Humour and coping: predicting psychological and physiological well being
LE3 .A278 2007
2007
MacLeod, Peter
Acadia University
Master of Science
Masters
Psychology
Humour and coping have each been shown to be related to both mental and physiological health outcomes (e.g., Lefcourt & Martin, 1986). Research to date, however, has not delineated how humour and coping relate to each other, nor how they together predict mental and physiological health. This study, therefore, had two primary objectives. First, correlational analyses were performed to examine how the most widely used coping measures' subscales related to the Humour Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; See Appendix A) subscales. Second, hierarchical regression analyses were performed to determine if humour could account for unique variance in mental health (i.e., depression, anxiety, and mood) and physiological responses to an experimental stressor (i.e., hormonal and cardiovascular responses), over and above the variance accounted for by coping measures alone. Results indicated that coping and humour subscales were correlated. Most importantly, results suggest that traditional views of emotional-focused coping may be confounded with denial and self-blame. Regression analyses demonstrated that the HSQ accounted for unique variance in depression, but did not increase predictability in any of the physiological stress response variables. Results are discussed in terms of exploring how emotional coping and humour might affect health outcomes.
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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:2924
