This study was designed to investigate whether sense of humor moderates immunosuppressive effects of stress. At two time periods one and one-half months apart, forty subjects completed the Daily Hassles Scale and provided saliva samples for determining secretory immunoglobulin A (S-IgA) levels. Four scales were used to assess different aspects of the sense of humor. A negative correlation was obtained between frequency of hassles at time 1 and S-IgA levels at time 2 ( r = –.32, p < .05), suggesting an immunosuppressive effect of hassles. In support of our hypothesis, hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed significant moderating effects of three of the four humor measures on this relationship between hassles and S-IgA. Subjects with low scores on the humor scales revealed a stronger negative relationship between hassles and S-IgA than did those with high humor scores. These results are discussed in terms of other research examining psychological influences on immune function.

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Four studies examined the stress-moderating effects of telic versus paratelic dominance, a personality construct derived from reversal theory. Telic-dominatH individuals are described as serious minded, goal oriented, and arousal avoidant; paratelic-dominant people are playful, spontaneous, and arousal seeking. The first two studies found that telic-dominant subjects displayed significantly higher levels of dysphoria and salivary cortisol when stressful events remained unresolved. Paratelic subjects revealed significantly higher levels of dysphoria and salivary cortisol when moderately stressful events were resolved. Additional support for the stress-moderating effects of telic versus paratelic dominance was obtained in Study 3, which used task performance, self-report, and psychophysiological measures relating to a video task performed under low or moderate levels of social evaluative stress. Study 4 broadened the range of stressful events examined and again found a positive linear relation between stressful event levels and mood disturbance for telic-dominant subjects. For paratelic subjects, this relation was curvilinear. Paratelic subjects showed an initial decrease in mood disturbance as the level of stressful events increased from low to moderate. At more extreme levels of stress, however, paratelic subjects showed a significant increase in mood disturbance.A decade ago Rabkin and Struening (1976) reviewed the literature on stressful life events and illness and concluded that the consistently low correlations obtained in this research might be improved by taking into account variables that moderate the stress-illness relation. Since that time, numerous researchers have examined a wide variety of personality variables that were hypothesized to exert a stress-moderating effect. In general, this research has assumed that because of fairly enduring differences in cognitive style, coping strategies, social skills, and so on, individuals will differ in the degree to which they are adversely affected by negative life experiences. As one specific illustration, Kobasa and her colleagues (Kobasa, 1979;Kobasa, Maddi, & Courington, 1981) have conceptualized a personality dimension termed hardiness. This concept refers to an amalgamation of perceptions of control, challenge, and commitment to goals, and has been extensively examined as a stress-buffering factor. Further examples of moderator variables that have been identified in this literature include locus of control (Lefcourt,

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