If your type of humor is well-intended and benevolent, your risk of depression and anxiety could be smaller. But if your brand is irony and cynicism, you may be more predisposed to depression.

Humor is so common it may well be an intrinsic part of human life. In the past few decades, researchers have been treating it more and more as an integral part of our psyche. Humor is linked to intelligence, character strength, and apparently, mental health as well. Despite its universality, however, we don’t fully understand how humor is linked to other mental states.

In the new study, researchers led by Alberto Dionigi from the University of Florenza recruited 686 Italian participants. They categorized their style of humor into eight distinct styles using the Comic Style Markers (CSM). The eight comic styles can be differentiated as lighter or darker styles of humor, which collectively include fun, humor, nonsense, wit, irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism.

The researchers then used the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) to evaluate anxiety and stress focusing on physical aspects (such as “I was aware of dryness of my mouth”).

It’s not the first time humor has been used to study mental health. However, the nuances of how different humor styles impact emotional states like depression, anxiety, and stress, however, have remained less explored.

Your humor type and depression

The study’s findings present a nuanced picture of humor’s influence. Depending on where participants were on the light-dark spectrum of humor, there seemed to be a connection to their predisposition to anxiety, stress, and depression. The most significant links were:

1. Benevolent Humor served as a protective factor, it negatively correlates with all three emotional distress variables. This style includes affiliative humor that fosters interpersonal bonds and self-enhancing humor used as a coping mechanism.
2. Dark Humor (styles like irony, cynicism, and sarcasm) showed positive associations with depression, anxiety, and stress. These forms often involve mockery and ridicule, lacking the benevolent affect found in lighter humor styles.
3. Although witty humor served as a protective factor against anxiety, sarcasm was positively linked to depression. Interestingly, no significant correlations were observed between other variables.

The study’s findings have significant implications for understanding the role of humor in mental health. While humor is often viewed as universally beneficial, this research highlights the importance of distinguishing between different humor styles. It shows that while certain types of humor can be protective and beneficial, others may be harmful, particularly in the context of mental health challenges like depression, anxiety, and stress.

However, this could also be a case of correlation-not-causation. In other words, it’s not clear how dark humor and depression are linked, or that one is causing the other. In fact, despite its insightful findings, the study isn’t without limitations. It focused on an Italian sample and the findings may not apply to people from other cultures. Also, relying solely on self-report measures may introduce biases.

Future research should consider multimethod approaches and explore the bidirectional nature of the relationship between humor and emotional distress. Nevertheless, the results underscore the complexity of humor, revealing that while some forms serve as buffers against emotional distress, others may exacerbate negative feelings.

The study “Understanding the Association Between Humor and Emotional Distress: The Role of Light and Dark Humor in Predicting Depression, Anxiety, and Stress” was published in Europe’s Journal of Psychology.