Of the chapters we have left to read - please pick one that is most interesting to you and read that for this assignment.
Briefly discuss why you picked this chapter and how it might build on your interests of thepsychology of humor.
Of the various aspects of humor presented in the chapter, which did you find the most interesting? Why? Which did you find least interesting? Why? What are three things you read about in the chapter that you think will be the most useful for you in understanding the psychology of humor? Why?
Which of aspects of this chapter fit best into the Theory "Z" your group came up with (make sure you say what group it was)? Which fit least and why?
(Note - those formerly in the Anti Feud and Playdoh groups may need to go back to previous blogs to familiarize yourselves with the new Z-Theories you have adopted).
Please make sure you use the terms, terminology and concepts you have learned so far in the class. It should be apparent from reading your post that you are a college student well underway in a course in psychology.
Please use spaces between your paragraphs to make your post easier to read - thanks in advance.
Let me know if you have any questions.
After skimming through the chapters we have yet left to cover, chapter ten seemed most interesting to me. Throughout class we have touched mainly on the history, theories, and different processes of humor. Chapter ten discusses the relationship between humor and physical health. This chapter will help me better understand the psychology of humor because it not only discusses new material but it allows me to understand the effects of humor on my own physical health.
Humor and pain was my favorite aspect of this chapter. Prior to reading about this concept, I was aware that humor plays a role in mood and immunity boosters, stress relief, and coping mechanisms. However, the idea that humor can help reduce pain and increase pain threshold was new information. One interesting concept is that it's not necessarily the humor and laughter that increases our pain tolerance. Instead, it is the positive emotion of mirth that is accompanies humor and is expressed by laughter. Research suggests that mirth allows endorphins to be released in the brain which in turn help increase our pain threshold. However, some researchers believe endorphins of mirth do not play a role in increases of pain tolerance. Further research will need to be conducted in order to determine if there is a relationship between mirth and pain threshold. One study that the text suggests would be to administer subjects the opiate Naloxone, which blocks endorphin receptors in the brain. If the experiment shows results of Naloxone canceling out the pain-reducing effect of humor, this would prove that mirth and endorphins do indeed play a role in pain tolerance.
I enjoyed all aspects of this chapter and honestly did not have a least favorite. All concepts were interesting because I was able to apply them to my own physical health. One concept that I'll remember form this would be that humor plays a role on our illness symptoms. It's often said that "humor is the best medicine." After reading this aspect of the chapter, I agree with that motto. People who experience humor and laughter more generally tend to avoid becoming ill. One reason this happens is because humorous individuals tend to have a more positive health perception. Overall, people who have fewer medical reports and experience humor frequently will have a better life satisfaction than those who do not experience humor as frequently. I'll also remember the idea that the humor and health benefits concept should not be overly emphasized. This concept pertains mostly to sick individuals who are looking for a miracle or easy treatment. If there is too much emphasis on "humor as the best medicine," there is potential that people who are sick will begin to feel guilty for not experiencing humor in the correct way. Also, this could raise false hope for people who are desperate for recovery. For example, someone who is diagnosed with cancer should not rely on humor to cure their illness. It would be a good idea to share laughter and humor with a sick person to reduce their suffering but it would not be smart to give them false hope that humor cures everything. The last concept I'll remember from the chapter relates to humor and longevity. It was interesting to learn that people who experience more humor may actually be at risk to die at an early age. This concept relates to humor & illnesses as well. Many people who experience humor more often than others, also fail to take their personal health seriously. As I stated before, humorous individuals usually have a high life satisfaction yet are at risk if they are overly positive about their health. For example, someone who is the center of attention with jokes and experiences laughter frequently on a daily basis will most likely have a high positive health perception. However, in reality their health might not be as positive as they believe and often times they overlook the seriousness of their health.
The best way in which my z theory group, Swarm theory, relates to this chapter would be in a cognitive way. This goes back to humor and pain. As I stated before, in order for someone to think something is funny they need to cognitively process it which elicits mirth and releases endorphins. Mirth occurs only with true laughter, not faked or forced forms of laughter, so it is up to the cognitive process to determine whether we will experience mirth or not.
Terms: humor & pain, humor & illness, humor & longevity
Chapte 9:
As mentioned in earlier chapters, it is only recently in the beginning of the 20th century that humor has ceased to be considered a negative characteristic and it has started to be seen as beneficial to a good personality and healthy nature. For a healthy nature or for an individual to “thrive and flourish” the author proposes three necessary abilities. First, the ability to control our negative emotions and appreciate positive emotions and secondly, the ability to cope with stress. Finally, the ability to establish close and meaningful relationship. The author claims that humor can give an individual these abilities.
First, in general, we feel good when we engage in humor, it boost positive moods and counteract negative moods. Laughter and smiling put people in a good mood. Research shows that humor put people in a better mood after being upset. The book mentions the well-known research finding that the way that one holds a pen in your mouth affects your mood. If you put a pencil in our mouth in a way that cause you to smile is correlated with a more positive feelings then if the pencil does not cause the mouth to smile. Furthermore, researchers found humor was linked to feelings of hopefulness. Research also shows that humor helps us have better moods in the face of stress and thus helps us be more mentally healthy. The ability of college students to cope with stress with humor as measured by the Coping Humor Scale (CHS) was negatively correlated with such emotions as depression, anxiety, but positively correlated positive attributes like self-esteem. This finding also held true when it was giving to elderly residents in a nursing home. However, the researchers found that people that exhibited adverse emotions like depression and anxiety still used humor, however it tended to be “rather black, cynical, hostile, and excessively self-disparaging”. These finding lead the authors to ask, what forms of humor are healthy and which are associated with poorer psychological health, aggressive humor and self-deprecating humor. Humor which is positively correlated with humor is affinitive humor, or the “tendency to say funny things in everyday life” and self-enhancing humor, “amused by the incongruities” or stress of life.
The book states that many theorists suggest that the ability to use humor to deal in the face of stress is an important skill for a healthy mental state. It talks about the power and liberation that humor gives people in adverse situations, the book uses the example of POWs using humor “the POWs were able to gain a sense of mastery and invincibility in a situation over which they had no control”. However there is research that on the other hand, shows that people in one study who used humor to cope with stress showed greater feelings of depersonalization and exhaustion. The book states that overall, using humor to deal with stress has mixed results. Can humor help deal with stress? Researcher mentioned with in the book that major life stressors were less likely to disturb the moods for the people who had a strong sense of humor.
The ability to use humor within our interpersonal relationships the last important aspect of a health mental state. Stress can be a way for partners in a long-term relationship to cope and deal with life stressors together. Research shows who are happily married show higher level of humor and laugher within their “problem discussions”. However if only one person, partially the male within the relationship deals with life stressors with humor is correlated with rates of divorce. The authors suggest that this is because husbands are using humor to “deflect probms and avoid the anxiety associated with talkin about them, but without actively confronting and resolving them”.
