Humor Styles, Emotional Regulation and Social Competence among Young Adults

Description

Page: 19-25

Vasuhi B. and S. Srividya (Department of Clinical Psychology, School of Allied and Healthcare Science, Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu)

The present study explores the relationship between humor styles, emotional regulation, and social competence in young adults. The study involved 213 participants, comprising 112 males and 101 females, all aged between 18 and 25 years based on a purposive sampling method. The Humor Styles Questionnaire by Martin et al. (2003); the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire by Gross and John (2003); and the Multidimensional Social Competence Scale by Yager and Larocci (2013) were utilized for data collection. Pearson Correlation method and regression analysis were used for data analysis. The result shows Affiliative humor style has a positive relationship with cognitive reappraisal, social inferencing, and empathy. Self-enhancing humor style also showed a positive relationship with emotional regulation, social inferencing, and empathy. Conversely, the Aggressive humor style demonstrated negative associations with social inferencing and empathy whereas Self-defeating humor style displayed no relationship across these constructs. The study emphasizes the importance of incorporating adaptive humor styles to enhance emotional regulation and social competence, highlighting their potential to improve emotional and social outcomes through therapeutic interventions.