Kirsh (2004) looked at a number of w ell-being indicators and found a low self-enhancing style w as associated w ith low ered w ell-being.I n addition, they reported that a high self-enhancing style w as positiv ely related to multiple self-competencies associated w ith better coping.The self-defeating style, on the other hand, w as positiv ely related to reported depression and anxiety and negativ ely associated w ith the self-competencies.Hugelshofer, Kw on, Reff, & Olson (2006) found the same pattern looking at the tw o styles relationships w ith lev els of depression, and Chen and Martin (2007) reported a similar pattern w hen looking at mental health based on self reported symptoms.Cann and Etzel (2008) looked at ratings of perceiv ed stressors in one"s life and found self-enhancing humor w as negativ ely related, and self-defeating w as positiv ely related to both ev aluations of past stressors and anticipated future stressors.Clearly the tw o self-directed styles of humor are not both adaptiv e, greater tendencies to use a self-defeating humor style appears to be associated w ith poorer adjustment and low er w ell-being.Although there w as also ev idence of a positiv e relationship betw een affiliativ e humor style and w ell-being in some of these studies, in both Chen and Martin (2007) and Cann and Etzel (2008), w hen the four humor styles w ere entered together in a regression Taken together, these studies prov ide considerable support for the importance of assessing sense of humor as a multidimensional v ariable, w ith elements that can be either positiv e or negativ e factors in predicting health and w ell-being and in influencing other experiences.Although additional research w ill be necessary, this more comprehensiv e conceptualization of sense of humor may lead to a more consistent pattern of findings in relationships betw een humor uses and health outcomes.How ever, ev en if the pattern does become clearer, the question remains as to how these humor styles actually influence psychological and physical healt h.
One possibility is that effectiv e use of humor, for example higher uses of selfenhancing and low er uses of self-defeating humor, may operate through their impact on more global differences in the tendency to experience positiv e or negativ e affect.The humor styles hav e been show n to be related to measures of typical positiv e and negativ e affect (Kuiper et al., 2004), and to more enduring qualities like optimism, cheerfulness and bad mood (Martin et al., 2003), and sociotropy (Frew en, Brinker, Martin, & Dozois, 2008).Cann and Etzel (2008) found the humor styles explained a significant amount of the v ariability in three separate qualities associated w ith positiv e personality (optimism, hope, and happiness), w ith the tw o self-directed styles consistently significant as indiv idual predictors.
The literature on the relationship betw een stable differences in affectiv ity and health is generally more consistent than the findings to date for the role of sense of humor as a predictor of health.Chronic negativ e affect has been show n to be related to poorer health experiences (Friedman & Booth-Kew ley, 1987), and recent lev els of negativ e affect (Kuiper & Harris, 2009) w ere a better predictor of physical health than w ere the humor styles based on the HSQ.The presence of positiv e affect as a stable state also has been found to be associated w ith positiv e health experiences.
Consistently higher lev els of positiv e affect also are associated w ith greater psychological resilience (Cohn, Frederickson, Brow n, Mikels, & Conw ay, 2009), few er illness symptoms reported (Pettit, Kline, Gencoz, Gencoz, & Joiner, 2001), and better health in general (Pressman & Cohen, 2005).People w ho are high on positiv e personality qualities tend to report experiencing more consistent and higher lev els of positiv e affect and low er lev els of negativ e affect.
These positiv e personality qualities also are associated w ith more positiv e approaches to coping in stressful situations and better ov erall health.Research supports the health benefits of greater optimism (Carv er, Scheier, & Miller, 2009), higher lev els of hope as a stable trait (Richman, Kubzansky, Maselko, Kaw achi, Choo, & Bauer, 2005), and stable differences in happiness (Siahpush, Spittal, & Singh, 2008;Veenhov en, 2008).I n general, these positiv e personality qualities hav e been more reliable predictors of health and effectiv e coping than hav e measures of sense of humor.How ev er, these qualities, positiv e personality styles and humor styles, may be linked since maintaining a consistent positiv e outlook w ould seem to require behav iors that support that state.
Effective use of humor may be one w ay that people w ith more positiv e personality qualities maintain their positiv e outlooks.
I n a recent study (Cann & Etzel, 2008), initial ev idence w as found to support a mediator model in w hich the role of humor styles in explai ning perceptions of stress w as mediated through a composite of positiv e personality styles (optimism, hope, and happiness).The current research seeks to extend those findings in tw o w ays.
First, the mediator model w ill be examined by considering each positiv e personality quality as a separate mediator rather than the composite based on all three qualities.Secondly, a hypothesized model w ill be tested to see if the results of the mediator analyses are v alidated using longitudinal data and if the reported perceived stress does translate into different lev els of self-reported psychological and physical health.To better capture the assumed role of the humor styles, a longitudinal model w ill be tested, using humor styles at time 1 but positiv e personality, and perceiv ed stress at time 2. A checklist of actual stressors experienced during the interv al w ill prov ide an additional v alidation of perceiv ed stress as a reflection of actual life ev ents.

