Humour Styles and its Relationship with Emotional Intelligence and Optimism

Abstract

Humor expression has been linked with physical, social and mental health (Lee et al., 2020). We all have encountered humour in our lives in the form of a joke, unintended slip of tongue or a comical comment. The response to humour is always a heartily laugh, increase in the production of serotonin and enhancement in positive feelings. Every individual has a unique humour style. The notion is that people who have a good sense of humour must be able to deal with life’s problems effectively, thus displaying a higher emotional quotient. Keeping this background in mind this study delves into finding whether people demonstrating a high sense of humour have high emotional intelligence and a positive orientation towards one’s life. The sample of the study consists of 100 (50=males, 50=females) students within the age range of 18-25 years. Pearson product-moment correlation was conducted to find out the significant relationship between humor styles, emotional intelligence and optimism. Independent ‘t’ test has been employed to compare males and females on humor styles and its correlates. The results of this study pointed towards the hidden nature of humor, which contradicts prior literature.