Group 19

Humor
Herbert M. Lefcourt

Eda Lorraine B. Epino

1st presenter
Overview
Early Responses to the
Phenomenon of Humor
A Current Model of Humor as
a Positive Asset
Individual Differences in
Humor
Current Research Findings
- Humor as a Positive Asset in
Recovery From Illness
- Humor as a Positive Asset for Dealing
With Mortality
- Coping Styles Associated With Humor
- Humor and Immune System Functioning
- Humor and Other Stress-Related
Physiological Processes
Interventions for Improving Sense of
Humor
Directions of Future Research
What is Humor?
Humor is fundamentally a social phenomenon; it is a
form of social play comprised of the perception of
playful incongruity that induces the positive emotional
response of mirth and the vocal-behavioral expression
of laughter. (R. A. Martin and T. E. Ford, 2018)
Early Responses to the
Phenomenon of Humor
Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, and Rousseau
- Humor was characterized as a form of
hostility.
the derisive qualities of laughter, most often
directed at ugliness and deformities in others,
made humor seem undesirable and cruel.

Laughter was said to reflect the more

unattractive aggressive qualities of humans that
resulted in the victimization.
Early Responses to the Phenomenon of Humor
Robertson Davies and Umberto Eco (1975)
- They argue that joking about the past is a way of diminishing its importance and
“veiling its horror.”

Humor is essentially evil because it - Humor as an emotion

prevents people from learning what focused coping strategy, by
they would need to know if they are to which emotional responses
survive without further duress. may be muted

“A Laugh a Day: Can Mirth Keep Disease at Bay?,” Jeffrey Goldstein (1982)
- cited contributions of physicians and philosophers from the 13th through 19th centuries
Early Responses to the Phenomenon of Humor
1. Gottlieb Hufeland, a 19th-century professor - Laughter is one of the most important
helps to digestion
2. 13th century, surgeon Henri de Mondeville suggested that laughter could be used as an
aid in the recovery from surgery
3. 16th century, Joubert (1579) - laughter produces an excessive blood flow that helps to
create healthy-looking complexions and vitality in facial features.
4. Richard Mulcaster - believed that laughter could be thought of as a physical exercise
promoting health
5. 20th century, a medical professor Walsh (1928) - The best formula for the health of the
individual is contained in the mathematical expression: health varies as the amount of
laughter.
Early Responses to the Phenomenon of Humor
Philosophers and theologians, and those concerned with morality and religion from
earlier centuries, excoriated humor and laughter as being derived from malicious
delight at the failings and misfortunes of others

Physicians were more observant of the health benefits of laughter and humor.

Freud (1905) - laughter as a release of defensive tension that had been aroused by
circumstances preliminary to the laugh.

- humor as an alleviator of emotional distress.

A Current Model of Humor
as a Positive Asset

Norman Dixon (1980) has proposed that humor may

have evolved as an alternative to feelings of anger, which
became less adaptive when humans began living in less
nomadic and more populous groups

the expression of anger and aggression would have

become maladaptive in settings where populations were
stable.
A Current Model of Humor as a Positive Asset

If humor helps to avert the likelihood of violence between

people, it also can enhance interactions within social groups

Bonanno and Keltner (1997) - bereaved persons who can smile and
laugh as they speak about their deceased spouses are judged to be
more attractive and appealing to their interviewers than are those
who remain solemn.

Laughter, smiling, and humor signify that mourners are ready to

return to social interaction, making it easier for others to approach
them
A Current Model of Humor as a Positive Asset
Humor comes in many forms

Humor as a “mature defense mechanism”

“self-deprecating” humor, which often is perceived as tendentious

humor is described as adaptive because laughing at ourselves while
undergoing stress can lessen the emotional impact of those stressful
events

Wit or hostile humor, was thought to be an aggressive means for

controlling others and, therefore, less likely to afford relief when a
person is on the receiving end of stressful experiences
A Current Model of Humor as a Positive Asset

Humor could reduce the seriousness with which failure is

regarded as being among the most mature of ego defenses

Disparaging humor was found to be intimidating to those who

observed it even if they were not its target.

- it may result in social isolation of the comic even if the expression

of dislike for his ridiculing humor is not made obvious by “fearful”
observers.

Nonhostile form of humor that would prove most adaptive and arousal
reducing, Freud presciently labeled “humor” describing as an emotion-
focused coping strategy.
Individual Differences in Humor

Gordon Allport (1961) found that 94% of people questioned reported

that their sense of humor was either average or above average.

In early measures of humor, however, the issue of self-promotion was

skirted by simply assessing preferences for one kind of humor or
another (sexual, aggressive, nonsense, etc.).

Jahazel Yvon P. Amplayo

2nd presenter
In our early studies we adopted the aforementioned Freudian view of “humor”
that people with a good rather than poor sense of humor could take themselves
and their experiences less seriously.
Situational Humor Response Questionnaire (SHRQ; Martin & Lefcourt, 1984) and
the Coping Humor Scale (CHS; Martin & Lef- court, 1983), both of which were then
deployed in studies examining the stress-moderating effects of humor.

In the SHRQ respondents are asked to describe how often and to what degree
they are apt to respond with mirth in situations that could be as irritating as they
might be amusing. In hindsight, this measure seems to be assessing a readiness
to experience humor in lieu of annoyance or anger; accordingly, the SHRQ can be
thought of as an index of emotion-focused coping whereby unsettling emotions
are circumvented or short- circuited by laughter.

