Background:

Sense of humor has been studied as a strategy to deal with adversity and is considered an important coping mechanism used in stressful situations.

Aim:

To verify the relationship between humor, subjective well-being and sports coping skills in a group of athletes.

Methods:

Cross-sectional and correlational study. Performed on a non-probabilistic sample of 47 triathlon and mountain bike athletes. The instruments used were: Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28, Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (portuguese version), Lyubomirsky and Lepper's subjective happiness scale and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. Descriptive statistics and Spearman's correlation coefficient were used, and the significance level adopted was p<0.05.

Results:

Production and Social Use of Humor and Humor Appreciation are positively correlated with subjective happiness. Adaptive Humor and Production and Social Use of Humor are positively correlated with the positive affect dimension and the performance under pressure dimension of the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory.

Conclusions:

The role of humor and its dimensions in the subjective well-being of athletes and their psychological skills should be considered in the design of programs to promote coping strategies and mental health in athletes.

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