Measures
Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ).The Humor Styles Questionnaire (Martinet al., 2003) assesses indiv idual differences in four styles of humor use.Tw o styles are primarily other-directed; w ith aggressiv e humor inv olv ing humor that attacks or demeans others and affiliativ e humor characterized by efforts to build relationships through humor.The other tw o styles are self-directed; w ith self-defeating humor characterized by humor that demeans the self in efforts to build relationships and self-enhancing humor designed to protect or amuse oneself w ith humor.Eight items assess each humor styles, w ith responses prov ided on a scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree) and scores reported as means on that scale.This questionnaire, including each of the four styles of humor measured, has been show n in prev ious w ork to hav e construct v alidity and to hav e good internal reliability (alphas ranging from .77 to .81)(Martin et al., 2003).

Positive Personality Measures
The Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R).The Life Orientation Test-Rev ised is a 10item questionnaire designed to assess generalized dispositional optimism.I t consists of 6 relev ant items and 4 non-relev ant items that are rated from 0 (I disagree a lot) to 4 (I agree a lot) (Scheier, Carv er, & Bridges, 1994).This questionnaire measures an indiv idual"s degree of optimism w ith scores reported as the mean rating of the 6 relev ant items.The LOT-R has been show n to hav e good internal reliability (alpha = .83; Scheier et al., 1994).
The Hope Scale (HOPE).The Hope Scale is a 12-item questionnaire that includes 8 relev ant items and 4 non-relev ant items (Snyder et al., 1991).The HOPE measures tw o dimensions of trait-based hope: Agency (the strong belief that one w ill meet their goals) and Pathw ays (the belief that one w ill find the path to reach their goals).
A single hope score, based on combining these tw o dimensions of hope, w ill be used to characterize dispositional differences in global hope.Responses to items are on a 4-point scale (Definitely False -1 to 4 -Definitely True) and scores are reported as means on that scale.The full scale has show n acceptable internal reliability (alphas > .74;Snyder et al., 1991).
Oxford Happiness Questionnaire-Short Form (OHQ-SF).The short form of the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (Hills & Argyle, 2002) is an 8-item questionnaire designed to capture stable differences in personal happiness and a sense of w ell being.
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Responses are prov ided on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree) and scores are reported as the mean rating of the 8 items.The full 20 item OHQ scale has excellent internal reliability (alpha = .91)and the short form correlates strongly w ith the full scale (r = .90).I nternal reliability for the HHQ-SF w as good in the current sample (alpha = .82).

Inventory of College Students' Recent Life Experiences (ICSRLE). The I nv entory of
College Students" Recent Life Experiences (Kohn, Lafreniere, & Gurev ich, 1990) is a 37-item questionnaire that presents a list of common ev ents that hav e been show n to be potential stressors in college students" liv es.A factor analysis of the scale produced a 37 item v ersion that contain 7 factors: dev elopmental challenge, time pressure, academic alienation, romantic problems, assorted annoyances, social mistreatment, and friendship problems.A subsequent confirmatory factor analysis has confirmed these 7 domains (Osman, Barrios, Longnecker, & Osman, 1994).For each ev ent, the responses range from 1 (not at all part of my life) to 4 (v ery much part of my life) and ov erall scores are presented as the mean rating.Participants rated the ev ents based on their experiences in the past month.The internal reliability of this inv entory w as found to be good (alpha = .89;Ko hn, et al., 1990 and alpha = .92; Osman et al., 1994).
Perceived Stress Scale (PSS).The Perceiv ed Stress Scale is a 14-item questionnaire that prov ides a global assessment of the lev el of stress people perceiv e to be present in their liv es recently (Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983).Responses to indiv idual items range from 0 (nev er) to 4 (v ery often) and the sum of the 14 items is used as the measure of stress, so scores can v ary from 0 to 56.I n a current study, participants reported on the perceiv ed stressors ov er the past month.I nternal consistency has been good in prev ious examinations (alphas > .84;Cohen et al., 1983).

