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Climate change threatens mental health via increasing exposure to the social and economic disruptions created by extreme weather and large-scale climatic events, as well as through the anxiety associated with recognising the existential threat posed by the climate crisis. Considering the growing levels of climate change awareness across the world, negative emotions like anxiety and worry about climate-related risks are a potentially pervasive conduit for the adverse impacts of climate change on mental health. In this study, we examined how negative climate-related emotions relate to sleep and mental health among a diverse non-representative sample of individuals recruited from 25 countries, as well as a Norwegian nationally-representative sample. Overall, we found that negative climate-related emotions are positively associated with insomnia symptoms and negatively related to self-rated mental health in most countries. Our findings suggest that climate-related psychological stressors are significantly linked with mental health in many countries and draw attention to the need for cross-disciplinary research aimed at achieving rigorous empirical assessments of the unique challenge posed to mental health by negative emotional responses to climate change.

The Brief Self-Control Scale (BSCS) is a 13-item personality measure capturing how people differ in their capacity to exert self-control. Although the BSCS was originally regarded as a one-dimensional scale, subsequent psychometric studies have provided support for the empirical distinction of two and four interrelated but distinct components of self-control. Using a large sample of Spanish adults ( n = 1,558; 914 female, 58.7%), we performed a comprehensive data-driven comparison of the most well-established item-level latent structures for the BSCS. Results showed that the differentiation between general self-discipline and impulse control offered a better fit to the observed data than did the unidimensional representation of self-control. This two-dimensional structure for the BSCS scores was also supported in terms of its internal consistency, measurement invariance across gender and age groups, and meaningful correlations with wellbeing-related indicators and Big Five personality traits. Plausible implications of these findings are discussed.

All available peer-reviewed literature on humor and gender differences (1977–2018) was screened and evaluated according to a priori defined QUALSYST criteria. The 77 papers surpassing a conservative quality criterion generated seven emergent themes around humor and gender differences. In short, men score higher in the aggressive humor style (M > F), while no other gender differences were consistently reported in humor-related traits (M = F). In the prediction of negative outcomes (stress, loneliness, depression), differential effects for humor in both genders are reported, but not consistently (M ≠ F). Gender differences exist for the appreciation of sexual humor (M > F), even in mixed target stimuli, and hostile humor (both genders appreciate opposite gender target stimuli more). Gender differences are absent in nonsense and neutral humor (M = F). For humor production, three samples showed no gender differences (M = F), while three samples suggested men are funnier (M > F) and one that women are funnier (M < F). No studies reporting differences in humor comprehension were identified (M = F). For humor use and communication, gender differences were found across methods (M ≠ F), yet, they depend on the context (e.g., workplace) and may thus resemble gender roles rather than “natural differences”. Moreover, few studies provide hard data on actual humor use and communication in different domains. When exposed to humor stimuli, different neural responses of men and women in prefrontal cortex activations (or selected parts) were found (M ≠ F). Also, self-report data suggest that both genders value a sense of humor in their partner (M = F), yet women typically value the humor production abilities more than humor receptivity, while for men, the woman’s receptivity of their own humor is more important than a woman’s humor production abilities, in line with gender stereotypes (M ≠ F). To conclude, much progress has been achieved in the past 15 years to overcome methodological flaws in early works on humor and gender differences. Importantly, attention should be paid to disentangling actual gender differences from gender role expectations and gender stereotypes. Methodologically, designs need to be checked for potential bias (i.e. self-reports may accentuate roles and stereotypes) and more hard data is needed to substantiate claims from self-report studies.

