Sense of humor as a moderator of the relation between stressors and moods.

Three studies, conducted with 143 undergraduates, are reported that investigated the hypothesis, long held by theorists, therapists, and laypersons alike, that a sense of humor reduces the deleterious impact of stressful experiences. In each study a negative-life-events checklist was used to predict stress scores on a measure of mood disturbance. These studies made use of different measures of Ss' sense of humor, including 4 self-report scales and 2 behavioral assessments of Ss' ability to produce humor under nonstressful and mildly stressful conditions. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that 5 of the 6 humor measures produced a significant moderating effect on the relation between negative life events and mood disturbance. Ss with low humor scores obtained higher correlations between these 2 variables than did those with high humor scores. Results provide initial evidence for the stress-buffering role of humor. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)