humor research essay

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• v.12(3); 2016 Aug

Psychological Investigations of Humor and Laughter: Honoring the Research Contributions of Professor Rod Martin

Nicholas a. kuiper.

a Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

Welcome to this special issue of Europe’s Journal of Psychology (EJOP), which honors the many psychological research contributions on humor and laughter made by Professor Rod Martin. After completing his graduate training at the University of Waterloo in 1984, Dr. Martin became a faculty member in the clinical psychology program at the University of Western Ontario. Professor Martin then remained at Western for many years, conducting research on humor and laughter, until his very recent retirement in the summer of 2016.

In a distinguished research career which spans over 30 years, Professor Martin has published a large number of high impact research articles, chapters, and scholarly books on humor and laughter. Representative illustrations of these contributions are shown in Table 1 . This table is organized accordingly to the various topic areas within the domains of humor and laughter research that Professor Martin has explored since the early to mid-1980s.

What is immediately apparent, even from a cursory examination of Table 1 , is the extremely broad range of humor and laughter topics that Professor Martin has investigated. Over the years, his theoretical and research contributions have been at the forefront of psychologically-based humor investigations, resulting in considerable advances in our understanding of many different psychological aspects of humor and laughter. For example, in addition to writing a definitive book in 2007 that provided a broad overview of theoretical approaches and research on the psychology of humor and laughter, Dr. Rod Martin has also developed several assessment measures for humor that have become the leading standards in the field, such as the Humor Styles Questionnaire.

Professor Martin has also made substantial theoretical and research contributions to several other longstanding issues in the humor and laughter research domain, including clarifications and elaborations regarding the various relationships between humor and physical health, humor and psychological well-being, and humor and psychopathology. Further themes that have been prominent in Professor Martin‘s research program have integrated his work on humor with a broader positive psychology perspective. Dr. Martin and his colleagues have also mapped out how various personality characteristics and other individual difference attributes may relate to sense of humor, particularly as expressed via the four humor styles. Some of this work has explored developmental issues in humor, whereas other studies have focused on the degree to which sense of humor may display cross-cultural variations.

Further aspects of Professor Martin’s work has addressed the nature versus nurture distinctions by examining humor styles from a behavioral genetics perspective, as well as considering how professional comedians may differ from non-comedians in their upbringing, the expression of certain personality traits and their humor production ability. Dr. Martin has also advanced our understanding of how humor and laughter may be involved in social interactions and close relationships, as well as the use of humor as a possible intervention technique.

Overall, this very brief synopsis of Professor Martin’s many research activities and accomplishments over the past 30 or so years clearly reveals both the breadth and depth of his contributions to our psychological understanding of humor and laugher. In turn, his contributions now provide a robust theoretical-empirical framework that can be built upon by future investigators, as they continue to explore psychological aspects of humor and laughter.

Professor Martin’s legacy in the humor research domain is very strong, and this special issue honors his contributions by presenting an in-depth interview with Dr. Martin ( Martin & Kuiper, 2016 , this issue). In this interview, Professor Martin discusses several of his main humor research contributions over the past 30 years, and provides both a personal and historical perspective on his career highlights and accomplishments. In addition, Dr. Martin also provides many insightful comments regarding some of the most significant issues facing contemporary humor and laughter researchers today.

Articles in the Current Special Issue

In further recognition of Dr. Martin’s many research achievements, this special humor issue of Europe’s Journal of Psychology offers a set of contemporary psychological studies investigating various aspects of humor and laughter. Table 2 provides a brief summary of several key characteristics for each of the papers in this special issue. These characteristics include the humor constructs being investigated in that study, the sample employed, and the main issues under consideration. As can be seen in Table 2 , the majority of the studies in this special issue (see the first 9 listed in this table) build upon Dr. Martin’s prominent humor styles model. In turn, the last 3 papers listed in Table 2 provide samples of additional contemporary work in the humor domain that does not derive directly from Professor Martin’s work, but rather focuses on laughter research, therapeutic medical clowning, and the semiotic analysis of jokes.

