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Humor: Relationship Satisfaction

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Encyclopedia of Sexual Psychology and Behavior

Synonyms

Couples; Happiness; Marriage; Relationship quality; Relationships

Definition and Introduction

Humor has been the subject of considerable scholarly interest, its function in interpersonal and social contexts in particular. This entry provides an overview of what is understood as (sense of) humor, its role in close relationships, and its associations with relationship satisfaction. It is not possible to provide a short definition for “humor” as there are so many variants of what is understood as humor, but minimal definitions frequently refer to individual differences in humor-related types of behaviors.

Conceptualizations of Humor

Since humor is an umbrella term, it can be categorized and understood in different ways, with a variety of qualitative and quantitative dimensions (for overviews, see Hall, 2017 and Ruch, 2008). Ruch (1998) defines “sense of humor” as an individual difference variable that is stable across time and situations, denoting specific types of dispositions...

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Correspondence to Rebekka Sendatzki .

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Sendatzki, R., Brauer, K., Proyer, R.T. (2023). Humor: Relationship Satisfaction. In: Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sexual Psychology and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08956-5_187-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08956-5_187-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-08956-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-08956-5

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