Thus I believe that it is suggested humor can be good, however if used wrong it can have some negative effects. Swarm Theory: both birds and humans response to stumuli, we laugh and a bird flys. We laugh at a stimuli because it helps relieve or cope with stress. A bird does the same, flies to relieve the stress of the situation.
key terms:aggressive humor,self-deprecating humor,affinitive humor,self-enhancing humor
I chose this chapter because it covered humor in psychotherapy and counseling. I am very seriously thinking about becoming a clinical psychologist and was interested in this form of therapy. I think it was very thorough in explaining how humor should and should not be used in therapy. The basic idea was that humor is potentially helpful, but the ways in which it is used makes all the difference.
What really hit home for me is that a friend of mine from high school went through some rough times and saw a therapist for a while. She quit going because she felt that the therapist felt her problems weren’t serious, and made her feel stupid, or belittled. I think it is possible that the therapist was using humor. The chapter stresses that the uses of humor in therapy are potentially aggressive and if taken the wrong way could be harmful. Two of the first ways therapy could be used were Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) and Proactive therapy. These two things I will remember because I see how they could be helpful, but also, as I believe in the case of my friend, could offend the individual seeking therapy. They both operate under the assumption that people became psychologically disturbed because they have irrational beliefs and that their behaviors can be changed once they see this. In both cases sarcasm and exaggeration can be used to show this. This can very easily go wrong, and end up offending the client and make them feel belittled. Proactive therapy actually intends for the client to fight back until they are essentially reasoned into changing their behaviors. The third form of therapy was called Natural High therapy. This is the least aggressive choice because the goal of this therapy is to increase self-esteem by using role playing, imagery, and meditation and does not use anything that could be potentially aggressive.
The second thing I will remember is the way that humor was to be used in systematic desensitization for phobias. This is used by clients with phobias to vividly imagine themselves experiencing a series of progressively more threatening situations and then using humorous imagery. Studies have shown that this has worked where using muscle relaxation (instead of humorous imagery) has failed.
The last thing I will remember is that humor needs to be used in a way that shows understanding and concern, because if used wrong it can be very damaging for the client. Ways that humor can help is to gain understanding of the client, and to be sure how they produce humor themselves, so that it can be better used in helping them. Also it can be used when they are able to see their behaviors as dysfunctional, and in gaining a better (humorous) perspective on their life. With a humorous perspective it can reduce the amount of distress they feel, and lower stress in their day to day life.
While the other two sections did not interest me as much, they had good points. The humor in education section talked about a number of ways humor can be useful in the classroom, including making lessons more memorable, the environment more enjoyable, and the distance between the teacher and students less, and the relationship more comfortable. These things obviously are a help to education, making students more comfortable and helping them learn more, making them feel like it is an accepting environment where they can expand and grow and learn. Humor in the workplace made good points as well, and surprised me with the idea that it can help workers to be in better health but could also be detrimental to worker morale.
I think this fits into the Swarm Theory in every section. Humor in the workplace is easiest because it helps boost productivity and cooperation. In the Swarm theory this makes sense because the group can work together better and get more done. However, if it is used in a way that decreases morale then one of the flock will potentially leave and this is not a desired result because if too many people leave, there is no longer a flock.
Humor in education works because it shows ways for the flock to learn and to build a better relationship in following the teacher or leader of the flock. In a flying V the dominant bird switches every so often so they all need to be taught the same way and understand the same things. If humor helps them to learn better then it should be used, for the greater good.
Humor in therapy could work because every so often there is one bird that doesn’t function as well as the other birds and needs extra help. Humor (when used correctly) could better help them to get back on their feet and become a functioning member of the flock, that could potentially lead the V someday.
I choose to read chapter ten for this assignment. I skimmed the remaining chapters and decided upon humor and physical health because I was generally interested in how humor can affect an individual’s health. This chapter will help me better understand the psychology of humor because it is something that has a real effect on my life and it helps me change my thinking of humor and psychology as a bunch of theories of why something is or isn’t funny.
Of the various aspects presented in this chapter, I found the most interesting topic to be humor and immunity. The book stated that there is now considerable evidence that different emotional states have an influence on immunity through these brain-immune system communication channels. I wasn’t really surprised by this because I know from my own experience that when I tend to be really stressed is the time when I usually get sick and have a weakened immune system. That time usually comes around finals week and a couple other times throughout the semester. There is little research in this area because typically other areas get more attention, but the research that does exist concludes that the existing evidence for beneficial effects of humor on immunity is still rather weak and inconclusive. While reading this section, I suspected that is how the research would lay out, but the idea that having a sense of humor and laughing can help your immunity is a good thought.
I never came across a section in this chapter that made me not want to continue reading. I found all the sections to be equally interesting and insightful. The first thing I read in this chapter that will be most useful in my understanding of the psychology of humor was that humor can help reduce pain and increase pain threshold. This chapter just really emphasized to me that positive emotions and humor can be very powerful. I have yet to really come across anything that would come down as a negative in regards to humor. Another thing that will really help my understanding when it comes to the psychology of humor is the relationship with longevity. The first paragraph suggests that people who more frequently engage in humor and laughter tend to live longer that their less humorous counterparts. I was shocked to learn that quite the opposite may actually be true given the research. It also stated that children who were rated as more cheerful in childhood went on to smoke cigarettes, consume more alcohol, and engage in more risky hobbies as adults. The last thing that I will take away from this chapter is the idea that humor can’t solve every health issue. BSue07 had a great example of this in their post stating that someone with cancer can’t solely rely on humor as their form of treatment. Instead they should use the medicine recommended and have a little humor on the side.
This chapter fits into the “Z” theory of the Swarm theory through the cognitive and social aspects. In regards to cognitive theories thought processes have to occur in order for an individual to feel pain. In regards to the social aspect humor can typically be a good emotion that can help one’s physical health.
I had a hard time choosing a chapter this week because I think all of the remaining chapters sounded interesting. Because I’m planning on going to grad. school for counseling psychology and not only being a therapist someday but also being a professor, I thought I would benefit most from reading chapter 11 “Applications of Humor in Psychotherapy, Education, and the Workplace.” Because of my future plans, I definitely benefited from all three sections because obviously, I will be providing psychotherapy, I will be teaching in a university setting, and I will inevitably be working with people for the rest of my life.
Unlike some of the previous chapters, I actually got through this one rather quickly and enjoyed nearly every aspect. Because this chapter was split into three main categories (psychotherapy, education, and workplace), I’ll highlight my favorite part of every chapter:
Psychotherapy: According to the text, there are three ways that humor can be applied in a therapeutic setting: humor as therapy, specific humor-based techniques, and using humor as a communication skill to develop rapport between client and therapist. Humor as therapy ascertains that because humor often times produces a feel good feeling and presents other ways of dealing with issues, it is a beneficial tool when working with individuals with mental illnesses.
