This study explores the relationship between four humour styles—affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating—and depressive symptoms among foundation-year university students, with a specific focus on gender differences. Pearson correlation analysis revealed no significant associations between depressive symptoms and affiliative, self-enhancing, or aggressive humour styles. However, self-defeating humour showed a marginally significant positive correlation with depressive symptoms (r = 0.110, p = 0.050), suggesting that students who frequently use this style may be slightly more susceptible to depressive experiences. Gender comparisons using independent samples t-tests indicated no significant differences in humour style usage or depression levels between male and female students. All p-values exceeded 0.05, and Cohen’s d values pointed to negligible effect sizes. These findings suggest that humour styles largely function independently of depressive symptoms in this cohort, though the link with self-defeating humour may warrant closer scrutiny. The lack of gender disparity supports the importance of promoting psychological well-being through humour-informed approaches across diverse student populations. Future research should incorporate broader psychosocial factors and larger samples to better understand these dynamics and guide targeted mental health interventions.
Ismail et al. (Wed,) studied this question.