A sense of humor is a personality trait that allows people to understand funny things, appreciate jokes, and see the funny side of life in general. What each of us considers funny and to what degree may vary greatly, but the ability to appreciate comedy, in general, is a sign of a healthy sense of humor.

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Humour - Wikipedia

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Psychological well-being

Humour can be a way of dealing with the menacing or unpleasant: Sprayed comment below a memorial plaque for Alois Alzheimer who first described the memory-damaging Alzheimer's disease - the German text means "Alois, we will never forget you!"

It is generally known that humour contributes to higher subjective wellbeing (both physical and psychological).^[26] Previous research on humour and psychological well-being show that humour is in fact a major factor in achieving, and sustaining, higher psychological wellbeing.^[26][27] This hypothesis is known as general facilitative hypothesis for humour.^[26] That is, positive humour leads to positive health. Not all contemporary research, however, supports the previous assertion that humour is in fact a cause for healthier psychological wellbeing.^[28] Some of the previous researches’ limitations is that they tend to use a unidimensional approach to humour because it was always inferred that humour was deemed positive. They did not consider other types of humour, or humour styles. For example, self-defeating or aggressive humour.^[29] Research has proposed 2 types of humour that each consist of 2 styles, making 4 styles in total. The two types are adaptive versus maladaptive humour.^[29] Adaptive humour consist of facilitative and self-enhancing humour, and maladaptive is self-defeating and aggressive humour. Each of these styles can have a different impact on psychological and individuals’ overall subjective wellbeing.^[29]

1. Affiliative style humour. Individuals with this dimension of humour tend to use jokes as a means of affiliating relationships, amusing others, and reducing tensions.^[29]
2. Self-enhancing style humour. People that fall under this dimension of humour tend to take a humorous perspective of life. Individuals with self-enhancing humour tend to use it as a mechanism to cope with stress.^[29]
3. Aggressive humour. Racist jokes, sarcasm and disparagement of individuals for the purpose of amusement. This type of humour is used by people who do not consider the consequences of their jokes, and mainly focus on the entertainment of the listeners.^[29]
4. Self-defeating humour. People with this style of humour tend to amuse others by using self-disparaging jokes, and also tend to laugh along with others when being taunted. It is hypothesized that people attempt to use this style of humour as a means of social acceptance - which is often unsuccessful.^[30] It is also mentioned that these people may have an implicit feeling of negativity. So they use this humour as a means of hiding that inner negative feeling.^[29]

In the study on humour and psychological well-being, research has concluded that high levels of adaptive type humour (affiliative and self-enhancing) is associated with better self-esteem, positive affect, greater self-competency, as well as anxiety control and social interactions.^[31] All of which are constituents of psychological wellbeing. Additionally, adaptive humour styles may enable people to preserve their sense of wellbeing despite psychological problems.^[27] In contrast, maladaptive humour types (aggressive and self-defeating) are associated with poorer overall psychological wellbeing,^[31] emphasis on higher levels of anxiety and depression. Therefore, humour may have detrimental effects on psychological wellbeing, only if that humour is of negative characteristics.^[31]