The PhoPhiKat-45 measures three dispositions toward ridicule and laughter, including gelotophobia (i.e., the fear of being laughed at), gelotophilia (i.e., the joy of being laughed at), and katagelasticism (i.e., the joy of laughing at others). Despite numerous cultural adaptations, there is a paucity of cross-cultural studies investigating measurement invariance of this measure. Undergraduate students from a Canadian university (N = 1467; 71.4% females) and 14 universities in Taiwan (N = 1274; 64.6% females) completed the English and Chinese PhoPhiKat-45 measures, respectively. Item response theory and differential item functioning analyses demonstrated that most items were well-distributed across the latent continuum. Five of 45 items were flagged for DIF, but all values had negligible effect sizes (McFadden’s pseudo R2 < 0.13). The Canadian sample was further subdivided into subsamples who identified as European White born in Canada (n = 567) and Chinese born in China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan (n = 180). In the subgroup analyses, no evidence of DIF was found. Findings support the utility of this measure across these languages and samples.

Existing psychological research has long considered humor as a useful strategy for individuals in coping with adverse circumstances and life stressors. However, empirical studies are called for to better understand the role of humor in facing the COVID-19 pandemic. In a community sample of 527 Spanish adults, we investigated the associations between humor styles, perceived threat from COVID-19, funniness of COVID-19 memes, and individuals’ affective mood. Data were collected during the third week of lockdown in Spain (from 26 to 31 March 2020). Our results suggest that intrapsychic humor styles were associated with better coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. Structural equation modelling showed that self-enhancing and aggressive humor styles were related to perceiving COVID-19 as less psychologically threatening, which, in turn, was associated with a greater perceived funniness of COVID-19 memes, thus predicting higher levels of happiness. Interestingly, the opposite pattern of connections was found for self-defeating humor. These findings suggest that humor styles aimed at boosting one’s own self, irrespective of their potentially lighter or darker nature, may contribute to alleviating adverse psychological consequences arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research examined the associations between the fear of being laughed at (i.e., gelotophobia) and several body image dimensions in a sample of 240 young adults from Spain (126 women and 114 men). Moreover, using regression analyses, we investigated the robustness of these associations, controlling for the influence of the HEXACO traits and adding an alternative variable to the predicting model: trait social anxiety, which is strongly associated with gelotophobia. Our results showed that gelotophobia correlated with greater scores on body surveillance, body shame, appearance orientation, and overweight preoccupation (rs ≥ .26). This laughter-related disposition also correlated with lower scores on appearance control beliefs, appearance evaluation, and body areas satisfaction (rs ≤ −.30). Self-classified weight was found to exist independently from gelotophobia. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed gelotophobia adds incremental variance (3–13%) in the prediction of these appearance-related dimensions beyond the HEXACO traits (3–20%; predominantly emotionality, extraversion, and honesty-humility traits). Furthermore, gelotophobia yielded stronger incremental values than trait social anxiety in the prediction of body image-related indicators, after controlling for the influence of broad personality traits. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the earlier literature on gelotophobia, appearance-related teasing, and body image disturbances.

The PhoPhiKat-45 assesses individual differences in the way people deal with ridicule and being laughed at. This instrument encompasses three intercorrelated—but independent—laughter-related traits: the fear of (gelotophobia) and the joy in (gelotophilia) being laughed at, and the joy in laughing at others (katagelasticism). This research tested the psychometric properties of the Spanish form of the PhoPhiKat-45. A total of 636 individuals whose ages ranged from 18 to 70 years participated in three different studies. Our data indicated good reliability coefficients and an adequate-to-good fit for the expected three-factor structure across all samples. As indicators of external validity, prior associations among these three laughter-related traits and diverse research variables were examined. Gelotophobia correlated with low self-enhancing humor; gelotophilia correlated with a high use of all humor styles, especially affiliative and self-defeating humor; and katagelasticism correlated with high aggressive and high self-defeating humor. Moreover, gelotophobia correlated with high subclinical autistic traits and high trait anxiety; gelotophilia correlated with low trait anxiety; and katagelasticism existed independently from both subclinical constructs. Finally, we replicated the location of the three dispositions in the Five-Factor Model (FFM) assessed by NEO-FFI. Additionally, curvilinear relationships among the traits of the FFM and gelotophobia, gelotophilia and katagelasticism were explored. Inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationships between agreeableness-gelotophobia and neuroticism-katagelasticism emerged. Our results suggest that the Spanish form of the PhoPhiKat-45 can be considered a promising instrument for the study of these dimensions in Spain.

