Using this kind of humour is linked to being happier.
People who use humour to laugh at themselves are happier, research finds.
Laughing at oneself is also linked to being more social.
The finding — that laughing at oneself could be psychologically healthy — comes from research into how people use humour.
Jorge Torres Marín, the Spanish study’s first author, said:
“…a greater tendency to employ self-defeating humour is indicative of high scores in psychological well-being dimensions such as happiness and, to a lesser extent, sociability.”
The researchers also found that people who used humour to strengthen their social ties were kinder.
Humour that was self-enhancing also had its role to play.
Self-enhancing humour — especially under trying circumstances — has been linked to happiness, satisfaction with life and hope.
Other types of humour, though, were more sinister.
Ginés Navarro-Carrillo, study co-author, said:
“[the] results suggest that humour, even when presented as benign or well-intentioned, can also represent a strategy for masking negative intentions.
Humour enables individuals with low scores in honesty to build trust, closeness, etc. with other people and thereby use important information in order to manipulate them or obtain advantages in the future.”
Aggressive humour was mainly used by people to express anger.
People who use aggressive humour were found to experience negative feelings, like superiority and hate, in everyday life.
They also found it harder to manage their rage or anger well.
The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Torres-Marín et al., 2018).
