Do Humour Styles have a Relation with Self-esteem? A Scoping Review

Humour is one of the mesmerizing qualities possessed by human beings which provides a positive and funny outlook towards the stressful events that take place in one's life, making the coping process efficient. According to the studies conducted earlier, humour has been conceptualized as a multi-faceted construct, with adaptive and maladaptive styles of humour. The affiliative and self-enhancing styles of humour have been studied to be beneficial for mental health. Whereas, the aggressive and self-defeating styles of humour are considered to be detrimental to it. This research theorized that there is an association between the styles of humour and the types of self-esteem, which has been supported by various studies. The findings indicate that both types of self-esteem are positively associated with the self-enhancing and affiliative styles of humour and negatively associated with self-defeating humour. The possible positive relation between aggressive style of humour and explicit self-esteem is also discussed along with the implication of humour in various fields.