Gender differences in the associations of reappraisal and humor styles

Reappraisal is an effective emotion regulation strategy that draws on cognitive processes-like changing one's thoughts to change one's feelingsthat are similar to those implicated in humor. Yet, very little is known about the links between the dispositional tendency to use reappraisal and individuals' humor styles (e. g. aggressive, affiliative, self-deprecating, self-enhancing). Importantly, there are gender differences both in emotion regulatory processes and in the use of humor styles. We examined gender differences in reported use of humor styles, the associations between reappraisal and humor styles, and whether gender moderated those associations. Participants (N=250) were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk and self-reported their dispositional use of reappraisal and four humor styles. Men reported greater use of aggressive humor compared to women. Dispositional use of reappraisal was positively associated with self-enhancing humor. In addition, reappraisal use was positively related to greater use of affiliative humor, and this association was stronger for men than women. For men, greater use of reappraisal was associated with greater use of self-defeating humor, but reappraisal was negatively associated with self-defeating humor for women. Findings extend insight from prior work and suggest that both reappraisal and specific ways of using humor draw on aspects of self-regulatory competence rooted in cognitive change abilities, and the patterns of association differ in interesting ways for men and women.