What is quite evident across all of the papers in this special issue is the extensive nature of the humor research now being conducted. As shown in Table 2 , participants are drawn from many different countries (Canada, Germany, Norway Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States), and include samples composed of children, adolescents, adults, and couples. The novel themes examined in these studies include associations of humor styles with: (1) happiness and other personality characteristics ( Ford, Lappi, & Holden, 2016 , this issue), (2) forgiveness ( Hampes, 2016 , this issue), (3) cognitive distortions and depression ( Rnic, Dozois, & Martin, 2016 , this issue), (4) pathological personality traits in the DSM-5 ( Zeigler-Hill, McCabe, & Vrabel, 2016 , this issue), (5) psychosocial adjustment across time in adolescents ( Fox, Hunter, & Jones, 2016 , this issue), and (6) short and long-term romantic motives ( DiDonato & Jakubiak, 2016 , this issue).

Other novel aspects of humor styles examined in the current set of studies include: (7) the degree of similarity in humor styles between spouses ( Hahn & Campbell, 2016 , this issue), (8) childrens’ understanding of self-evaluative and self-defeating humor styles ( James & Fox, 2016 , this issue), and (9) adaptations of the Humor Styles Questionnaire for use with German speaking populations ( Ruch & Heintz, 2016 , this issue).

Moving beyond a focus on the humor styles, the remaining studies in this special issue explore: (10) links between laughter, trunk compression and cortical activation ( Svebak, 2016 , this issue), (11) the effects of medical clowning on patients and staff ( Dionigi & Canestrari, 2016 , this issue), and (12) the use of a typology of 45 different techniques to analyze jokes ( Berger, 2016 , this issue).

More generally, as you read through these articles presented in this special humor issue of EJOP , I hope you find them to be enjoyable, informative and enlightening. In addition to honoring Professor Rod Martin’s research work, this collection of articles also provides an intriguing slice of contemporary theory and research on various psychological aspects of humor and laughter. As such, reading about this work may inspire you to also conduct further research on some of the topics described herein. However, in doing so, it should be remembered that the topics covered in this special issue represent only a very small portion of the exponentially increasing number of psychologically-based studies on humor and laughter published in the past few years. This additional research also warrants further detailed consideration as the field moves forward.

Concluding Comments

While preparing this special issue, I received many positive comments from other humor investigators about the stellar quality and high impact of the many research contributions made by Professor Martin throughout his career. Notably, many of these investigators also spontaneously commented on the very gracious interpersonal style that is a hallmark of Professor Martin’s professional interactions with others. His positive demeanor, coupled with a strong ability and desire to unravel the many mysteries still surrounding our use of humor and laughter, helps make Professor Martin a truly outstanding humor scholar. His work has greatly advanced our knowledge and understanding of many different facets of humor and laughter, and we would all like to wish him the best as he begins his retirement.

I would also like to thank all of the reviewers and contributors to this special humor issue for their assistance throughout the many stages of this project. Their co-operation, patience and thoughtfulness certainly helped to make this special issue a very fitting tribute to Professor Martin’s research career and accomplishments. Finally, I would also like to offer considerable thanks to the chief editor of EJOP , Vlad Glăveanu, who has very capably helped me throughout this special issue project. It should be noted that this is the third in a series of special humor issues that Europe’s Journal of Psychology has published (see also Kuiper, 2010 and Kuiper 2014 ). For all three issues, the chief editor’s encouragement and unwavering support has made this editorial task immensely easier.

Acknowledgments

The author has no support to report.

Dr. Nicholas A. Kuiper has been a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Western Ontario since 1978. During this time he has published numerous articles and chapters on humor, psychological well-being, depression, anxiety, self-schema processing of personal information, and various other topics of interest.

The author has no funding to report.

The author has declared that no competing interests exist.

