section_path: Psychological well-being
section_name: Psychological well-being
paragraph_text: Psychological well-being
  
  It is generally known that humour contributes to higher subjective wellbeing (both physical and psychological). Previous research on humour and psychological well-being show that humour is in fact a major factor in achieving, and sustaining, higher psychological wellbeing. This hypothesis is known as general facilitative hypothesis for humour. That is, positive humour leads to positive health. Not all contemporary research, however, supports the previous assertion that humour is in fact a cause for healthier psychological wellbeing. Some of the previous researches' limitations is that they tend to use a unidimensional approach to humour because it was always inferred that humour was deemed positive. They did not consider other types of humour, or humour styles. For example, self-defeating or aggressive humour. Research has proposed 2 types of humour that each consist of 2 styles, making 4 styles in total. The two types are adaptive versus maladaptive humour. Adaptive humour consist of facilitative and self-enhancing humour, and maladaptive is self-defeating and aggressive humour. Each of these styles can have a different impact on psychological and individuals' overall subjective wellbeing.
  
  In the study on humour and psychological well-being, research has concluded that high levels of adaptive type humour (affiliative and self-enhancing) is associated with better self-esteem, positive affect, greater self-competency, as well as anxiety control and social interactions. All of which are constituents of psychological wellbeing. Additionally, adaptive humour styles may enable people to preserve their sense of wellbeing despite psychological problems. In contrast, maladaptive humour types (aggressive and self-defeating) are associated with poorer overall psychological wellbeing, emphasis on higher levels of anxiety and depression. Therefore, humour may have detrimental effects on psychological wellbeing, only if that humour is of negative characteristics.