Assessment of Psychological and Physical Health
The Short-Form-36 Health Surv ey has been used extensiv ely in health research (SF36; Ware, Snow , Kosinski, & Gandek, 1993) and it includes 36 items that measure eight dimensions of health.These dimensions reflect tw o general domains General Physical Health and General Psychological Health.General Physical Health includes the dimensions physical functioning, role limitations due to physical health problems, bodily pain, and general health perceptions.General Psychological Health includes the dimensions social functioning, mental health, role limitations due to emotional problems, and v itality (energy or fatigue) (Ware et al., 1993).For most of the items, the instructions ask that the respondent focus on the past 4 w eeks, although some items refer to a typical day.The internal reliability coefficients hav e been reported by many studies for this surv ey (for rev iew see Ware et al., 1993).I n rev iew of these studies, it w as found that the internal reliability coefficients median exceeded .80 for all scales except for the social functioning scale w hich w as .76(Ware et al., 1993).
Recent examinations of the scale on large samples using factor analysis and SEM hav e confirmed the tw o main domains and eight dimensions (Anagnostopoulos, Niakas, & Tountas, 2009).All of the SF36 scores are transformed to 0 to 100 scales, w ith higher scores indicating better physical or psychological health.

Procedure
The measures w ere completed using an on-line surv ey system.Av ailable studies are listed on a w eb site, and students seeking research opportunities choose from the list.
This study w as described as a tw o-part study on how people's personality and interaction style w ere related to how they interpret ev ents and react to those ev ents.
Part 1 of the study w as av ailable for the first tw o w eeks of the semester.When