• Berger A. A. (2016). Three holy men get haircuts: The semiotic analysis of a joke. Europe’s Journal of Psychology , 12 , 489-497. doi: 10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1042 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• DiDonato T. E., Jakubiak B. K. (2016). Strategically funny: Romantic motives affect humor style in relationship initiation. Europe’s Journal of Psychology , 12 , 390-405. doi: 10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1105 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dionigi A., Canestrari C. (2016). Clowning in health care settings: The point of view of adults. Europe’s Journal of Psychology , 12 , 473-488. doi: 10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ford T. E., Lappi S. K., Holden C. J. (2016). Personality, humor styles and happiness: Happy people have positive humor styles. Europe’s Journal of Psychology , 12 , 320-337. doi: 10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fox C. L., Hunter S. C., Jones S. E. (2016). Longitudinal associations between humor styles and psychosocial adjustment in adolescence. Europe’s Journal of Psychology , 12 , 377-389. doi: 10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1065 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hahn C. M., Campbell L. J. (2016). Birds of a feather laugh together: An investigation of humour style similarity in married couples. Europe’s Journal of Psychology , 12 , 406-419. doi: 10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1115 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
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• Rnic K., Dozois D. J. A., Martin R. A. (2016). Cognitive distortions, humor styles, and depression. Europe’s Journal of Psychology , 12 , 348-362. doi: 10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
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• Zeigler-Hill V., McCabe G. A., Vrabel J. K. (2016). The dark side of humor: DSM-5 pathological personality traits and humor styles. Europe’s Journal of Psychology , 12 , 363-376. doi: 10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1109 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

The European Journal of Humour Research

Current Issue

The EJHR is an open-access, academic journal published by Cracow Tertium Society for the Promotion of Language Studies and endorsed by The International Society for Humor Studies (ISHS) . The EJHR publishes full research articles, shorter commentaries, which discuss ground-breaking or controversial areas, research notes, which provide details on the research project rationale, methodology and outcomes, as well as book reviews. The journal has a special focus on supporting PhD students and early career researchers by providing them with a forum within which to disseminate their work alongside established scholars and practitioners.

The EJHR welcomes submissions that combine research and relevant applications as well as empirical studies detailing their usefulness to the study of humour. All contributions received (apart from book reviews) undergo a double-blind, peer-review process. In addition to established scholars within humor research, we invite those as yet unfamiliar with (or wary of) humor research to enter the discussion, especially based on less known or less covered material. The elaboration of joint methodological frameworks is strongly encouraged. For further details or inquiries you may contact the Editors.

No charges are applied either for submitting, reviewing or processing articles for publication.       

The journal is now listed in important international indexing bases including Scopus and Scimago ranking :

This publication is supported by the CEES and ELM Scholarly Press.

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Most read and cited papers 2013-2024

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International Journal of Humor Research

• Online ISSN: 1613-3722
• Print ISSN: 0933-1719
• Type: Journal
• Language: English
• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• First published: January 1, 1988
• Publication Frequency: 4 Issues per Year
• Audience: Researchers, students and practitioners with an interest in the scholarly study of humor and related phenomena

Cover Story

The science of humor is no laughing matter.

• Communication
• Interpersonal Communication
• Nonverbal Communication
• Psychological Science
• Social Psychology

In 1957, the BBC aired a short documentary about a mild winter leading to a bumper Swiss spaghetti crop in the town of Ticino. In a dry, distinguished tone, BBC broadcaster Richard Dimbleby narrates how even in the last few weeks of March, the spaghetti farmers worry about a late frost, which might not destroy the pasta crop but could damage the flavor and hurt prices. The narration accompanies film footage of a rural family harvesting long spaghetti noodles from trees and laying them out to dry “in the warm Alpine sun.”

Naturally, the hundreds of people who called the BBC asking where they could get their own spaghetti bushes hadn’t noticed the air date of the news clip: April 1st. The prank was so successful that even some BBC staff were taken in, leading to some criticism about using a serious news show for an April Fool’s Day joke.

Why April 1st became a holiday devoted to pranks and laughter remains a mystery, although some historians trace it back to the Roman holiday of Hilaria. Humans start developing a sense of humor as early as 6 weeks old, when babies begin to laugh and smile in response to stimuli. Laughter is universal across human cultures and even exists in some form in rats, chimps, and bonobos. Like other human emotions and expressions, laughter and humor provide psychological scientists with rich resources for studying human psychology, ranging from the developmental underpinnings of language to the neuroscience of social perception.

The Hidden Language of Laughter

Theories focusing on the evolution of laughter point to it as an important adaptation for social communication. Studies have shown that people are more likely to laugh in response to a video clip with canned laughter than to one without a laugh track, and that people are 30 times more likely to laugh in the presence of others than alone.