In the context of COVID-19 lockdowns, extant research suggests that secondary coping (a strategy aimed at adjusting oneself self to the stressor) is more robustly associated with better mental health than primary coping (a strategy aimed at adjusting the stressor to oneself). We investigated whether these findings are generalizable to Spain-one of the most severely affected countries at that time. We also tested whether the link between secondary coping and mental health (as measured by anxiety) can be accounted for by how individuals perceive the COVID-19 impact (ie, perceived life changes and personal global impact) and how frequently they use traditional and social media to check COVID-19-related information. A diverse community sample (N = 408), collected during the first lockdown in Spain (early April 2020), completed a multi-measure online survey including the targeted variables. Secondary coping outperformed primary coping in predicting reduced anxiety during the lockdown in Spain. Moreover, lower perceived life changes from COVID-19 and reduced personal global impact from COVID-19 both mediated the negative secondary coping-anxiety relationship. No indirect effects emerged for either conventional or social media exposure. These results (a) strengthen the cross-cultural validity of the link between secondary coping and anxiety and (b) advance our understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying this association.

Objectives Mind-wandering is a form of internal distraction that may occur both deliberately and spontaneously. This study aimed to provide a psychometric evaluation of the Spanish version of the Mind-Wandering Deliberate and Spontaneous (MW-D/MW-S) scales, as well as to extend prior research investigating their associations with dispositional mindfulness (Five Facets Mindfulness Questionnaire) and with the ability for attentional control of external distraction (Attentional Control Scale). Method In two large samples ( n 1  = 795; n 2  = 1084), we examined latent structure, item- and dimension-level descriptive statistics, and internal consistency reliability scores of the Spanish MW-D/MW-S scales. Partial correlations were used to evaluate their associations with dispositional mindfulness and attentional control. Multiple linear regression and relative weight analyses were used to investigate whether or not, and to what extent, the facets of mindfulness could be uniquely predicted by internal and external distraction. Results The Spanish MW-D/MW-S scales demonstrated a two-factor structure, high internal consistency reliability scores, and good nomological validity. Dispositional mindfulness was independently explained by internal and external distraction. MW-S was the largest (negative) predictor of the scores of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, being this association particularly strong for the facet Acting with awareness. Conversely, MW-D was mildly associated with increased mindfulness. In addition, attentional control was found moderately negatively associated with MW-S and mildly positively associated with MW-D. Conclusions Our results indicate that the Spanish version of the MW-D/MW-S scales are a useful tool to assess individual differences in deliberate and spontaneous mind-wandering, shed light on the relationship between mindfulness and both internal and external distraction, and accentuate the critical role of intentionality in the study of the mind-wandering phenomena.

Responses to a measure of the four humor styles of affiliative, aggressive, self-enhancing, and self-defeating from the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin et al. Journal of Research in Personality, 37 (1), 48–75, 2003 ) were collected from individuals ( N  = 8361) in 28 countries encompassing 21 different languages. The purpose of this global collaboration was to examine both differences and similarities of humor styles across nations at the descriptive level. Across the countries, typically the highest scores were for the affiliative humor style. When each humor style was examined, some country samples demonstrated differences in mean scores. For example, the samples from Hungary, Indonesia, South Africa, and Serbia had high self-enhancing scores and Japan scored the lowest. In contrast to mean differences, almost all of the countries demonstrated positive inter-scale correlations, similar sex differences, and similar correlations with age, suggesting more similarities than differences. As discussed, some of the samples had low internal consistency values and poorly fitting factor structures for the humor style scales, suggesting that those results should be interpreted with caution.