Humor is a universal phenomenon but is also culturally tinted. In this article, we reviewed the existing research that investigates how culture impacts individuals’ humor perception and usage as well as humor’s implications for psychological well-being. Previous research has substantiated evidence that Easterners do not hold as positive an attitude toward humor as their Western counterparts do. This perception makes Easterners less likely to use humor as a coping strategy in comparison with Westerners. Despite this difference, Westerners and Easterners have similar patterns in the relationship between their humor and psychological well-being index, though the strength of the relationship varies across cultures. Implications and potential future research avenues discussed.

Internet technology provides a new means of recalling and sharing personal memories in the digital age. What is the mnemonic consequence of posting personal memories online? Theories of transactive memory and autobiographical memory would make contrasting predictions. In the present study, college students completed a daily diary for a week, listing at the end of each day all the events that happened to them on that day. They also reported whether they posted any of the events online. Participants received a surprise memory test after the completion of the diary recording and then another test a week later. At both tests, events posted online were significantly more likely than those not posted online to be recalled. It appears that sharing memories online may provide unique opportunities for rehearsal and meaning-making that facilitate memory retention.

Episodic memory for specific personal events is a fundamental human cognitive faculty. Yet it is variably valued across cultures and may thus have different implications for psychological well-being. In a series of studies, we investigated the consequences of cultural fit in detailed episodic recall for psychological well-being among healthy adults and children from European American and East Asian cultural backgrounds. Participants recalled recent and distant personal events (Studies 1, 2, and 3) or recent positive and negative events (Study 4). The findings showed that culture moderated the relation of episodic memory to various aspects of mental health and well-being. Whereas detailed recall was linked to decreased use of avoidant coping among European Americans, it was associated with elevated depressive symptoms, decreased adaptive skills, and increased negative affect among East Asians. The findings support the person-culture-fit framework and suggest that the functional significance of episodic memory depends on cultural contexts.