Using a humor substitute instead of relaxation techniques in the process of systematic desensitization is an example of a specific humor-based technique. Although a humor substitute may distract individuals from their fears, the study reviewed in the book didn’t find any evidence that it was more effective than the traditional relaxation techniques (they were pretty much equally effective).
As a skill, humor may help to increase rapport and establish a trusting relationship between client and therapist. Although the use of humor has the potential to give the client the impression that the therapist lacks concern about his or her problems, if used in a “genuine manner, communicating empathic understanding and concern for the client,” humor can be a great tool in the therapeutic setting.
Overall, though humor appears to be a beneficial tool in therapy, it also presents many risks including misinterpretation, feelings that the therapists lacks empathy, and drawing attention completely away from the problem and therefore avoiding dealing with it. With this knowledge in mind, I am not sure that I would implement humor in my future practice just because of the potential of it being detrimental to the client. Humor in small talk forms (greeting the client before the actual therapy begins – joking about nonsense things like the weather, etc.) would probably be acceptable, but I don’t think I would be able to successfully use humor, at least not right away.
Education: Much like humor can improve rapport between client and therapist, it can also be beneficial when it comes to relationships between teachers and students. According to the text, students favor teachers who implement humor into their classroom over teachers who do not. Humor may also play a role in one’s ability to remember classroom material (as we have seen in previous chapters); however, humor does not increase retention if used constantly. Overall, humor can help draw attention to certain material, increase student interest in the subject at hand, and creates a positive learning environment conductive to learning.
Something I found interesting, though, was that in most cases, aggressive forms of humor were apparent in the classroom. In some cases, students were the butt of these aggressive jokes, so I was surprised at how effective humor is in the classroom if this is the case.
Something I found ironic was that the author of our text cited an article that found that textbooks containing humor are more likely to draw students’ attention, yet his own textbook contains little to no humor.
Workplace: The section on humor in the workplace was very much like some of the earliest chapters in our book because humor is often used to “save face” when expressing our disagreements with our coworkers’ opinions. It can also be used to reinforce dominance over others whose work status is inferior to ours (much like the chapter where it said those in higher status positions are more likely to use humor over those who hold lower status positions). Humor can also be used to promote a healthy working environment by facilitating cohesiveness among workers, reducing stress, and increasing workers’ enjoyment of their jobs.
Because the PSSC theory weighs heavily on the social aspect of humor, it can explain nearly everything in this chapter because the uses of humor in psychotherapy, education, and the workplace all have social ties. The use of humor in psychotherapy works to build a relationship between client and therapist as well as using this relationship to implement efficient therapeutic techniques. (Let’s just face it, if you don’t trust your therapist, your progress will likely be ineffective, at least at a stand-still).
The section on education highly emphasized the benefits of humor on the development of a relationship between student and teacher while the section on the workplace emphasized the benefits of humor on maintaining and moderating stress free relationships among workers.
Terms used: humor as therapy, humor-based techniques, humor as a communication skill, “save-face”, social psychology of humor
Chapter 10
I liked this chapter and chapter 11 but chose to go with this chapter instead on physical health and humor because I want to be a Clinical Child Psychologist and want to know if I could interpret humor into helping child and adolescents which also could correlate with the next chapter. I am one to believe that laughter is the best medicine. After reading this chapter I definately got some schemas to rearrange.
What I found most interesting in this chapter is the concept of humor and longevity. Laughter can improve the quality of life, but not so much the duration of life. It is difficult to see how claims for actual physical health benefits of humor can be sustained if it doesn’t prolong life. In our textbook it talks about how professional, humorists and serious entertained dying at a significantly young age than those who are famous for other reason, perhaps due to the stresses or unhealthy lifestyles of people in the entertainment industry. The ability to make others laugh doesn’t appear to make out for greater longevity. Individuals who are high on cheerfulness have higher mortality rates as well and tend to be more carefree in adulthood and lead to more external behaviors such as smoking, risky hobbies, consuming alcohol and so forth. Basically having a sense of humor may be an illness risk factor.
I didn’t find anything in this chapter the least interesting, just found things that surprised me such as humor might make you die at an earlier age, and humor can increase blood pressure and heart rate in short-term effects and much more which I will explain in a bit.
One thing I will remember that individuals tend to be able to tolerate increased levels of pain and there is some limited clinical evidence that humor can reduce post-surgical pain. In addition observed pain reducing effects are likely due to amusement related positive emotion, rather than to laughter per se, although similar effects are also found with negative emotions. Pain threshold is defined as the amount of time elapsed before the participant reports the stimulus to be painful, while pain tolerance is the duration of time before the individual cannot tolerate the stimulus any longer and wished to terminate it.
Another concept I will not forget is that or humor, blood pressure and heart disease. Having greater sense of humor in men may reflect greater competiveness and aggressiveness, resulting in more elevated blood pressure. Women with high scores of sense of humor measure were found to have generally low levels of systolic blood pressure, supporting the idea that a sense of humor is negatively related to blood pressure. Also, laughter is associated with short-term increases in blood pressure and heart rate but no in the long-term.
One of the last things in this chapter I will remember is that of humor and illness. Individuals with higher sense of humor scores are less likely to report becoming ill following high levels of stressful life events. One study found an interaction between humor and stress that was opposite to predictions, with high humor individuals showing a greater tendency to report illness following negative life events. In addition, people with a greater sense of humor may perceive themselves to be healthier, showing less concern and preoccupation with symptoms of illness, even though they are not objectively healthier.
According to my groups “Z” theory which is PSSY which consists of all aspects of all four theories. I think this chapter fits best with the social aspect of this theory because after all laughter is usually in a social context. Positive emotion is associated with humor which is related to social play and that laughter is an expressive behavior communication playful emotions and intentions to others. I guess you could correlate the cognitive aspect of our theory to this chapter because now I am thinking about my health when it comes to my sense of humor…I need to be cautious of this so I don’t just die off so soon in life lol.
I chose to read chapter ten which was over humor and physical health. I chose this chapter because early in the semester I did one of my first blogs over this same subject and it has always interested me. I think that some of the correlations that can be made between humor and various aspects of physical health are amazing and I remember from my earlier blog that there were groups dedicated to ‘Laughter Yoga’ where they would just laugh without humor or comedy and they were huge believers in the both the mental and physical benefits that laughter had. On the laughter yoga website, it says that these practices have been implemented in some schools, businesses, with seniors, in prisons and with people who have physical or mental challenges. Specifically with the last population mentioned, major improvements can be seen with improved motor or expressive skills and also with creating a more positive attitude to enhance their overall wellbeing. (http://www.laughteryoga.org/)
Chapter 10 mentions these ‘humor and health’ groups, and the author thinks that they might have been too quick to dive into them, because much of the research isn’t consistent and it might give false hope to people dealing with serious illnesses. The author even thinks that these groups are promoting that people have a lot of control over their health, when at times they do not, and it might make those who become very sick guilty because they did not lead happier lifestyles. Nevertheless, laughter is a free form of that isn’t detrimental to people, and if nothing else, hopefully enhances the individual’s life despite their illness.
