Positive emotion (PE) up-regulation is an important process for maintaining an individual’s mental health and well-being. Several studies demonstrated that positive humor is an effective strategy for reducing negative emotions (Samson & Gross, 2012), while savoring strategies are effective for the positive emotions up-regulation (Livingstone & Srivastava, 2012; Quoidbach et al., 2010).

The aim of this study was to examine the efficacy of positive humor and three savoring strategies (being present, positive reminiscing, and positive anticipation) in the positive affect up-regulation.

The sample comprised 140 students from Swiss universities (M_age = 29.7; 81% female). In an online experiment, participants rated their positive affect (PA) in response to each of 30 positive pictures (OASIS database; Kurdi et al., 2017) that were presented twice. The first presentation (T1) involved a simple evaluation, while the second (T2) followed the application of humor, the three savoring strategies, and a control condition presented in random order. The difference between positive affect scores at T2 and T1 represented the efficacy of each strategy in positive emotion up-regulation.

The results demonstrated that the use of positive humor, being present, positive anticipation, and positive reminiscing strategies led to a significantly higher increase in PA than the control condition. All three savoring strategies were significantly more effective and less difficult to apply than humor. No significant differences were found in the effectiveness of the savoring strategies.