The effect of humour on nursing professionals’ psychological well‐being goes beyond the influence of empathy: a cross‐sectional study

Abstract

Background. Prior research has underlined the meaningful function of humor in nursing settings. Nonetheless, most of the empirical evidence on humor and nursing derives from approaches that mainly considered the potential beneficial effects of humor, neglecting potential detrimental effects of the dark side of humor. Moreover, little is known about whether the specific repercussions of humor on healthcare professionals’ well-being would go beyond empathy—a construct robustly related to psychological well-being. Aims. To examine whether distinctive humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive and self-defeating) are differentially associated with the psychological well-being of nursing professionals. Importantly, we also analyzed whether these potential humor effects go over and above the influence of empathy-related traits (perspective-taking and personal distress). Method. A cross-sectional, descriptive correlational design was used. A convenience sample of 104 nursing professionals with a minimum work experience of one year was recruited. Results. Our results revealed that a greater inclination to affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles was strongly related to higher scores on happiness, sociability, hope, and life satisfaction among nursing professionals. Concerning maladaptive humor styles, aggressive humor was related to low life satisfaction and high nursing stress. By contrast, self-defeating humor—a theoretically detrimental humor style—was related to higher scores on health among these professionals. These effects emerged even after controlling for the influence of demographics (i.e., gender, age and years of experience), perspective-taking, and personal distress. Conclusions. Our results suggest that adaptive humor styles may promote positive indicators of well-being, but they might not protect against negative indicators. Moreover, differential effects of maladaptive humor styles emerged. Whereas aggressive humoristic expressions can be interpreted as a sign of a poor psychological functioning, self-defeating humor may boost positive psychological outcomes among nursing professionals. These data can help to design more efficient humor-based intervention programs aimed at minimizing potential negative consequences of nursing activity.