The 4 Humour Styles:
Humour Styles Questionnaire (HSQ)
Martin et al. 2003

The 4 Humour Styles

Affiliative Humour
Self-Enhancing Humour
Aggressive Humour
Self-Defeating Humour

The four humour styles have been proposed by Martin et al. (2003).

Rod Martin and colleagues identified four styles of humour in relation to their relative association with:

Enhancing the self
Enhancing relationships with others
Injurious intent
Benign intent

The four humour styles can be assessed using the Humour Styles Questionnaire (HSQ).

FIND OUT WHAT HUMOUR STYLE YOU HAVE

Click below to complete the
HUMOUR STYLE QUESTIONNAIRE

1. Affiliative Humour

Affiliative humour is used to enhance your relationships with others in a kind and benevolent way.

People who regularly demonstrate affiliative humour will amuse and charm others and ease tensions in challenging situations.

Affiliative humour is often spontaneous, utilising joke telling and witty banter.

People who score highly for Affiliative Humour have a tendency to share humour with others, tell jokes and funny stories, amuse others, make others laugh and enjoy laughing along with others.

What Are The Outcomes of Using Affiliative Humour?

People who demonstrate high levels of affiliative humour are likely to experience the following outcomes:

Improved social intimacy
More likely to initiate friendships with others
Support group cohesion
Promote creativity in self and others
Decreased levels of anxiety
Improved self-esteem
Improved psychological well-being

Affiliative Humour and Personality

People who demonstrate high levels of affiliative humour tend to have higher levels of extraversion and openness to experiences.

Affiliative Humour: Similarities and Differences with other Humour Styles

Affiliative humour has commonalities with Self-Defeating Humour and Self-Enhancing Humour.

The similarity between affiliative humour and self-defeating humour is that both intend to enhance relationships with others. However, they differ in the fact that self-defeating humour occurs at the expense of the person using the humour whereas affiliative humour does not.

The similarity between affiliative humour and self-enhancing humour is that both intend to use humour in a benign way. The difference that exists is that self-enhancing humour is more associated with enhancing the self and less associated with enhancing relationships with others.

Examples of Affiliative Humour Items on the Humour Styles Questionnaire

I rarely make other people laugh by telling funny stories about myself (reverse scored).
I don’t often joke around with my friends (reverse scored).

2. Self-Enhancing Humour

Self-enhancing humour is used in a benign way to enhance the individual using humour.

Someone using self-enhancing humour would do so in a way that enables them to laugh at their own failings and situations, but to do so in a constructive and non-defeating manner.

It is therefore used to enhance the self in a benevolent, positive manner.

Self-enhancing humour is often considered to function as an emotional regulator or as a coping strategy to deal with negative situations.

This can be seen when people use humour to make a bad situation good, look on the bright side when an issue is being faced or maintain a positive attitude during difficult times.

People who score highly for Self-Enhancing Humour have a tendency to maintain a humorous outlook on life even when not with others, use humour in coping with stress, cheer oneself up with humour.

What Are The Outcomes of Using Self-Enhancing Humour?

People who demonstrate high levels of self-enhancing humour are likely to experience the following outcomes:

Less likely to exhibit depressive symptoms
Improved psychological well-being
Improve creativity in self and others
Reduce stress and anxiety
Improved self-esteem
Improved optimism

Self-Enhancing Humour and Personality

People who demonstrate high levels of self-enhancing humour tend to have higher levels of extraversion and openness to experiences.

They are less likely to exhibit neuroticism.

Self-Enhancing Humour: Similarities and Differences with other Humour Styles

Self-enhancing humour has commonalities with affiliative humour and aggressive humour.

The similarity between self-enhancing humour and affiliative humour is that both intend to use humour in a benign way.

The difference that exists is that self-enhancing humour is more associated with enhancing the self and less associated with enhancing relationships with others.

The similarity between self-enhancing humour and aggressive humour is that both intend to enhance the self and are less concerned with enhancing relationships with others.

However, they differ in their intent to be begin or injurious – self-enhancing humour aims to be benevolent whereas aggressive humour is used in a more hostile way.

Examples of Self-Enhancing Humour Items on the Humour Styles Questionnaire

If I am feeling upset or unhappy I usually try to think of something funny about the situation to make myself feel better.
Even when I’m by myself, I’m often amused by the absurdities of life.

3. Aggressive Humour

Aggressive humour is a humour style which is typically detrimental to others.

Common examples of aggressive humour include put-downs, teasing, sarcasm, ridicule and other uses of humour used at the expense of others.

Aggressive humour is often associated with the superiority theory of humour and other negatively framed humour use.

People who use aggressive humour offer little consideration to the impact it may have on other people.

This style of humour can be used in a playful way, for example amongst a group of close friends, but when used in a hostile manner it becomes aggressive in its intent.

Males have been found to use aggressive humour more often than females.

People who score highly for Aggressive Humour have a tendency to use humour to disparage, put down, or manipulate others; use of ridicule, offensive humour, compulsive expression of humour even when inappropriate.

What Are The Outcomes of Using Aggressive Humour?

People who demonstrate high levels of aggressive humour are likely to experience the following outcomes:

Higher levels of hostility
Higher levels of aggression
Less likely to initiate relationships
Reduced creativity in self and others
Reduced group cohesion

Aggressive Humour and Personality

People who demonstrate high levels of aggressive humour tend to have higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness.

