Introduction
& affiliative humo
Dr Jay Brinker
Introduction and Affiliative
Several years ago a researcher by the name
of Rod Martin set out to identify and measure
different humour styles to better understand humour in the context of health, both physical and
psychological.
While much of the world was touting humour
as a singularly good thing, Martin realized that
there were negative forms of humour that could
be hurtful and psychologically damaging. From
his research, he conceptualized four different
humour styles; affiliative, self-defeating, aggressive and self-enhancing – each with it’s
own unique facets, relationships and outcomes.
“People who describe themselves
as using more affiliative humour
also report being more agreeable,
and more extroverted...”
It is important to understand that these humour
styles are not descriptive of people in the way
that personality traits are. I would not say that
I have an affiliative style, or that someone else
has a self-enhancing style. We may use one
style more than others, but it is most likely that
everyone uses all of the styles at different times
and for different reasons.
The first style we’ll talk about is the affiliative
humour style which is the tendency to share
humor with others, tell jokes and funny stories,
amuse others, make others laugh, and to enjoy
laughing along with others. As you can see this
is benign humour with no offense to anyone, including the joke tellers the