Results
Time 1 The descriptiv e statistics, internal reliabilities, and correlations among v ariables for all measures collected at Time 1 are in Table 1.The purpose of the Time 1 analyses w as to demonstrate the mediator roles played by the three positiv e personality qualities in helping to understand the relationship betw een humor styles and perceiv ed stress in one"s life.Using a bootstrapping technique, an d an SPSS macro program that allow s for the examination of multiple potential mediators (Preacher & Hayes, 2008), the analyses prov ide a replication and extension of the findings reported by Cann and Etzel (2008) using a more pow erful and sensitiv e statistical strategy.These analyses allow for separate assessments of each positiv e personality quality as a mediator and a comparison of the mediation effects betw een the three qualities.I n Cann and Etzel (2008) only the tw o self directed humor styles w ere found to be reliable predictors of perceiv ed stress, and a multiple regression on the current data (predicting PSS from the four HSQ scores) confirmed this finding, so only the tw o self directed styles w ere examined in separate mediation analyses.HOPE scores are on a 4-point scale from definitely false (1) to definitely true (4).Happiness scores (OHS-SF) are on a 6-point scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (6).
Optimism (LOT-R) scores are on a 5-point scale from I disagree a lot (0) to I agree a lot (4), and higher scores indicate greater optimism.The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) scores are the sum of 14 items rated on a 5-point scale from never (0) to very often (4), so scores can range from 0 to 56.Higher score indicate greater perceived stress.
* p<.01 The bootstrapping analyses use 5000 re-samples to generate the coefficients and the bias corrected 95% confidence interv als (Preacher & Hayes, 2008).For the Selfenhancing humor style, the desirable prerequisite conditions for potential mediation w ere present.Self-enhancing humor style w as a significant predictor of perceiv ed stress, and of each positiv e personality quality, and each positiv e personality quality w as also a significant predictor of perceiv ed stress w hen controlling for selfenhancing humor (p"s all < .001).The indirect effects ev aluating mediation are show n in Table 2.The results for Total show the change (direct path v ersus mediated path) in the regression coefficient for self-enhancing humor due to the mediation, and it indicates that self-enhancing humor is significantly mediated through the three positiv e personality qualities.The regression coefficient for self -enhancing humor (b = -0.185)w as no longer significant (p = .58)after the mediators w ere included.The results for the positiv e personality qualities indicate that all three w ere indiv idually significant as mediators.I n comparing the relativ e strengths of the mediation effects, the specific effects of OHS-SF w ere greater than those for HOPE, but no other differences among the mediators w ere statistically reliable.Thus, w hile the positiv e personality qualities in general mediate the relationship betw een selfenhancing humor and perceiv ed stress, it also is the case that each quality alone operates as a reliable mediator.For the Self-defeating humor style, the desirable prerequisite conditions for potential mediation also w ere ev ident.Self-defeating humor style w as a significant predictor of perceiv ed stress, and of each positiv e personality quality, and each positiv e personality quality w as also a significant predictor of perceiv ed stress w hen controlling for self-defeating humor style (p"s all < .001).Table 3 contains the results ev aluating the indirect effects for assessing potential mediation.The results for Total show the change in the coefficient for self-defeating humor due to the mediation through all three positiv e personality qualities and it indicates a significant mediation relationship.I n this case, although the coefficient for self-defeating humor w as significantly reduced due to the medi ation, there w as still a significant relationship for self-defeating humor and perceiv ed stress (b = 0.651, p = .04),suggesting only partial mediation.Once again the results for the positiv e personality qualities indicated that all three w ere indiv idually significant as mediators.There w ere no reliable differences in the indirect effects w hen comparing the indiv idual mediators.Consistent w ith the results for self-enhancing humor, the positiv e personality qualities in general mediate the relationship betw een self-defeating humor and perceiv ed stress, and each quality alone operates as a reliable mediator.The SEM analysis inv olv es a longitudinal approach looking at the humor style scores from time 1 as they relate to both the positiv e personality measures and the perceived stress scores at time 2 (see Table 4 for descriptiv e statistics and correlations).and self defeating (sd) styles, and are on 7-point scales from totally disagree (1) to totally agree ( 7).HOPE scores are on a 4-point scale from definitely false (1) to definitely true (4).
Happiness scores (OHS-SF) are on a 6-point scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (6).Optimism (LOT-R) scores are on a 5-point scale from I disagree a lot (0) to I agree a lot (4), and higher scores indicate greater optimism.The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) scores are the sum of 14 items rated on a 5-point scale from never (0) to very often (4), so scores can range from 0 to 56.Higher score indicate greater perceived stress.
* p<.01 I n addition, participants completed the I CSRLE to prov ide information about the actual stressors experienced during the past month.The I CSRLE and the PSS for time 2 w ere strongly correlated (r = .60,p>001), indicating that the PSS scale does capture the effects of actual ev ents experienced.The model also includes separate assessments of both psycholo gical and physical w ell being (see Table 5 for descriptiv e statistics for the I CSRLE and w ell-being measures).Based on the findings from the prev ious w ork (Cann & Etzel, 2008) and the results from Time 1 mediation analyses, a model w as dev eloped and tested using Structural Equation Modeling by AMOS (Arbuckle, 1994(Arbuckle, -1999)).The model w as estimated w ith maximum-likelihood estimation and included the follow ing sev en latent v ariables: acceptable fit (e.g., Hu & Bentler, 1999), the current model w as show n to be satisfactory (χ 2 (1162) = 2107.53,p < .01,CFI = .957,TLI = .952,RMSEA = .069).The model assumed the cov ariance among the predictors (r = .108,n.s., betw een selfenhancing humor style and self-defeating humor style; r = -.245,p < .01,betw een self-enhancing humor style and stressful experience; and r = .431,p < .01betw een self-defeating style and stressful experience).The standardized regression w eights show ed that the positiv e personality composite mediated the relationships betw een self-enhancing/self-defeating humor styles and perceiv ed stress, and that the perceiv ed stress coupled w ith the stressful experiences predicted the health outcomes.Not surprisingly, the strength of the relationship betw een perceiv ed stress and psychological w ell-being w as much stronger that the relationship w ith physical health.Giv en that the paths from tw o humor styles leading to perceiv ed stress were not significant (.138 for self-enhancing humor style to perceiv ed stress; -.075 for selfdefeating humor style to perceiv ed stress), the mediating role of positiv e personality qualities in the longitudinal process of humor style predicting the perceiv ed stress w as supported.