The part of this chapter that sticks out the most to me is the section dealing with humor and pain tolerance. Many of the studies dealing with humor and other aspects of physical health, like it’s influence on immunity or promoting a healthy lifestyle, are not controlled very well or have inconsistent follow up studies. Those empirical studies dealing with humor and pain tolerance are more thorough and controlled, which may be due in part because it is much less to perform these types of experiments. The overall findings of these studies are that humor does in fact play a role in increasing pain tolerance. Most of the studies had people watch videos that were humorous, relaxing, boring, interesting, or horrific, and those in the humorous video condition consistently had an increased pain tolerance (even if it was the difference in taking a couple less aspirin per day). They also found that relaxation and horror conditions could also have some influence on increasing pain tolerance. They also found that whether a person thought that watching a movie would increase their pain tolerance, it would usually have a positive effect.
Another section that stands out to me dealt with humor’s influence on life expectancy. One would think that since humor is thought to have some positive effects on health, it would also have an impact on how long people live. This is not necessarily the case, and might cause people to die at an earlier age than not humorous people. This might be because funny people might not care about health risks as much as serious people.
Finally I will remember that there needs to be much more thorough and controlled research done involving most of these fields. Many of the studies that have been done concerning physical health benefits due to humor have not been replicated with similar results. A lot of the time, these experiments lack adequate control groups, and so generalizations can’t be made that humor is in fact what might be causing these results. They also have small sample sizes and few longitudinal studies done that examine long term effects of having a more humorous outlook on life overall. It can be hard to generalize that humor is in fact what is playing a role in physical health benefits, and not other factors. Even within humor is it unclear what might cause these benefits. It could be just laughter with or without humor, like the people in the laughter yoga groups believe, is could be the frequency of mirthful feelings, the intensity of mirthful feelings, or displays of mirth, like the Duchenne display.
The Equilibrium theory that my group came up with focuses on using humor as a way to create a balance between social groups and also a balance within yourself. For a person to be balanced, a person must be both mentally and physically healthy. This chapter focused on the physical health aspect of having this balance within yourself. Although a lot of the research is sketchy, there are interesting possible physical health benefits that might be a result of humor, and many people believe in this. Even if these are not proven through empirical studies, many times there is a sort of placebo effect and if a person believes that laughing and engaging in mirthful activities will have a positive impact on their health, it might. Our theory also emphasizes the use of humor as a defense mechanism or to cope with life stress. Stress can have detrimental effects on a person’s health, and by dealing with stress with humor, some of these health issues can be avoided.
I picked Chapter 10 Humor and Physical health because that’s a subject or area of psychology that I’m interested in. I’m also taking Health Psych right now, and I thought it would be interesting to see if I could relate anything that we’ve learned in that class so far to something in this chapter.
The section that I found most interesting was Humor and Pain. I was actually interested in reading this section because ever since I was young, I’ve had a lot of experience being in the hospital for extended periods and going through and recovering from some physically painful stuff, so I was interested to find out if a sense of humor or laughing helps with it at all. It was interesting to find that exposure to humor and relaxation were able to increase the amount of pain subjects were able to withstand in the cold-presser test. Something I wondered about was whether or not humor simply serves as a better distracter from the pain than anything else. Another thing I found interesting was the study done by Rotton and Shats (1996) on orthopedic surgery patients, and that the patients that were not given a comedy movie of their choice to watch had higher levels of analgesic use compared to the other groups. This was one thing that I could relate back to my Health Psych class! We just learned in an experiment done in a nursing home with residents taking care of plants, control plays a huge role in the patient’s health. So it makes sense that if the patient felt like they didn’t have any control over the matter, it might make them feel worse—that plus the fact that the video they watched may not be coherent with their preferred humor style.
The section that I found least interesting was Humor, Blood Pressure, and Heart Disease. I’m not exactly sure why this specific section didn’t interest me as much as the others. I think I just have it set in my mind that BP and heart disease is so dependent on our behaviors rather than whether or not we experience humor. The results in these studies didn’t seem to show any interesting outcomes to me.
I thought that the 5 different mechanisms that had different implications on humor and health were very interesting.
1) Laughter itself may produce physiological effects that have health benefits. In fact, the reason we laugh would be insignificant. Friendly forms of laughter would be just as beneficial as hostile laughter made at other people’s expense.
2) Humor may encourage better health through physiological effects of positive emotion that go along with laughter. So feelings of mirth that are stimulated by humor may also have a positive affect on health, and laughing out loud might not even be necessary. Therapeutic approaches don’t even have to focus on being funny, rather focusing on evoking positive emotions in addition to humor.
3) The third focuses on coping mechanisms, where health might be benefited by humor in a cognitive way. A humorous outlook on life and being able to look at one’s problems in a humorous way may help us cope better with stress.
4) The fourth focuses on the interpersonal aspect of humor and the social support someone has in their life. This has to do with the “social competence” in expressing humor in relationships, rather than how often one laughs.
5) The last mechanism has to do with how humor affects our healthy behaviors. Even though it would be easy to assume that someone who has a good sense of humor would have a more positive, optimistic outlook on life and engage in more healthy behaviors; however, the opposite is true. Unhealthy lifestyles are more likely to be the norm of individuals with a high sense of humor.
One odd thing that I thought about the chapter that might actually be useful for studying humor is the fact that this chapter did not have a lot of evidence to back up any theories or hypotheses. Or, if a hypothesis was supported by an experiment, the results couldn’t be replicated. It seems like this is a particular area of the psych of humor that needs to be studied more; however, the author mentioned that funding for it is limited, which is unfortunate.
One other thing that I found interesting was the fact that humor professionals and other entertainers seem to die at a younger age than other famous people. I thought this related back to the fact that comedians tend to not have a very good childhood, or did not have nurturing parents. So that makes me wonder if it’s not just the stress of the entertainment industry, but maybe they engage in drinking or drugs for the same reason they went into comedy in the first place—to try and get the attention of their parents.
I thought that the fourth aspect of the 5 mechanisms of humor and health fit the best into our Z-theory—the Equilibrium theory. The fourth aspect focuses on interpersonal aspects, and one’s social support. Someone who can use humor effectively to reduce conflict or tense social situations and boost others’ positive feelings are more likely to have healthy social relationships. In this way, humor creates a sort of balance in social situations and in individual’s relationships.
