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What's Your Humor Style?
Are you a joker? A teaser? A clown?
How you deploy your sense of humor says a lot about
how you relate to others and to yourself.
By
Louise Dobson
WebMD Feature
In
today's personality stakes, nothing is more highly
valued than a sense of humor. We seek it out in
others and are proud to claim it in ourselves,
perhaps even more than good looks or intelligence.
If someone has a great sense of humor, we reason, it
means that they are happy, socially confident and
have a healthy perspective on life.
This
attitude would have surprised the ancient Greeks,
who believed humor to be essentially aggressive. And
in fact, our admiration for the comedically gifted
is relatively new, and not very well-founded, says
Rod Martin, a psychologist at the University of
Western Ontario who studies the way people use
humor.
Being funny isn't necessarily an indicator of
good social skills and well-being, his research has
shown—it may just as likely be a sign of personality
flaws.
He
has found that humor is a double-edged sword. It can
forge better relationships and help you cope with
life, or it can be corrosive, eating away at
self-esteem and antagonizing others. "It's a form of
communication, like speech, and we all use it
differently," says Martin.
We use bonding humor to
enhance our social connections—but we also may wield
it as a way of excluding or rejecting an outsider.
Likewise, put-down humor can at times be an
adaptive, healthy response: Employees suffering
under a vindictive boss will often make the office
more bearable by secretly ridiculing their tyrant.
Though humor is essentially social, how you use it
says a lot about your sense of self. Those who use
self-defeating humor, making fun of themselves for
the enjoyment of others, tend to maintain that
hostility toward themselves even when alone.
Similarly, those who are able to view the world with
amused tolerance are often equally forgiving of
their own shortcomings.
Put-Down Humor
This
aggressive type of humor is used to criticize and
manipulate others through teasing, sarcasm and
ridicule. When it's aimed against politicians by the
likes of Ann Coulter, it's hilarious and mostly
harmless. But in the real world, it has a sharper
impact.
Put-down humor, such as telling friends an
embarrassing story about another friend, is a
socially acceptable way to deploy aggression and
make others look bad so you look good.
When
challenged on their teasing, the put-down joker
often turns to the "just kidding" defense, allowing
the aggressor to avoid responsibility even as the
barb bites. Martin has found no evidence that those
who rely on this type of humor are any less
well-adjusted. But it does take a toll on personal
relationships.
Bonding Humor
People who use bonding humor are fun to have around;
they say amusing things, tell jokes, engage in witty
banter and generally lighten the mood. These are the
people who give humor a good name. They're perceived
as warm, down-to-earth and kind, good at reducing
the tension in uncomfortable situations and able to
laugh at their own faults.
Talk
show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres embraces her
audience by sharing good-natured, relatable humor.
Her basic message: We're alike, we find the same
things funny and we're all in this together.
Nonetheless, bonding humor can have a dark side.
After all, a feeling of inclusion can be made
sweeter by knowing that someone else is on the outs.
J.F.K. and his brothers would often invite a hated
acquaintance to vacation with them; they'd be polite
to his face, but behind his back, the brothers would
unite in deriding the hapless guest.
Hate-Me Humor
In
this style of humor, you are the butt of the joke
for the amusement of others. Often deployed by
people eager to ingratiate themselves, it's the
familiar clown or "fat guy" playfulness that we
loved in John Belushi and Chris Farley—both of whom
suffered for their success. A small dose of it is
charming, but a little goes a long way: Routinely
offering yourself up to be humiliated erodes your
self-respect, fostering depression and anxiety. It
also can backfire by making other people feel
uncomfortable, finds Nicholas Kuiper of the
University of Western Ontario. He proposes that it
may remind others of their own tendency toward
self-criticism.
Farley, who died at age 33 from an overdose, had a
streak of self-loathing. "Chris chose the immediate
pleasure he got in pleasing others over the
long-term cost to himself," his brother wrote after
his death. The bottom line: Excelling at this style
of humor may lead to party invitations but can
ultimately exact a high price.
Laughing At Life
When
we admire someone who "doesn't take himself too
seriously," this is the temperament we're talking
about. More than just a way of relating to other
people, it's a prism that colors the world in rosier
shades. Someone with this outlook deploys humor to
cope with challenges, taking a step back and
laughing at the absurdities of everyday life. The
Onion is a repository of this benign good humor. The
columnist Dave Barry has perfected it with quips
like this: "Fishing is boring, unless you catch an
actual fish, and then it is disgusting."
Studies that link a sense of humor to good health
are probably measuring this phenomenon; when you
have a wry perspective, it's hard to remain anxious
or hostile for long.
Martin calls it "self-enhancing
humor," because you don't need other people to
entertain you—if something peculiar or annoying
happens, you're perfectly capable of laughing at it
on your own.
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