ORIGINAL PAPER
Exploring the relationship between coping humor and subjective happiness:belongingness and forgiveness as serial mediators
1
Faculty of Education, Psychological Counseling and Guidance, Artvin Coruh University, Turkey
Submission date: 2020-05-19
Final revision date: 2020-06-24
Acceptance date: 2020-06-30
Online publication date: 2020-07-27
Publication date: 2020-07-24
Health Psychology Report 2020;8(3):228-237
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Background:
Positive psychology plays an important role in strengthening mental health. Nevertheless, the relationships between variables have not been clarified yet. The present study used an undergraduate sample to test a mediation-based model of the cross-sectional association of coping humor with subjective happiness, as serially mediated by belongingness and forgiveness.
Participants and procedure:
A total of 306 valid participants (51.6% female and 48.4% male), ranging in age from 18 to 26, completed pa-per and pencil questionnaires assessing subjective happiness, coping humor, belongingness, and forgiveness. The bootstrapping procedure was used for serial mediation.
Results:
The results indicated a significant and positive link among subjective happiness, coping humor, belongingness, and forgiveness. In addition, serial mediation analysis revealed that coping humor was associated with higher belongingness, which was associated with increased forgiveness, which were then associated with more sub-jective happiness. Therefore, coping humor was indirectly associated with more subjective happiness via be-longingness and forgiveness, in a serial fashion.
Conclusions:
These findings indicated that coping humor could help university students’ belongingness, and improve for-giveness, thereby enhancing their subjective happiness. We suggest possible prevention and intervention pro-grams for increasing subjective happiness among individuals with low coping humor and suggest courses for future inquiry. We also discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
Positive psychology plays an important role in strengthening mental health. Nevertheless, the relationships between variables have not been clarified yet. The present study used an undergraduate sample to test a mediation-based model of the cross-sectional association of coping humor with subjective happiness, as serially mediated by belongingness and forgiveness.
Participants and procedure:
A total of 306 valid participants (51.6% female and 48.4% male), ranging in age from 18 to 26, completed pa-per and pencil questionnaires assessing subjective happiness, coping humor, belongingness, and forgiveness. The bootstrapping procedure was used for serial mediation.
Results:
The results indicated a significant and positive link among subjective happiness, coping humor, belongingness, and forgiveness. In addition, serial mediation analysis revealed that coping humor was associated with higher belongingness, which was associated with increased forgiveness, which were then associated with more sub-jective happiness. Therefore, coping humor was indirectly associated with more subjective happiness via be-longingness and forgiveness, in a serial fashion.
Conclusions:
These findings indicated that coping humor could help university students’ belongingness, and improve for-giveness, thereby enhancing their subjective happiness. We suggest possible prevention and intervention pro-grams for increasing subjective happiness among individuals with low coping humor and suggest courses for future inquiry. We also discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
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