Investigating the relationship between humor and difficulty in regulation of emotions and alexithymia in students

Abstract

Introduction: Humor is an adaptive coping strategy that can be used as a way to cope with everyday stresses and communication. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between humor and difficulty in regulation of emotion and alexithymia in students. Materials and Methods: The present study is correlational. The statistical population of the study is all students of the Persian Gulf University in Bushehr, 200 of which were selected using the cluster sampling method. They responded to the Sense of Humor Questionnaire (SHQ, a 25-item questionnaire), the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS, 36-item questionnaire), and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS, a 20-item questionnaire). To analyze the data, the statistical method of simultaneous multivariate regression was used. Results: The results of the study shows that there is a positive and significant relationship between humor and alexithymia (r= -0.17, P=0.05), but there is no relationship between humor and difficulty in emotion regulation (r= -0.08, P=0.05). There is also a positive and significant relationship between alexithymia and difficulty in emotion regulation (r= -0.19, P =0.01). Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, the effective importance of sense of humor in reducing emotional difficulty and alexithymia can be concluded.

Keywords

• Alexithymia
• humor
• Regulation of emotion