Discussion
Is a good sense of humor related to more positiv e reported levels of health?The research to date has prov ided mixed results for both reports of psychological w ell being and for physical health.The current results suggest that a more complex approach to the question may be needed to more clearly identify the role that sense of humor might play.First, the results add to the grow ing literature that supports the essential importance of a multidimensional approach to sense of humor as a personal quality.Although a number of sense of humor measures had acknow ledged that there are multiple w ays in w hich a sense of humor might be expressed by an indiv idual (e.g.Sv ebek, 1996;Thorson & Pow ell, 1993), little systematic attention had been paid to measuring the tendencies to engage in the potentially negativ e forms of humor.The Humor Styles Questionnaire (Martin et al., 2003) corrects this deficiency, capturing both positiv e and negativ e uses of humor, and identifying humor styles that may be dysfunctional in some circumstances.
I n considering the role of sense of humor in an indiv idual"s attempts to deal w ith life"s stressors, the distinctions prov ided by the HSQ are critical.Humor styles that are selfdirected are much more important in understanding how people respond to potential stressors than are those humor styles that tend to be focused on others.
Furthermore, self-directed humor that demeans the self actually is positiv ely related to the lev els of stress experienced, and therefore, negativ ely related to self -reported Humor, Personality and Health 227 health.Only the self-enhancing humor style appears to buffer the effects of stressors in the w ay many researchers hav e speculated sense of humor should operate.
Sense of humor measures that do not account for these important differences in how humor is used are likely to lead to inconsistent results.The question that needs to be asked is not w hether a good sense of humor is related to greater w ell being, but rather, does the person"s style of using humor facilitate or inhibit the potential to deal effectiv ely w ith stressors through humor.Not all styles of humor are relev ant to this question, and not all styles of humor are likely to yield positiv e relationships w ith w ell being.For those w ho rely heav ily on a self-demeaning humor style to express their sense of humor, their sense of humor predicts low er, not higher, w ell being.
Our results, and other recent findings (Cann & Etzel, 2008;Chen & Martin, 2007) also suggest that other-directed humor styles are of little importance in understanding the relationship betw een sense of humor and health outcomes, especially after controlling for v ariance explained by the self-directed styles.The other-directed uses of humor are still potentially important to consider as personal qualities, but their relev ance likely w ill be greater w hen the uses of humor are directed tow ard interpersonal, rather than intrapersonal, goals.For example, in a recent study looking at relationship satisfaction in dating couples (Cann, Zapata, & Dav is, 2009;in press), the tw o other-directed humor styles explained much more v ariance than the self-directed styles.Once again, how ev er, the additional distinction betw een positiv e and negativ e uses of humor w as critical, since affiliativ e and aggress styles had opposing relationships w ith the couples" satisfaction.What is clear from this emerging body of research is that humor styles, as expressions of a sense of humor, cannot be looked at as uniformly positiv e.The "dark side" of humor uses must be appreciated since it can potentially be as disruptiv e a factor as positiv e uses of humor can be constructiv e.As much as a "good" sense of humor, represented by the positiv e uses of humor, may allow for more effectiv e handling of stressors, better w ell being and more positiv e relationships, so too can the negativ e styles of humor lead to increases in perceiv ed stress, low ered well being, and disruption of relationships.
The second contribution of the current results is prov iding a model that offers the potential for refining our understanding of the actual processes through w hich effectiv e and ineffectiv e styles of humor may be relev ant to psychological and physical w ell being.The proposed mediator model assumes that the positiv e role that sense of humor can play in promoting w ell being can best be understood by considering humor styles as supporting the more global and stable positiv e personality qualities of an indiv idual.Using humor effectiv ely, through higher lev els of self-enhancing humor and low er levels of self-demeaning humor, can help to maintain a more positiv e personal style, characterized by higher positiv e affectiv ity and by qualities like optimism, happiness, and hope.Thus, it w as show n that these three different positiv e personality qualities each serv ed as a mediator of the relationship betw een humor styles and perceptions of stress.I n most of the mediator analyses, the direct relationship betw een humor styles and perceiv ed stress w as negligible after introducing the positiv e personality qualities.The mediation w as apparent for both the positiv e humor style and the negativ e humor style.Only w hen sense of humor contributes to maintaining these positiv e personality qualities w ill it be relev ant to more positiv e health, and its relationship is more indirect than direct.
The current findings replicate, but also extend findings reported by Cann and Etzel (2008).While they w ere able to show that a composite measure of positiv e personality mediated the relationship of humor styles w ith perceiv ed stress, our analyses indicate that each separate positiv e personality quality operates as a potential mediator.I n addition, our results w ere able to demonstrate that the mediator relationship w as further supported w ithin a model that incorporated longitudinal data, assessed both perceiv ed stressors and stressors actually experienced, and included psychological and physical w ell-being outcomes.
Humor styles assessed eight w eeks earlier w ere still mediated by current lev els of positiv e personality.I n addition, the longitudinal approach supported the utility of the perceiv ed stress measure as an indicator of actual stressors exposed to ov er time.The checklist of stressors experienced during the interv al betw een the tw o assessments w as highly correlated w ith the reported lev els of perceiv ed stress.
Although both actual stressors experienced, based on the checklist, and perceiv ed stress w ere reliably related to the health self-reports, the relationships w ere stronger for the perceiv ed stress, supporting the notion that the indiv idual"s constr ual of the stressful experience is critical in understanding the impact the experience has on w ell being.Also, not surprisingly, the perceiv ed stressors w ere more strongly related to self-reported psychological health than to reported physical health.How a person frames or interprets ev ents may not be able to alter as easily actual pain or lev els of physical functioning, but it could more easily influence how you psychologically adjust to your condition.
I n summary, the proposed model indicates that sense of humor can be a useful social quality in facilitating w ell being, but that its role may be primarily as a style of thinking and behav ing that promotes and supports a more general positiv e personality style.Using self-directed humor effectiv ely can help to maintain higher lev els of positiv e personality traits, w hich are associated w ith stable tendencies to see the w orld more positiv ely.People w ho ev idence stable higher lev els of optimism, hope, and happiness, supported by a good sense of humor, tend to perceive their lives as less stressful, and therefore report more positiv e levels of both physical and psychological health.
Future research should consider how differences in humor styles might play a role in the more global processes connecting stable differences in underlying self v iew s to social and psychological outcomes.I n the current examination of humor styles , the focus has been on how the humor styles relate to the perceptions of life stressors.I n this role, the importance of humor styles appears to be mediated through stable positiv e personality qualities.How ev er, a number of recent studies also hav e found that humor styles can be mediators of relationships betw een underlying self-concept indicators and both social and psychological outcomes.For example, the affiliativ e humor style serv ed as a mediator betw een the attachment style of anxiety and relationship satisfaction (Cann, Norman, Welbourne, & Calhoun, 2008).Other recent studies hav e found that humor styles mediate some relationships betw een positiv e and negativ e self-ev aluation standards and both social self-esteem and depression (Kuiper & McHale, 2009), and betw een maladaptiv e self-schemas and depression (Dozois, Martin, & Bieling, 2008).Thus, it w ould appear that humor styles may serv e as mediators at one step in the process and later in the process be mediated through other v ariables.What research may ultimately uncov er is a complex connection betw een fundamental self-attitudes, the v iew s of self that influence how you choose to behav e w ithin your social w orld, your stable assumptions about the w orld, as reflected in positiv e personality, and both social and psychological outcome v ariables.The v arious pieces of this process hav e been identified, but the complete chain of ev ents has yet to be tested.
the self-directed styles w ere reliably related to the w ell-being outcome measures.

