Women who use self-enhancing humour tend to have a more positive body image

Body image issues can have a serious impact on our wellbeing. Negative body image is linked to the development of eating disorders, as well as feelings of shame and anxiety. It's important, then, to investigate factors that are associated with the way we think about our bodies. A new paper, authored by a team from the University of Sussex, looks at the role humour plays. It finds that women who have a positive, self-accepting sense of humour are also more likely to accept their bodies – and that, conversely, those who have a self-critical sense of humour are less likely to.

Participants were 216 White women living in the UK who had either a healthy or overweight BMI. First, they answered questions on how much they use humour to cope, indicating how much they agreed with statements such as "I usually look for something comical to say when I am in tense situations". Next, they answered questions about their style of humour, assessing both self-enhancing humour (e.g. "If I am feeling upset, I try to think of something funny about the situation to make myself feel better"), and self-defeating humour, (e.g. "I often try to make people like me more by saying something funny about my own weaknesses").

The next set of questions focused on body image. Participants answered several questions indicating how much they appreciated their own body. They also completed a scale that measured how "kind" they were towards their body, how much they believed that everyone has insecurities about their own bodies, their motivation to accept their body as it is, and how much they felt they criticised their body.

Finally, participants indicated how they saw their body by selecting one of nine silhouettes of varying sizes, and also noted which represented their ideal body weight. They also indicated their drive towards thinness, and answered questions on their tendency to engage in emotional eating.

Women who had a higher level of self-enhancing humour were more likely to appreciate their bodies, while those with a higher level of self-defeating humour were less likely to appreciate their bodies (though using humour to cope was not linked to body appreciation at all). Women with low levels of body appreciation were, in turn, more likely to be on a diet, indicating the real world consequences of low self image.

Greater use of self-enhancing humour was also linked with greater kindness towards one's own body and motivation to accept one's body as it is. Self-defeating humour, on the other hand, was associated with more body negativity; younger women and those on a diet were also more likely to engage in body criticism. People who used more self-defeating humour also had a stronger drive for thinness, and were also more likely to eat when feeling emotional.

Overall, the results suggest that self-enhancing humour, very specifically, was the key factor when it came to body acceptance: coping humour, though associated with lower levels of body criticism, had no significant relationship with many other elements of body positivity such as kindness or motivation towards body acceptance. So joking about yourself to cope is not necessarily a positive thing, unless done in a way that boosts your self-esteem.

However, the study shows correlation, rather than causation, so it's not possible to conclude that self-enhancing humour actually makes us feel better about our bodies. Perhaps people who already feel comfortable in their bodies tend to use more positive forms of humour, for instance. Future research could look more closely at the relationship between humour and body image: it would also be interesting to see whether changes in humour styles are possible, and if so what impact this has on body image. If encouraging people to take a more self-enhancing approach to humour and minimising self-defeating humour does affect the way we see ourselves, this could be one avenue through which women can build acceptance towards their bodies.