I chose Chapter 10: Humor and Physical Health. Earlier in the class, I did a web divergence activity that was about laughter and its possible effects on health. Pain is also a general interest of mine. This chapter was a good fit for my interests.
The most interesting part of this chapter was Humor and Pain. As I already said, I have a general interest in pain and pain tolerance. I found this section very interesting because there were some significant findings in the pain tolerance studies. One study found that humor may work as relaxation in providing an analgesic effect. Other findings showed consistent evidence that exposure to comedy increases the pain threshold and tolerance. Humor preferences were also found relevant. If a person is not allowed to choose the type of comedy movie, the effects may not be helpful and could even be averse.
Something that I found particularly interesting was the research done on laughter or mirth as the primary source of the increase of pain tolerance. The results showed that pain tolerance has more to do with the emotion of mirth than laughter. It was even shown that forced laughter can have a negative effect on pain tolerance. This is contrary to the web divergence activity I did about laughter being beneficial.
Another important and interesting piece of information I found was that concerning sense of humor and health and longevity. It was found that people who were high in humor were not healthier than those low in humor but they did seem to be more satisfied with their health. Also, it was found that people with a greater sense of humor seemed to have a shorter lifespan than those with a lower sense of humor. These is thought to be the result of more cheerful individuals being less concerned with health problems and tend to take greater risks such as smoking, drinking, and risky hobbies.
The only part of the chapter I don’t really like is the immunity section because it’s quite long with no conclusive or consistent results.
This chapter fits into my Z theory (PSSC) because it is the cognitive processes that determine the pain we feel. The mind is in control of how we feel pain and therefore involved in the higher pain threshold that mirth creates. Also, sense of humor and longevity are related and social aspects affect what type of humor we have and how cheerful we are. I don’t really find anything that I can’t make fit into my Z theory.
I chose to read chapter 9 for this assigment because I am interested on the effects of humor on metal health in social settings. I wanted to gain insight on which types of humor are related to positive and negative mental health and what situations this would be based upon. I think this would build upon my interest in psychology because I am taking also taking a class on child psychopathololy, and I was curious to see if there would be any relationship with health related issues that we discuss in class, and if humor has a positive effect.
The most interesing part of this chapter for me was on interpersonal relationships and what kinds of humor either benefit or damage a relationship. I found the study on newly married couples (Cohan and Bradbury) especially on the men to be quite fascinating. The authors discuss how men in these relationships may be more likely to use humor in stressful situations to avoid problems in marriage as a coping mechanism, and although it may be less distressful in the short run, in the long run it tends to show a more negative effect (less stabiliy in marriages). I also found interesting the styles of humor which were better recieved than others between close friends. The affilitive and self-enhancing (more positive styles) were better recieved than the aggressive and self-defeating (making fun of oneself to diffuse the situation) were actually seen more negatively. The more positive styles were also associated with higher levels of companionship, intimacy, and self-disclosure (opening up to personal matters with the other person). This would make sense because using the agressive style may seem as dominating the situation which could make a stressful event even worse, and the self-defeating as someone who places the blame on themselves, making them an easier target to place the problem on (resulting in more stress for this individual).
I think the section I found least interesting in this chapter was that on the experimental conditions in the lab using humor as a stress moderator. Many of the studies involved participants watching a film that was unpleasant (for example, the film depicting accidents and death) and then watching a humorous film, or non-humorous film (two groups). Results obtained showed after watching the humorous film as opposed to the non-humorous, these individuals' self-reported enhanced positive emotion, however not necessarily less anxiety. When I think of stress, I automatically relate it to high anxiety, and therefore I do not find many of these studies to be conclusive. I would think the positive emotions may contribute to better moods after watching the films, but the fact that anxiety still remains tells us humor is not a moderator in the event of perceived stress. Also, these lab experiments did not include stressful events from real-life scenarios the individual experiences in their own lives, and what kinds of stress, the settings it occurs in, and who else is involved. I do not agree with many of the lab studies because they do not take into account these real-life conditions, therefore I do not find them convincing overall.
Three things in this chapter I think will be useful in studying psychology of humor in this chapter were the correlational aspect; although many of these studies recieved correlational support, they were not necessarily conclusive on the direction. This information further confirms my knowledge on the "third variable" dillema, so I found this interesting. I also found the section which discussed different types of humor in the situational context can be either a positive or negative coping mechanism in the event of stress (for example, the military and concentration camps where humor lifted spirts, as opposed to the cancer patients in the hospital where it seemed to have little, and possible negative effects). The situational context is interesting in that the same style of humor can be used appropriately in one setting and result in positive stress relief, while the exact opposite in other settings. I also found interesting the discussion on self defeating humor and how it is associated with negative well-being and depression (using humor as a coping strategy while blaming oneself in the process). I can understand how if someone does this time and time again how their self-esteem would eventually be compromised, and how after awhile they might actually believe everything is their fault. Kind of a depressing thought overall, but interesting that this type of humor actually may produce such a damaging effect on an individual on a personal level, which in turn effects level of stress and mental health.
The section which most relates to our theory (the Swarm theory) is that on interpersonal aspects of humor in mental health. This section confirms the social need to obtain meaningful relationships and how humor is used in confronting and resolving stressful situations with others. The social aspect of most importance in our theory. Also, the superiority aggression aspect of our theory ties in again when discussing the different coping styles (aggression based humor) by used of trying to dominate another to win an argument, and by using teasing and belittling tactics to come out on top. This will create more stress ultimately though, and is not the best way to cope with such situations.
The chapter I chose to reading for week eleven was Chapter 9. I chose to read chapter 9 because I was curious to see what research there was on humor and mental health. I had read an article during week 4 that said there was no real medical research that explained exactly how humor improved one’s health. I thought that statement was interesting because it seems to be assumed that humor does help improve mental health. Chapter 9 was interesting because it pointed out research that helped and refuted the benefits of humor for mental health. Although some of the research seemed poorly designed, I found a number of topics that would be beneficial for someone to learn when studying the psychology of humor. Similarly, there were aspects from the chapter that helped encourage and refute my new group’s PSSC Theory. The material I found to be the most interesting was the research on humor as it affects different psychological diseases.
I was interested to read about how humor would improve a person diagnosed with a psychological disease because humor generally improves one’s psychological well-being. I assumed that those patients with a psychiatric disorder would show greater improvement in their disease if the patient had a strong sense of humor. Interestingly, the degree to which humor benefited a psychiatric patient varied depending on the disease. In a study of hospitalized adult psychiatric patients, higher sense of humor scores tended to be associated with lower depression and higher self-esteem and positive moods among the clinically depressed patients. However, a patient’s sense of humor was unrelated to the symptom severity among patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Additionally, a similar study also found humor in hospitalized schizophrenic patients to have no relation between scores on the CHS and several self-report and psychiatrist-rated measures of hostility, aggression, and anger. In other words, although having a greater sense of humor seems to be related to lower severity of disturbance in clinically depressed patients, these findings do not seem to correlate with schizophrenic patients. One reason for this finding may be the differences in personality between depressed and schizophrenic patients. Depressed individuals usually exhibit a more dark sense of humor that is often cynical, sarcastic, and hostile. On the other hand, schizophrenic patients usually have personalities that are more neurotic. Thus, the personality differences between depressed and schizophrenic patients should be examined before studying the effects of humor on each patient’s mental health. Similarly, experiments of humor as a stress moderator should consider personality traits before conducting research.