Participants
Participants w ere enrolled in undergraduate psychology courses at a univ ersity in the southeastern United States and they receiv ed credit tow ard a course requirement by participating in research opportunities.At time 1, 299 participants (58 men and 241 w omen) completed the on-line questionnaires.All participants w ere at least 18 years of age (M = 20.86,SD = 5.67), and the v ast majority classified themselv es as Caucasian (223, 45 Black, 16 Asian, 9 Hispanic, 6 other).At time 2, 174 participants (30 men and 144 w omen) completed the questionnaires.The mean age of this group w as 20.92 years (SD = 5.95) and the v ast majority w ere Caucasian (137, 22 Black, 8 Asian, 4 Hispanic, 3 other).Those w ho completed both sets of measures (n = 174) w ere compared to those w ho only completed the measures at time 1 (N = 125) on the demographic v ariables (age, gender, ethnic group) and on all measures Europe's Journal of Psychology 218 collected at time 1.There w ere no statistically reliable differences on any of these v ariables.
participants decided to participate, they w ere directed to the w eb survey w here they first v iewed an informed consent statement.After agreeing to continue, they completed a series of demographic questions (age, sex, race, marital status) follow ed by the measures, presente d in random order for each participant.At time 1 the measures included the HSQ, LOT-R, HOPE, OHQ-SF, and the PSS.Eight w eeks after the first phase w as ended, email messages w ere sent to the participants inv iting them to complete part tw o.At time 2 participants completed the LOT-R, HOPE, OHQ-SF, and the PSS, along w ith the SF36 and the I CSRLE.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Hypothesized model of tw o self-directed humor styles leading to perceived stress mediating by positiv e personality.p < .05*,p < .001**

Table 1
Descriptiv e Statistics, I nternal Reliabilities, and Correlations for All Measures Collected at Time 1 (n =299).

Table 2
Mediation Results for Self-enhancing Humor Styles.

Table 3
Mediation Results for Self-defeating Humor Styles.

Table 5
Psychological and Physical Health I ndicators and Stressors Reported at Time 2 : ICSRLE scores indicate the presence of stressors (1-not at all to 4-very much).Health scores, from the SF36 are on a 0 to 100 scale, with higher scores indicating better health. Note