“The necessary stimulus for laughter is not a joke, but another person,” writes laughter expert and APS Fellow Robert R. Provine, professor emeritus at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in an article in Current Directions in Psychological Science .

Just look at the canned laughter in TV sitcoms as an example: The laugh track has been a standard part of comedy almost from the birth of television. CBS sound engineer Charley Douglass hated dealing with the inappropriate laughter of live audiences, so in 1950 he started recording his own “laugh tracks.” These early laugh tracks were intended to help people sitting at home feel like they were in a more social situation, such as sitting at a crowded theater. Douglass even recorded varying types of laughter, including big laughs and small chuckles, as well as different mixtures of laughter from men, women, and children.

In doing so, Douglass picked up on one of the qualities of laughter that is now interesting researchers: A simple “ha ha ha” communicates an incredible amount of socially relevant information.

For example, a massive international study conducted in 2016 found that across the globe, people are able to pick up on the same subtle social cues from laughter. Samples of laughter were collected from pairs of English-speaking college students — some friends and some strangers — recorded in a lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz. An integrative team made up of more than 30 psychological scientists, anthropologists, and biologists then played audio snippets of this laughter to 966 listeners from 24 diverse societies spanning six continents, from indigenous tribes in New Guinea to urban working-class people in large cities in India and Europe. Participants then were asked whether they thought the two people laughing were friends or strangers.

On average, the results were remarkably consistent across all 24 cultures: People’s guesses about the relationship between the laughers were correct approximately 60% of the time.

Researchers also have found that different types of laughter can serve as codes to complex human social hierarchies. Across the course of two experiments, a team of psychological scientists led by Christopher Oveis of University of California, San Diego, found that high-status individuals had different laughs than low-status individuals, and that strangers’ judgments of an individual’s social status were influenced by the dominant or submissive quality of the person’s laughter.

“Laughing in the presence of others indicates the interaction is safe,” the researchers explain. “While the norms of most social groups prevent direct, unambiguous acts of aggression and dominance, the use of laughter may free individuals to display dominance because laughter renders the act less serious.”

In the first study, the researchers wanted to know whether high- and low-status individuals actually do laugh differently.

To test this, 48 male college students were randomly assigned to groups of four, with each group composed of two low-status members (“pledges” who had just joined a fraternity a month earlier) and two high-status members (older students who had been active in the fraternity for at least 2 years).

Laughter was recorded on video as the group members engaged in a teasing task. Each member of the group took a turn in the hot seat, receiving light teasing from his peers. The teasers came up with a nickname based on randomly generated sets of initials (e.g., L. I. became “Loser Idiot”) and then told joking stories about why they chose the nickname.

One team of coders (naïve to the study hypotheses) identified all of the instances of laughter in the video, and a second team of coders (also blind to the study hypotheses) watched the video and rated how submissive or dominant each laugh sounded using a scale of −3 (definitely submissive) to 3 (definitely dominant). Laughs receiving average ratings of 2 or higher were classified as dominant, whereas laughs receiving average ratings of −2 or lower were classified as submissive.

A third team of coders, also blind to the hypotheses, coded the audio of each laugh on specific sound characteristics — loudness, pitch, pitch range, pitch modulation, airiness, and burst speed — that are associated with disinhibited behavior.

“If dominant laughs are more disinhibited than submissive laughs, as we hypothesize, they should exhibit greater vocal intensity, more pitch range and modulation, and greater burst speed,” Oveis and colleagues explain.

The analysis revealed that, as predicted, high-status fraternity brothers produced more dominant laughs and fewer submissive laughs relative to the low-status pledges. Dominant laughter was higher in pitch, louder, and more variable in tone than submissive laughter. In this regard, dominant laughter appears to share some of the features researchers have identified in genuine (compared with fake) laughter: greater irregularities in pitch and loudness and faster bursts of sound.

Previous research published in  Psychological Science demonstrated that holding a position of power can influence the acoustic cues of our speech. The voices of individuals primed with high-power roles tended to increase in pitch and were, at the same time, more monotone. Listeners who had no knowledge of the experiment were able to pick up on vocal cues signaling status: They correctly rated individuals in the high-power group as being more powerful with a surprising degree of accuracy — about 72% of the time.

