Humour Styles and Working Memory in Young Adults

Abstract

The research aims to study the relationship between humor styles adapted by individuals and their working memory. The study includes humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive and self-defeating) as independent variable and working memory (attention, execution and storage) as dependent variable. The data collection was done using survey method which consisted of Humor Style Questionnaire (HSQ, Martin et. al., 2003) and the Working Memory Questionnaire (WMQ, Vallat et. al., 2012). A total sample of 60 (male = 27, female = 33) young adults within the age range of 18 – 25 participated in the study. Analysis was done using Pearson’s Correlation and Independent sample t-test. The mean was also calculated. The results showed that there is a significant correlation between working memory and affiliative and self-defeating humor styles. It was also found that gender has a significant impact over the humor styles adapted by individuals. Future research could be done with larger population which can have a difference in the results assumed in the current research.