Cognitive flexibility and depression: the moderator roles of humor styles

Abstract

Humor style, which involves both adaptive and maladaptive forms, refers to the ways people use humor in daily life. Maladaptive humor styles (self-defeating and aggressive) can be risk factors for various mental disorders, including depression and anxiety. In contrast, adaptive humor styles (affiliative and self-enhancing) are perceived as resilience factors and buffer the negative impact of other risk factors. Cognitive flexibility reflects a capacity to come up with alternative interpretations and resolutions to demanding situations while perceiving them as controllable. Although the connection of high cognitive flexibility with low depression levels has been consistently documented, its interaction with trait-like factors received limited attention. The current study aims to explore the moderator role of humor styles in the association of cognitive flexibility with depression. Data were gathered from 436 (320 women) participants aged 18 and 70 (M = 35.4, SD = 9.18) through scales assessing humor styles, cognitive flexibility, and depression. The results revealed that the interaction of affiliative humor style with cognitive flexibility was significantly linked to the individual differences in depression levels, highlighting that affiliative humor is functional if individuals have difficulty approaching problematic situations from different angles. However, a similar pattern was not observed for other humor styles.