Findings from the fraternity-brother experiment also showed that low-status individuals were more likely to change their laughter based on their position of power; that is, the pledges produced more dominant laughs when they were in the “powerful” role of teasers. High-status individuals, on the other hand, maintained a consistent pattern of dominant laughter throughout the teasing game regardless of whether they were doing the teasing or being teased themselves.

In another study, the research team tested out whether naïve observers could detect an individual’s social status based just on their laughter, and whether the type of laugh (dominant or submissive) could influence judgements of social status.

A group of 51 college students was randomly assigned to listen to a set of 20 of the laughs recorded from the fraternity brothers. Each participant listened to an equal number of dominant and submissive laughs from both high- and low-status individuals. Participants then estimated the social status of the laugher using a series of 9-point ratings scales. And indeed, laughers producing dominant laughs were perceived to be significantly higher in status than laughers producing submissive laughs.

“This was particularly true for low-status individuals, who were rated as significantly higher in status when displaying a dominant versus submissive laugh,” Oveis and colleagues note. “Thus, by strategically displaying more dominant laughter when the context allows, low-status individuals may achieve higher status in the eyes of others.”

However, regardless of whether raters heard a dominant or a submissive laugh from a high-status individual, they rated that person as being relatively high in status.

It’s unclear whether this was because high-status laughs include characteristics that were not measured in the current study or whether high-status fraternity brothers just didn’t have very convincing low-status laughs while being teased.

When it comes to comedy, it’s often a thin line between love and hate. What qualities make something funny (or not) is a question that philosophers have been attempting to answer for thousands of years. But a pair of psychological scientists have come up with a theory that explains why we might laugh at a dark joke about murder as well as a silly pun or play on words.

Psychological scientists Peter McGraw (University of Colorado, Boulder) and Caleb Warren (University of Arizona) propose that negativity is an intrinsic part of humor — without violating a norm or rule of some kind, a joke just isn’t funny. But violations can’t stray too far; otherwise, they become unappealing or even disgusting and upsetting. According to the researchers’ Benign Violation Theory, a violation is humorous when it breaks a rule or norm but is benign.

McGraw and Warren’s Humor Research Lab (HuRL) has conducted several studies examining the exact criteria that cause us to perceive a comedic situation as benign or not. Along with the severity of the norm violation, a sense of psychological distance from the violation — by space, time, relationships, or imagination — is a key ingredient for turning an unpleasant situation into a humorous one, they posit.

For example, in a study published in Psychological Science , the researchers looked at the effect of psychological distance in terms of time. Inspired by the classic Mark Twain quote, “Humor is tragedy plus time,” the research team investigated how the passage of time can influence one’s perception of an event as funny or painful.

“If distance increases the humor in severe violations (i.e., tragedies), but decreases the humor in mild violations (i.e., mishaps), then autobiographical events that get funnier over time should feature more severe violations than those that get less funny over time,” the researchers write.

One study found that the events from people’s lives that became funnier over time were more severe events (like a car accident), while events that lost their comedic effect over time were seen as minor violations (like stubbing a toe).

Another study examined distance by manipulating whether an image was seen as hypothetical or real. A group of 67 students was asked to rate the humor of images from a website. Those in the  close  condition were told they would be looking at real photos that “have not been altered using image design software”; participants in the  distant  condition were told they would be viewing “fake pictures” that “have been altered using image design software.”

One picture portrayed a severe abnormality: a Cronenbergian image of a man sticking a finger up through his nose out of his eye socket. The other portrayed a mild abnormality — a man with large icicles hanging from his frozen beard. Using a 6-point scale, participants rated how funny they thought the photos were.

The students rated the more disturbing image of the empty eye socket as more humorous when they were told it was fake, and they reported the less disturbing frozen-beard image as more humorous when they thought it was real.

“These findings suggest that there’s a real sweet spot in comedy — you have to get the right mix between how bad something is and how distant it is in order for it to be seen as a benign violation,” McGraw said.

