Management and Organizational Studies Publications

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-30-2022

Volume

18

Issue

4

Journal

Europe's Journal of Psychology

First Page

422

URL with Digital Object Identifier

10.5964/ejop.5407

Last Page

436

Abstract

The relationships between self-report loneliness and the four humor styles of affiliative, aggressive, self-defeating, and self-enhancing were investigated in 15 countries (N = 4,701). Because loneliness has been suggested to be both commonly experienced and detrimental, we examine if there are similar patterns between humor styles, gender, and age with loneliness in samples of individuals from diverse backgrounds. Across the country samples, affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles negatively correlated with loneliness, self-defeating was positively correlated, and the aggressive humor style was not significantly related. In predicting loneliness, 40.5% of the variance could be accounted. Younger females with lower affiliative, lower self-enhancing, and higher self-defeating humor style scores had higher loneliness scores. The results suggest that although national mean differences may be present, the pattern of relationships between humor styles and loneliness is consistent across these diverse samples, providing some suggestions for mental health promotion among lonely individuals.

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