Aggressive Humour: Similarities and Differences with other Humour Styles

Aggressive humour has commonalities with self-enhancing humour and self-defeating humour.

The similarity between aggressive humour and self-enhancing humour is that both intend to use humour to enhance the self – for the benefit of the person using the humour – not to enhance relationships with others.

The difference that exists is that aggressive humour is more associated with injurious, hostile behaviour whereas self-enhancing humour is more associated with benign, benevolent behaviour. The similarity between aggressive humour and self-defeating humour is that both are associated with hostile injurious behaviour.

However, they differ in their intention to others. Aggressive humour is used to enhance the self, whereas self-defeating humour is used to enhance relationships with others.

Examples of Aggressive Humour Items on the Humour Styles Questionnaire

When telling jokes or saying funny things, I am usually not very concerned about how other people are taking it.
People are never offended or hurt by my sense of humour (reverse scored).

4. Self-Defeating Humour

Self-defeating humour is used in order to enhance relationships and gain approval from others.

But it is done in a way that is detrimental to the person using the humour.

Self-defeating humour pleases others by making yourself the butt of the joke. This will lower your own status and raises the status of others.

People who use self-defeating humour engage in self-disparaging humour – also known as laughing at themselves or laughing at their own expense.

This style of humour is sometimes used as a defence-mechanism, or a form of denial, when refusing to deal with negative feelings and emotions.

However, self-defeating humour can also be used in a more positive way in group situations to reduce your own superiority to others and make yourself more accessible and equal to those you are speaking to.

People who score highly for Self-Defeating Humour have a tendency to amuse others at one’s own expense, self-disparaging humour; laughing along with others when being ridiculed or put down; using humour to hide one’s true feelings from self or others.

What Are The Outcomes of Using Self-Defeating Humour?

People who demonstrate high levels of self-defeating humour are likely to experience the following outcomes:

Higher levels of depression
Increased anxiety
Reduced self-esteem
Reduced psychological well-being
Reduced social intimacy

Self-Defeating Humour and Personality

People who demonstrate high levels of self-defeating humour tend to have higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness.

Self-Defeating Humour: Similarities and Differences with other Humour Styles

Self-defeating humour has commonalities with aggressive humour and affiliative humour.

The similarity between self-defeating humour and aggressive humour is that both are associated with hostile, injurious behaviour.

The difference that exists is that self-defeating humour is more associated with enhancing relationships with others whereas aggressive humour is more associated with enhancing the self.

The similarity between self-defeating humour and affiliative humour is that both intend to enhance relationships with others.

However, they differ in their intention to others. Self-defeating humour is injurious to the person using the humour whereas affiliative humour is used in a benevolent and benign manner.

Examples of Self-Defeating Humour Items on the Humour Styles Questionnaire

If I am having problems or feeling unhappy, I often cover it up by joking around, so that even my closet friends don’t know how I really feel.
I often try to make people like or accept me more by saying something funny about my own weaknesses, blunders, or faults.

Humour Styles Questionnaire (HSQ)

The Humour Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) was created by Martin et al. in 2003.

It aims to measure individual differences in styles of humour, and humour has been shown to be a stable personality trait which is consistent over time.

Humour styles are different between individuals and Martin’s research explored the outcomes of different styles of humour and how they influence factors such as health, well-being and relationships.

The Humour Styles Questionnaire is a 32-item self report inventory which identifies how the person completing the questionnaire uses humour in the everyday life.

Participants are asked to agree or disagree with a series of statements and are given a 7 point scale (ranging from totally agree to totally disagree).

The questionnaire measures the use of humour against two main factors:

Whether humour is used to enhance the self or enhance relationships with others.
Whether the humour is benign or detrimental to others or self.

The combination of these factors creates a matrix containing four humour styles:

Affiliative
Self-Enhancing
Aggressive
Self-Defeating

How these humour styles are situated on this matrix is presented in the graph and table below.

Graph Summarising The 4 Humour Styles

Table Summarising The 4 Humour Styles

Humour Style	Enhancing The Self	Enhancing Relationships	Injurious	Benign
Affiliative Humour	Low	High	Low	High
Self-Enhancing Humour	High	Low	Low	High
Aggressive Humour	High	Low	High	Low
Self-Defeating Humour	Low	High	High	Low

Is The Humour Styles Questionnaire Reliable?

Although the Humour Styles Questionnaire is commonly used and referenced within the humour literature, there are some question marks over its reliability.

When the Humour Styles Questionnaire was assessed in its original language (German) the internal consistency was an alpha over 0.77 for all items.

Most of the humour styles tested fairly well however the ‘aggressive’ humour scale produced the lowest internal consistency values.

Also, the original version of the Humour Styles Questionnaire was written in German, so when it was translated into other languages, such as English, it has been seen to generate test items that are more varied.

When Taher et al. (2008) assessed the questionnaire following translation, the internal consistency alpha varied from 0.55 (aggressive) to 0.89 (self-enhancing).

In another study, conducted by Bilge and Saltuk (2007), similar variations were found: 0.67 (self-defeating) to 0.78 (self-enhancing).

Author: Jonathan Sandling

Jonathan Sandling

I have an interest in humour and how it can enhance teaching, learning and leadership. I am a senior leader within the higher education sector in the UK and an EdD candidate at the University of Cambridge.