The Energizing Effect of Humor

Having trouble finishing a project on deadline? Well, put down that Red Bull and head over to YouTube. No joke — watching funny cat videos at work may not be such a bad thing after all. A study conducted by Australian National University management professors David Cheng and Lu Wang suggests that exposure to humorous stimuli may actually help people persevere in completing tedious tasks.

Across two studies, Cheng and Wang found that people who watched a funny video clip before a task spent approximately twice as long on a tiresome task compared with people who watched neutral or positive (but not funny) videos.

Prior research has found that humor can help facilitate recovery from stressful situations, even prolonging people’s tolerance for physical pain. In the business world, many successful organizations such as Zappos, Virgin, and Google deliberately build play areas into their workspaces and organize fun events to ameliorate the stressful nature of work, boost morale, and increase productivity.

Indeed, in a 2007 article published in  Current Directions in Psychological Science , APS William James Fellow Roy F. Baumeister (Florida State University), APS Fellow Kathleen D. Vohs (University of Minnesota), and APS Fellow Dianne M. Tice (Florida State University) point to humor as a factor that can moderate or counteract the effects of mental depletion.

In line with this idea, Cheng and Wang hypothesized that humor may provide a respite from tedious situations in the workplace. This “mental break” might not only prevent work-related depletion, but also might facilitate the replenishment of mental resources, ultimately allowing people to persist longer on difficult tasks.

To test this theory, for their first study the researchers recruited 74 students studying in a business class to come into the lab, ostensibly for an experiment on perception. First, the students performed a mentally depleting task in which they had to cross out every instance of the letter “e” contained in two pages of text. The students then were randomly assigned to watch a video clip eliciting either humor, contentment, or neutral emotions.

For the humorous video, students watched a clip of the BBC comedy “Mr. Bean.” In the contentment condition, participants watched a scene with dolphins swimming in the ocean. The students in the neutral condition were treated to an 8-minute video about the management profession designed for students studying business. Immediately after watching the videos, participants reported their responses to a list of 16 discrete emotions (e.g., amusement, anger, disgust) using a 7-point scale.

Then the students completed a persistence task in which they played what amounted to an unwinnable game. The students were asked to guess the potential performance of employees based on provided profiles and were told that making 10 correct assessments in a row would lead to a win. However, the computer software was programmed such that it was nearly impossible to achieve 10 consecutive correct answers. Participants were allowed to quit the task at any time.

Students who watched the humorous “Mr. Bean” video clip ended up spending significantly more time working on the task, making twice as many predictions as the other two groups.

Cheng and Wang then replicated these results in a second study, during which they had participants complete long multiplication questions by hand. Again, participants who watched the humorous video spent significantly more time working on the task and completed more questions correctly than did those who did not watch the funny video.

“Although humor has been found to help relieve stress and facilitate social relationships, the traditional view of task performance implies that individuals must concentrate all their effort on their endeavors and should avoid things such as humor that may distract them from the accomplishment of task goals,” Cheng and Wang conclude. “We suggest that humor is not only enjoyable but more importantly, energizing.”

Kathleen D. Vohs will speak at the 2017 APS Annual Convention, May 25–28, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., & Tice, D. M. (2007). The strength model of self-control.  Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16 , 351–355. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00534.x

Bryant, G. A., Fessler, D. M. T., Fusaroli, R., Clint, E., Aarøe, L., Apicella, C. L., … Zhou, Y. (2016). Detecting affiliation in colaughter across 24 societies.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ,  113 , 4682–4687. doi:10.1073/pnas.1524993113

Cheng, D., & Wang, L. (2015). Examining the energizing effects of humor: The influence of humor on persistence behavior.  Journal of Business and Psychology, 30 , 759–772. doi:10.1007/s10869-014-9396-z

Ko, S. J., Sadler, M. S., & Galinsky, A. D. (2014). The sound of power: Conveying and detecting hierarchical rank through voice.  Psychological Science, 26 , 3–14. doi:10.1177/0956797614553009

McGraw, A. P., & Warren, C. (2010). Benign violations: Making immoral behavior funny.  Psychological Science ,  21 , 1141–1149. doi:10.1177/0956797610376073

McGraw, A. P., Warren, C., Williams, L. E., & Leonard, B. (2012). Too close for comfort, or too far to care? Finding humor in distant tragedies and close mishaps.  Psychological Science , 23 , 1215–1223. doi:10.1177/0956797612443831

Oveis, C., Spectre, A., Smith, P. K., Liu, M. Y., & Keltner, D. (2016). Laughter conveys status.  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology ,  65 , 109–115. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2016.04.005

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EDITORIAL article

Editorial: humor and laughter, playfulness and cheerfulness: upsides and downsides to a life of lightness.

