Attachment styles' and alexithymia's roles in predicting humor styles in married individuals

Objective: The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between attachment styles, alexithymia, and humor styles in adults and to investigate the predictive effect of attachments styles and alexithymia together on humor styles. In addition, all variables were also examined in terms of sociodemographic features, such as age, gender, education, income levels, and duration of marriages. Method: A total of 438 married individuals participated the study, of whom 254 were females and 184 were males with an average of age of 40.01±10.09 years and of duration marriage of 12.55±10.60 years. The majority of the sample were university graduates (58%) and working (68%). All participants completed a Sociodemographic Information Form, the Experiences in Close Relationship Scale-Revised (ECR-R), the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), and the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ). Results: The results of the study showed significant and positive correlations between anxious attachment style and self-destructive and offensive humor styles. It was also observed that avoidant attachment style was negatively correlated with attending and self-developing humor style, whereas, positively correlated with self-destructive humor style. However, alexithymia was found to be negatively correlated with compatible humor styles and positively correlated with non-compatible humor styles. According to our findings, alexithymia as well as anxious attachment style predicted self-destructive humor style and alexithymia as well as avoidant attachment style predicted attending humor style. Conclusion: In our research, insecure attachment styles were found to be related to negative humor and besides, alexithymia was shown to have a significant role in predicting negative humor. The results of the study were discussed in the light of the relevant literature.