In the CHS, however, respondents are queried as to their deliberate use of humor
to alter difficult circumstances.
Current Research Findings
In the first study, which yielded disconfirming results, Porterfield (1987) used both
the CHS and the SHRQ to predict emotional responses to life stressors. Elevated
humor was related directly to lower depression, but no interactions emerged
between humor and stressing the prediction of depression.

In the following year Nezu, Nezu, and Blissett (1988) reported a study with strong
confirmatory findings. In this investigation, both the CHS and the SHRQ were
evaluated for their moderator effects on the relationships be- tween life stress,
depression, and anxiety. Those persons who scored high on humor varied little
with changing levels of stress and were always less depressed than their low-
scoring counterparts. On the other hand, the results obtained when anxiety was
the dependent variable were unrelated to humor.
Humor as a Positive Asset in Recovery From Illness

Carver et al. (1993) have reported on the ways in which a sample of women
coped with surgery at an early stage in the development of breast cancer. While
these investigators’ primary interests were in the effects of optimism as a
moderator of the illness-distress relationship, they also explored the effects of
other coping mechanisms, including the women’s use of humor during this period.

Given the nature of the very real stressful circumstances explored in this study,
the positive effects for optimism and humor are compelling.
Humor as a Positive Asset for Dealing With Mortality

1st study
Students were led to think about their own deaths through the completion of a series of
tasks: completing a death certificate in which students had to guess at the cause and
time of their future deaths; composing a eulogy that they would like to have delivered at
their funerals; and constructing a will disposing of the worldly goods they anticipated
having at the time of their deaths.

As was predicted, most persons exhibited an increase in mood disturbance, reporting more
depression, tension, anger, and confusion following completion of the death exercises. The
only exceptions to this trend were among those persons who had scored high on a measure
assessing “perspective-taking humor.” These persons showed little or no change in their
moods following completion of the death exercises.
Humor as a Positive Asset for Dealing With Mortality
2nd study
Humor was used to predict the willingness to become an organ donor. We reasoned
that the very act of signing an organ donation form required, if only for a moment,
recognition of the possibility of sudden and accidental death. This recognition of that
possibility, however brief, would be aversive enough that most people would never get
around to signing an organ donation form.

This led us to assert that persons who had signed their organ donation forms were generally
less phobic about death related thoughts and behaviors. In turn, when organ donation
signing was examined for its relationship to humor, it was found to be positively associated
with both the SHRQ and our cartoon measure of perspective taking humor
Coping Styles Associated With Humor
It is often asserted that coping methods that involve avoidance or denial of impending
stressful experiences leave persons more vulnerable to those stressors than coping
styles that involve awareness and active dealing stressors (Lazarus, 1996; Janis, 1958).

Humor has been found to be associated with more active and confrontative coping
styles and negatively related to avoidance and denial.

Optimism and humor were positively correlated and associated with: less distress (in
Carver’s (1993) study, specifically in response to breast cancer), positive reframing, and
“approach” coping styles.

Andrei Kristine Lim

3rd presenter
Humor and Immune System Functioning
Stressful events can result in immunosuppression which leaves an organism more
vulnerable to a range of illnesses. (Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 1987; Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser,
& Glaser, 1988).

Humor, a positive emotional state, may be an “antidote” for immunosuppression (Dillon,

Minchoff, & Baker, 1985).

Because immunosuppression commonly occurs in stressful circumstances when

negative affect is elicited, these findings suggest that humor may reduce negative affect
and/or increase positive affect, which, in turn, disinhibits potential activity of the
immune system.
Humor and Other Stress-Related Physiological Processes
Humor has also been found to be linked with physiological responses associated with
stress.

Berk et al. (1989) concluded that mirthful laughter modifies or attenuates some of the
neuroendocrine and hormone levels that are associated with stress.

Newman and Stone (1996) found that the act of creating a humorous monologue to
accompany a stressful film (the industrial accident film used in lab studies of stress;
Lazarus, 1966) had a marked effect on heart rate, skin conductance, and skin
temperature.
Therefore, active humor creation seemed to have had an anxiety-reducing effect during
the presentation of this stressful film.
“Humor is a positive asset, a “wired-in” response that
enhances our wellbeing and protects us against the
ravages brought on by stress.”
Interventions for Improving Sense of Humor

There is a surprising dearth of literature concerning how people can improve their sense of
humor:

descriptive accounts of humor use rather than focusing on the improvement of humor
itself--Nevo, Aharonson, and Klingman (1998) described a more systematically designed
program to increase the use of humor among a sample of Israeli schoolteachers.

Nevo et al. (1998) expanded the dispositional element to include motivational,

emotional, social, and behavioral components of humor that became targets for
instruction in their program.
Interventions for Improving Sense of Humor

to improve their humor and to enhance the cognitive skills associated with humor such
as rapid shifting of cognitions, tolerance of childishness, playfulness, and the like.

the encouragement of flexible thinking, of learning to generate multiple responses to

singular stimuli, and lessening the fear of rejection for attempts at being comical or
provoking laughter could be good starting points for those investigators wishing to
enhance the humorous capacity of their subjects.
Directions of Future Research

A potentially fruitful direction for future positive psychology research would involve the
ways in which various forms of humor can promote the well-being of individuals.

One major area of research that the author advocates, therefore, pertains to the power
of humor to bond people to one another.

A second area of importance for future research attention concerns the different roles
that humor plays for males and females.

Finally, the assessment of humor needs refining.

Thank you for listening!
References

C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez. 2002. "Hand Book of Positive Psychology". Oxford University Press