One section of chapter 9 that I did not enjoy was the empirical investigations of humor as a stress moderator. The investigations mentioned tested the effectiveness of humor manipulation in mitigating the emotional or psycho-physiological effects of mildly stressful laboratory stressors. One experiment found that exposure to a humorous videotape compared, to a non-humorous video, was effective in reducing anxiety following an unsolvable anagram task, but only among male participants. However, a study using a 10-minute mental arithmetic task to induce a mild state of anxiety found no differences among comedy, relaxation, and neutral videotapes on state anxiety, heart rate, or skin conductance. In other words, the study failed to demonstrate the effects of humor as a stress moderator. One reason these researchers may have failed to show how humor may mitigate the effects of stress could be that these lab settings are not similar to real life circumstances. The stressors used in these experiments are much milder and shorter is duration compared to real life stressful events and the research does not take into account the subject’s personality. Every one differs in personality and for that reason; most people differ in their humor preference. Therefore, the humor used to test the effects of humor as a stress moderator would have benefited from using different types of humor to adjust to the different subjects. I thought that this section would be interesting to read about because I believed it would provide empirical evidence for how humor may mitigate stress, but I was surprised and upset that the research did not provide accurate support.
Three points made in this chapter that I believe will help in studying the psychology of humor was: understanding people use different types of humor for different reasons, realizing that humor does help people overcome seemingly hopeless situations, and understanding that humor and psychological health is more complex than it may seem. Understanding people use different types of humor is important because it shows how people might use humor to avoid their problems. Maslow (1954), Allport (1961), and O’ Connell (1976) suggested that well-adjusted individuals use healthy types of humor and those who are not well-adjusted use unhealthy types. People who use aggressive and self-defeating humor use humor as a form of defensive denial to hide their underlying negative feelings or to avoid dealing constructively with their problems. Chris Farley was a popular comedian who used self-defeating humor in his bits. Despite his outstanding success, Farley destroyed himself at an early age through drugs, alcohol, and overeating. It is useful to understand how people may be indirectly harming themselves by the style of humor a person is using because it may signal to other people when a person starts to become self-destructive. Secondly, it is important to understand that although humor may not be mentally beneficial for stressful situations in the long-term, and does not help those with severe mental illnesses, humor is still helpful in devastating situations where there is no way out. In other words, humor is still beneficial for emotional survival in extreme and uncontrollable situations such as prisoners of war and concentration camps. This is important because although humor cannot reverse illnesses, it can provide hope that gets one through extreme aversion. Lastly, knowing that humor is a complex process for one’s psychological health is important because it shows how no one theory or study is going to be wholly true.
One point that fits well into my group’s PSSC Theory is the statement that humor is playful aggression; this notion can also be seen as a basis for conceptualizing humor as a coping mechanism. This statement supports the Superiority/Disparagement Theory proposed in Chapter 2. Thus, humor may be used as a means of asserting one’s superiority through playful aggression. Similarly, humor may be a way of refusing to be overcome by the people and situations that threaten one’s well-being. In contrast, one point that did not fit into my group’s PSSC Theory is the notion that there is still little evidence that humor provides long-term psychological benefits for one’s overall health. Although out theory does not explicitly state that humor has long-term benefits for one’s health, our group does believe that it can be a defense mechanism to help people deal with adversity. Therefore, if humor does not help one in the long-term to deal with stress, there is not much hope that humor is a very powerful defense mechanism.
This chapter was interesting because it provided a lot of contradictory evidence for how humor may help one’s mental health. Before reading this chapter, I believed that humor did help one’s health, but now I am not sure if I still have those same feelings. Although I believe humor does assist in some way to deal with adversity, I believe that this may be because humor is generally a positive versus a negative emotion. In the future, I hope more work is done to answer the question as to whether or not humor does help one’s health.
Humor and Physical Health
I picked this chapter because it seemed to be a very broad topic that I thought would be beneficial towards putting other information in context.
The information was quite interesting if a little depressing. More and more we’re getting to see that Humor is an incredibly complex construct to explain. What was most interesting to me was the lack of evidential support for any major health benefit of laughter or mirth. It seems with a lot of information that humor is ALMOST really helpful, and ALMOST the best thing, but then tests seem to be inconclusive. Humor is related to intelligence, but smart people aren’t always funny, and funny people aren’t always smart. It’s related to being outgoing, but sometimes it makes people hate you and other times love you. It’s related to increased levels S-IgA levels (these are found in saliva and boost your immune system) yet does not really decrease your chances of getting infections or diseases…
Least interesting to me was the introductory remarks on how humor MIGHT produce health benefits. It was interesting to see a good explanation of how humor may be beneficial due to the emotional aspects, perhaps the content of the humor, the cognitive mechanisms involved, or the chemicals released during different stages of the humor process (e.g. during the setup of a joke, the punch-line, from the laughter, etc.). However, by and large there have been relatively few consistent results indicating that humor does provide any benefits, so this setup was less important to the overall chapter I felt.
My groups Z-theory is really at a loss to explain why humor doesn’t provide any real benefits. Though I think all theories of humor are at a loss in this regard. The only way I can relate it is to say that our theory (Eqilibrium theory) maintains that Humor is a predominantly social tool (using our advanced cognitive processes) designed to control and manipulate situations in the hopes of bringing a balance to the situation. Balance means that there ought to be no extremes involved. In this way it may make sense that humor causes some beneficial results, for example, helping people deal with stress, and increasing levels of immune system chemicals for a brief period, yet not be incredibly beneficial overall (i.e. it is moderately helpful but does not bring about significant improvements in overall health).
In previous chapters we have seen that the ‘equilibrium’ aspect of humor is more prominent in social situations than in explaining characteristics of the individual. However, the research on how humor effects pain thresholds and tolerance are supportive of the equilibrium theory. Research suggested that after watching a comical video participants had a higher pain threshold (when they felt pain) and higher tolerance (when they could take the pain no longer), however this was the opposite when the comedy video was not something they actually found funny. If you find something funny afterwards you are better able to deal with pain, a very good thing. Yet if you are forced to watch something that is supposed to be funny (i.e. supposed to help you deal with pain better) but you don’t cognitively ‘get on board’ with it you actually have a decreased ability to deal with pain and pain management.
