Humour Styles and Negative Intimate Relationship Events

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined daily changes in humour use, relationship satisfaction, and conflict over a period of ten days in participants who were in a dating relationship and found no significant association between aggressive humour used by the partner as perceived by the participant and relationship satisfaction.

Abstract: Research has shown that humour is associated with satisfaction and conflict management in dyadic relationships, such as friendships and romantic relationships However, humour is not inherently positive or negative in itself The function of humour depends on the style through which it is expressed Adaptive uses of humour, especially affiliative humour, are positively correlated with relationship satisfaction and conflict management Maladaptive uses of humour, particularly aggressive humour, have the opposite effect The current study examined daily changes in humour use, relationship satisfaction, and conflict over a period of ten days in participants who were in a dating relationship Two hundred undergraduate students were recruited from the University of Western Ontario (UWO) Psychology Department’s Research Participation Pool The participants must have been in a dating relationship of three months or more at the time of the study They were asked to complete online daily diaries which included questionnaires assessing the variables of interest As hypothesized, affiliative humour, used by the participant and by the partner as perceived by the participant, was positively correlated with relationship satisfaction on a day-to-day basis Daily aggressive humour used by the partner as perceived by the participant was negatively correlated with daily relationship satisfaction However, no significant association was found between aggressive humour used by the participant and relationship satisfaction Conflict was negatively correlated with relationship satisfaction on a daily basis And finally, daily affiliative humour was found to have a moderating effect on the relationship between conflict and relationship satisfaction, though a moderating effect was not found for daily aggressive humour Humour Styles and Conflict 3 Humour Styles and Negative Intimate Relationship Events Humour in Relationships Having a sense of humour is an important aspect to both social (Ziv, 2010) and romantic relationships (Bippus, 2000) Researchers have found that having a sense of humour is associated with the long-term success of marriages for both men and women (Driver & Gottman, 2004; Lauer, Lauer, & Kerr, 1990) In their study, Lauer et al (1990) asked couples who were married for forty-five years or more to identify factors that they think are important to their long-term marriages Laughing together was a variable that both husbands and wives identified as important In some cases, participants even said that they would intentionally look for things to laugh about together Having a good sense of humour has also been shown to be a very desirable trait in mate selection in both genders (Buss, 1988; Goodwin, 1990) Undergraduate students of both genders rated that displaying humour is an effective tactic in attracting potential mates (Buss, 1988) and that they prefer partners who demonstrate a keen sense of humour (Goodwin, 1990) Definition of Humour Martin (2007) proposed that there are four different components to humour: (1) a specific positive emotion that is (2) elicited by the perception of playful incongruity, which usually (3) occurs in an interpersonal context and is (4) typically expressed by laughter Emotional component The emotional component of humour is referred to as ‘mirth’, which is a pleasurable feeling that manifests in laughter and merriment and can vary in its intensity (Ruch, 1993) Research found that forced laughter, even for a brief period of time, resulted in improvement of mood (Foley, Matheis, & Schaefer, 2002), while smiling had similar but smaller effects compared to laughter (Neuhoff & Schaefer, 2002) Humour Styles and Conflict 4 Cognitive component Playful incongruity is considered to be the major cognitive component of humour It involves the perception of the stimulus as incongruous and unexpected in a non-serious way (Gervais & Wilson, 2005) Apter’s (1982) reversal theory details the concept of synergy which could help explain this incongruity ‘Synergy’, according to Apter, occurs when a particular object, person, place, or situation “is seen to have mutually exclusive characteristics, either successively or simultaneously” (1982, p 369) Alternatively, Koestler’s (1964) concept of bisociation could help explain incongruity Koestler defined ‘bisociation’ as the simultaneous activation of two or more self-consistent but normally contradictory frames of reference (1964, p 38) Therefore, humour, which is playful and non-serious, must also possess cognitive incongruity This component could be very helpful in resolving conflicts, when shifting to the partner’s perspective in the argument might aid in understanding and decrease tension Interpersonal component The interpersonal component of humour refers to its social nature, in that most humour is about people, and people rarely laugh when alone (Martin & Kuiper, 1999) This is well illustrated in the study by Baxter (1992), which found that humour can be used to help people interact in playful ways Thus, humour becomes a communication tool to help convey messages, especially on topics that may be uncomfortable or not socially acceptable Interactions in this manner could serve to promote intimacy and moderate conflict (Baxter, 1992) Behavioural component The behavioural component of humour can be considered as the expression of mirth in the form of smiling and laughter This, like the emotional component, can vary in intensity Laughter has also been found to increase positive affect in listeners (Owren & Bachorowski, 2003), which could improve their interpersonal relationships This may be Humour Styles and Conflict 5 helpful in reducing tensions in conflict scenarios as well, which could aid in resolution and maintain relationship satisfaction