4th Edition 2026

Humour and Healthy Ageing: New Study Shows That Having a Laugh May Support Ageing Well

Published on: Oct 27, 2025

Humour is far more than what we find funny, states Dr Nikki-Anne Wilson, lead author and UNSW Postdoctoral Research Fellow, humour is a key aspect of social communication and how we regulate our emotions. However, different people use humour in different ways, with these tendencies known as humour styles. Published in Personality and Individual Differences, the study explored how different humour styles relate to level of wellbeing in older adults. Results showed that affiliative and self-enhancing humour styles were associated with better wellbeing, while self-defeating humour was linked to poorer outcomes. 

Dr Wilson explains, Affiliative humour and self-enhancing humour are what we refer to as positive humour styles capturing the way we use humour to bond with others or cheer ourselves up, respectively. Importantly, the study is the first to identify two different psychosocial pathways through which the benefits of these positive humour styles occur. Affiliative humour contributes to wellbeing via greater social contact, while the benefits of self-enhancing humour occur via reduced depression. What these findings mean is that using humour in multiple ways in our daily lives – laughing with friends or finding the funny side when things are hard - can help support our wellbeing via different associated processes 

However, not all humour appears to be good for you. Self-defeating humour often involves letting others have a laugh at our expense and while it is important to not take ourselves too seriously, this can be a sign of poor psychological health. Dr Wilson found that older adults displaying higher levels of self-defeating humour were more prone to depression and, in turn, poorer wellbeing. 

Dr Wilson notes that humour is a growing research area and may be a potential low-cost, accessible strategy to support healthy aging. We need more work in this area but the key take away is to keep laughing – just make sure that it isn’t always at your expense.

Source: https://www.unsw.edu.au/news/2025/10/humour-healthy-ageing

Back to News