Terms: Eqilibrium theory, S-IgA, immune system functioning, pain threshold, pain tolerance
Humor and how it relates to mental health has always been an interest of mine. I tend to feel better after laughing and I often feel less stressed if I let myself go a little bit. I am aware of humor being used in therapy, but I am not aware of the how it is exactly used. Chapter nine discusses humor and the emotional well-being. It also discusses the difference between healthy and unhealthy humor, and the ways we can use humor to cope. The chapter also discusses how humor can act as a stress moderator and how it used to build healthy relationships. These have all been touched on in previous chapters, but not in such depth.
I believe that humor is universally known for making us feel better. People who often engage in humor and laughter tend to feel more cheerful, energetic, and less anxious and depressed. This would agree with my way of coping since I tend to feel a lot better if I laugh at something or watch a funny movie when I am sad. That is what I think that the way we use humor with stress and coping to be the most appealing to me. This section briefly discusses the superiority theory and how it relates to coping. For example, if a person were to poke fun at someone else then they would ultimately feel a sense of freedom or liberation instead of the depressed feeling they were initially experiencing. This would also exemplify how aggression is used in humor. Even though aggression always seems to be used in humor, it is also important to remember that you should maintain a positive sense of self-esteem while poking fun at yourself, or others. Several experiments were done to determine how humor is used as a stress moderator. An experiment done by Michelle Newman and Arthur Stone used male college students to create a humorous or serious narrative while watching a film about gruesome accidents in a lumber mill. The students that depicted the film as being humorous experienced less stress and a lower heart rate than the students who thought it was serious. Also, a study done by Arnie Cann showed that a humorous video enhances positive emotions but did not reduce anxiety relative to the nonhumorous video. Humor is also used in coping. If a person uses humor in a serious event then they are more likely to gain a sense of mastery and invincibility over the situation. POW’s told jokes about the guards even though they were still captive. By telling the jokes, the group was able to maintain group cohesion and morale, while eliciting positive emotion. In a less extreme example, I myself use humor when I feel as though I can’t win. If I feel overwhelmed with schoolwork, or if I am going through a personal crisis, I tend to find myself using humor in order to cope. Even though humor is seen as always being used as a positive way to cope with things, others may feel as though it has a negative effect on their well-being. A study of staff working with people with AIDS and cancer patients showed that humor actually exhausted the workers even more and experiences greater feelings of depersonalization. This surprised me because I think that humor can be used to make the situation better, whether it is serious or not.
One of the things I will remember from this chapter is the use of unhealthy humor styles. There are many ways that humor is used, but one of the ways that most people probably don’t think of is the humor styles that are detrimental to our mental health. Aggressive humor is the tendency to use humor for the purpose of manipulating others. Self-defeating humor involves the use of humor to amuse others by making fun of ourselves or laughing along with others who are making fun of you. Again, aggression is used to describe humor. This seems to keep being an common theme in humor and the unhealthy style of humor is another way of describing it. A healthy humor style is described by using affiliative humor, which is when you say funny things or tell jokes to make others laugh. Self-enhancing humor is when you always have a humorous perspective of things, which is how I would describe myself.
Another thing I will remember are the types of scales used to determine how humor is used in coping mental health. Those scales are the Coping Humor Scale (CHS), the self reporting scale HSQ, SHRQ, and the Cheerfulness scale of the State-Trait Cheerfulness Inventory (STCI-T). I myself believe that we shouldn’t use self-reporting as a way of determining whether a person is funny or not because it is easy to fake, I think that these are useful when trying to determine if a person has a healthy humor style or a unhealthy one. The last thing I will remember from this chapter is that there are three general capacities that seem to be essential for an individual to thrive and flourish. They are 1) the ability to regulate negative emotions and positive emotions. 2) The ability to cope with stress and adapt to change and 3) the ability to establish close and meaningful relationships. I believe these exemplify how to use humor to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
The topic I found to be the least interesting in this chapter was the process approaches to investigating humor in coping, even though I found the entire chapter to be interesting. It seemed as though this section was repeating what had already been said earlier in the chapter, even though it presented the process-oriented approach where humor was assessed in terms of frequency, rather than typical humor tendencies. The results were expected; that healthy humor used to cope with stress helped regulate one’s moods when experiencing daily stressors.
This chapter relates to my new Z-theory, the PSSC theory, because it deals with playful aggression and how it used to cope. Since humor is used as a defense mechanism in adversity, it would show how it is used to deal with mental health and the long term benefits of it. The cognitive aspect of my Z theory plays a large role in mental health. If we are able to determine what style of humor is beneficial to our lives, then we would be able to use that as a defense mechanism used to cope with daily life stressors, therefore meaning that we would evolve.
(Sorry this is so late.)
Of the last chapters, I chose to discuss some characteristics of humor and mental health. There were some key parts that caused the curious side of George to come out of me!!! Also in various therapies, this chapter could actually serve as guide in how to incorporate humor as well as help you make the distinction between diagnosis and humor styles. By picking this chapter it would build on the mere fact that it would help explain why some of the people act the way they do about a particular issue. This can be outlined in the section discussing healthy and unhealthy humor styles. If there were a child molester who needed some form of counseling, having the ability make the distinction between unhealthy and healthy humor could have a serious effect the way the patient interacts with the therapist. Another reason why I chose this chapter was because there isn’t much research shown to be significant with relation to the variables used by other psychologist. If a comfortable communication bond is present with the client and therapist humor can be a way to present an intervention that could possibly be beneficial to them.
I found the particular humor styles to be intriguing because these all can’t really be applicable to all aspects of humor. The first one discussed is aggressive humor, which can be seen as someone who has the sake to the racial joking style. Also its placed in the Negative style category. Self-enhancing humor is seen as someone who continuously becomes amused by different situations of adversity that some their way in which shows a form of coping mechanism. If I travel back to chapter, it speaks about a scale that could be used to determine various personality traits. This particular mechanism was called the State trait Cheerfulness inventory. With this inventory, it showed a relationship in the upward direction hence showing positive correlation between style of affiliative humor, and self-enhancing humor. Another study done by martin, triggered the fact that HSQ in had been linked to self-esteem which were correlated with psychological well-being. Also the target of self-enhancing was positively correlated with affiliative. As we know that we can’t draw anything conclusive from this but this makes us aware of the relationship these two particular humor styles play a role in psychological.
There have been multiple studies done in which have shown how humor plays an intriguing role in developing healthy relationships. This really feeds into the argument that humor has an effect on mental health. If we examine this further we can identify with this statement. In s marriage you are bound to have aversive situations come not just from your end but the others as well. MY mother always use to tell us that whatever situation you deal with, don’t let it get a hold of you so tough that you can’t smile or crack a joke about it. She meant that instead of seeing it from the negative aspect, flip it completely around. A person can be so caught up in what they’re going through instead of looking where they’re going to. In other words, if you look at the end up the valley experience you can get a GLORY GLIMPSE in see how that aversion had to move. That’s why it’s important to laugh when you’re going through because you know you’re not going to be in the place to long. Your elevating to the next level of your success because you didn’t let it psychologically destroys your promise or destiny. I better move on because I get excited with I think about all the aversive situations I’ve endured. For me just to be here today, I know that I can overcome any struggle if I just GET A GLORY GLIMPSE!!!!
