RELATIONSHIP OF SENSE OF HUMOR AND MENTAL HEALTH: A COORELATIONAL STUDY

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between sense of humor and mental health. It was assumed that (1) There would be a strong relationship between sense of humor and mental health (2) There would be gender difference in relation to relation to usage of sense of humor for coping with stress (3) There would be a difference in effective usage of sense of humor for coping among school and university. The Research Sample comprised of 72 (N= 72) students of which 36 were males and 36 were females from various Schools their ages ranging from 15 to 19 years and from various Universities their ages ranging from 20-25 years respectively. In this study to measure sense of humor (Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (MSHS) (Thorson and F.C. Powell and Brdar, 1997) scale was used and to measure mental health (Mental Health Questionnaire (Bargar, 1996) was used to gather data. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients was used for the first hypothesis which showed no relationship between sense of humor and mental health r = -.028, p < .05. For the second hypothesis, t-test was used, sense of humor in males (M= 60.83, SD= 10.574) was less than in females (M=61.08, SD= 10.302), p > 0.05, t = - .102. Therefore, it was insignificant. To test the third hypothesis t-test was used sense of humor in school (M = 65, SD = 6.891) is more than in university ( M = 56.92, SD =11.7), p < 0.05, t = 3.572. Therefore, the hypothesis stands confirmed.