The only thing I didn’t like in this chapter was more that it had weak research dealing with studies. Most of this chapter had a numerous correlational studies that were somewhat positive but that really didn’t give the information needed to make a conclusive argument and it wasn’t enough evidence to prove that humor is related to mental health because there wasn’t any significance about any of the studies. Also it wasn’t my most interesting reads as far as the material went but it did allow me to see a few things we can associate with humor.
Things I would be cognizant of after reading reading this chapter would this chapter would be how the superiority theory uses coping mechanisms in dealing with stress and other aversion. This is seen as a playful form of aggression that leads to person gaining a sense of liberation and freedom. From the aversive situation, they experience positive feelings of well-being and efficacy.
I chose chapter 10 Humor and Physical Health because I have heard the saying, “laughter is the best medicine,” so I thought it would be interesting to learn if there was truth behind this saying. This chapter builds on my interest of the psychology of humor by introducing me to the possible health benefits that the simple act of laughing can provide. I unfortunately am not fond of exercising but I love to laugh and be humorous therefore I was eager to read what this chapter had to offer.
The most interesting part of this chapter for me was to read about all the popular beliefs people about humor and health especially humor and pain. What I didn’t enjoy about this chapter is to further read about all the uncertainty that surrounds the notion of humor and health. I felt as though once a topic of interest was discussed it was followed with a lot of might’s and maybes. It is evident that more enhanced research needs to be conducted in the area of psychology of humor and health.
I found the area of humor and pain most interesting because it seems as though of all the health benefits that have been discussed the most consistent has been that laughter and mirth can serve as an analgesic. Studies to determine analgesic effects of humor ranged from experimental studies of pain such as the cold pressure procedure where participants place their hand into a tub of very cold water for minutes at a time. Participants were assigned to different groups such as dull narrative, comedy, active distraction and no-treatment condition they then did the cold pressure procedure results indicated that pain thresholds following the comedy group were higher than the other conditions. Field studies have also been conducted to determine analgesic effects of humor. The field studies consist of assigning post surgery patients in a hospital to three different conditions, a humorous movie group, a non-humorous group, and no-movie group. Results indicated that patients in the humorous movie group used lower levels of minor analgesics such as aspirin. A result from this study I found interesting was the if the participants were not allowed to pick which humorous movie they watched they actually used more aspirin suggesting that if the film is not consistent with their own humor preference it may be aversive rather than beneficial. Overall it has been supported that humor reduces pain but evidences suggests it’s not laughter per se rather its mirth.
As I mentioned before what I didn’t enjoy about this chapter is the inconsistencies and limitations that are present in many of the studies conducted. For example while reading about humor and immunity a lab experiment was discussed that examined the effects of exposure to comedy films on immunological variables assayed in blood samples. This study conducted by Lee Berk had two groups of participants either watched a comedy film or sat in a room quietly. Blood samples were taken before, during, and after the conditions. The blood samples showed an increase in six immunity related variables among the people in the comedy film condition. What this study failed to do was report findings for the control group among other limitations such as a very small sample size of ten individuals. The author of our book further discusses how this study was never published in a peer-reviewed journal article so why even mention this study in this book? Obviously this study is not from a reliable source and to even mention that promising results were obtained from this study does not make sense to me because eventually he further express how it does not provide conclusive scientific evidence of immunity and laughter . I think this has happened a lot throughout this book the author discusses a study only to discredit it a few paragraphs later which is beginning to get on my nerves to me it’s a waste of time.
One thing that I read in this chapter that is useful to me in understanding the psychology of humor is that a common belief, suggested by Normans Cousins, is that laughter reduces pain but evidence suggests that it’s not from laughter per se but from mirth the positive emotion that accompanies humor. When I decided to read this chapter I wanted to know if the saying, “laughter is the best medicine,” had any truth behind it. Throughout this chapter I believe this concept answered my question and had the most consistent support.
Another aspect that will stick with me are the five different potential mechanisms of how humor can influence health. One being the physiological effects of laughter itself. Laughter provides exercise for muscles including the heart. It is also suggested that physiological effects of mirth that accompanies humor and laughter. Changes that take place in the brain have effects on the autonomic nervous system that can have beneficial health effects. Similarly the production and release of endorphins which have been found during play in animal studies which possibly also occur during mirth have beneficial health effects on the immune system and other body functions. Thirdly humor may have a beneficial effect on health through cognitive mechanisms by moderating the adverse effects of stress. The stress moderator mechanisms suggests that having a humorous outlook on life is more important the actual laughter itself. We have learned that humor is a way of coping with stress which can reduce negative health effects. Fourthly humor may have an indirect effect on health through an interpersonal mechanism. People who have a good sense of humor are able to reduce interpersonal conflicts which may lead to more close relationships which serve as a stress buffer leading to health enhancing effects. Lastly a behavioral mechanism may benefit health by promoting a healthy lifestyle. This is speculated because people with a good sense of humor are believed to have higher self esteem, and optimistic outlook on life. This mechanism may not be accurate due to findings of the opposite effect. I have learned that this area in general needs more research but I think that these five mechanisms are worth considering when determining possible health benefits of humor. These concepts have been introduced in previous chapters which I think is why these are important in further understanding the psychology of humor. It’s important to integrate knowledge that we have previously learned to new concepts that are presented.
The last thing that is most useful for me to understand the psychology of humor in this chapter is the fact that psychology of humor and health is very complex and difficult to test. Throughout this book it is evident that research regarding the psychology of humor is in need of more extensive research. During this chapter a lot of research of effects that humor has on health is not conclusive. Studies tend to have methodological limitations, and find contradicting results. I think this is important to take into account when understanding the psychology of humor. For example this chapter appealed to me because I have heard that laughter is the best medicine but actually not much about laughter and health is really certain.
My newly adopted Z theory is the PSSC theory. This theory incorporates ideas from each of the theories we discussed in the early chapters of the book. Some ideas that best fit into the PSSC theory is the idea that humor /mirth can be used a coping mechanism against stress which can relate to the superiority theories belief that humor is a defense/coping mechanism. Another aspect is that humor can increase pain threshold this relates to the cognitive aspect that is incorporated in the PSSC theory. There are a lot of ideas presented in this chapter that fit into this theory because of the PSSC incorporation of all the theories we have discussed.
Terms: Superiority theory; Stress Moderator Mechanism; Mirth