• 1 Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
• 2 Department of Psychology, University of Sunderland, Sunderland, United Kingdom
• 3 Department of Psychology, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
• 4 Department of Psychology, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

Editorial on the Research Topic Humor and Laughter, Playfulness and Cheerfulness: Upsides and Downsides to a Life of Lightness

Introduction

This research topic brings together the four research areas of humor, laughter, playfulness, and cheerfulness. There are partial overlaps among these phenomena. Humor may lead to laughter but not all laughter is related to humor. Playfulness is considered the basis of humor (a play with ideas), but not all play is humorous. Cheerfulness is considered the temperamental basis of good humor, a disposition for laughter and for keeping humor in face of adversity but it mostly overlaps with the socio-affective component of humor. Laughter was considered a play signal and to indicate the annulment of seriousness, but there is play without laughter and laughter outside of play. Cheerfulness might facilitate play and cheerful state might be raised due to play but again the conceptual overlap is only partial. They all contribute to levity in life and their apparent similarity suggests studying them together to map out the territory; i.e., to see where they overlap and what is specific. While these traits and behaviors have the potential to contribute to a good life, there is the danger of overlooking their non-virtuous facets; that is, laughter may not only be expressing amusement but scorn directed at people, humor may be benevolent but there is also sarcasm, and playfulness may elicit positive emotions but also risk prone behaviors. While this research topic solicited articles to these four domains without the aim to connect them, a few articles did and it is expected that growing together will be one outcome of this compilation of articles.

Currently, these fields are studied mostly in isolation. A literature search (using the psychology database of Web of Science Core Collection from 1900, 06.08.2018) yielded that humor is clearly leading in terms of number of publications ( n = 3,006), followed by laughter ( n = 1,412), playful(ness) ( n = 629), and cheerful(ness) ( n = 204). As a comparison, antonyms were studied as well, and yielded higher numbers, such as for crying ( n = 1640), serious-mindedness (or seriousness) ( n = 892), and sadness ( n = 3,654). The latter indicates that sadness is 18 times more frequently researched than cheerfulness.

Next, the frequency of articles combining terms was investigated. Combinations of humor and one of the other key terms are rather infrequent with the exception of “humor and laughter” ( n = 454), suggesting that about 10% of all articles on humor also refer to laughter. Humor and playfulness ( n = 59) and humor and cheerfulness ( n = 53) represent only 2% of all articles on humor, and these numbers are still much higher than any combination among the other three. This clearly shows that work is needed integrating these areas to examine how the concepts overlap both regarding their defining substance but also in predicting third variables. It should be mentioned that in a pioneering publication preceding the renaissance of empirical humor research three of the keywords were considered together. Toronto-based English psychologist ( Berlyne, 1969 ) gave an account of laughter, humor, and play in a chapter in a handbook of social psychology. The compilation of research in the four fields is aimed at deepening our understanding of these concepts and stimulating research combining them.

Overview of Studies

There are 32 manuscripts in this research topic. Not surprisingly, most articles are on various aspects of humor, followed by laughter (including dispositions to ridicule and being laughed at), playfulness and cheerfulness. To highlight some prevalent issues beforehand: Individual studies relate to introducing new concepts, or new scales or working on existing ones ( Aykan and Nalçaci ; Bruntsch and Ruch; Heintz et al.; Hofmann et al.; Hofmann et al.; Ruch and Heintz; Ruch et al.; Ruch et al. ). Furthermore, substantial attempts are made to develop and evaluate trainings and interventions ( Auerbach; Linge-Dahl et al.; Tagalidou et al.; Wellenzohn et al. ). There is also a significant number of cross-cultural comparisons ( Heintz et al.; Pang and Proyer; Tosun et al. ) and systematic literature reviews ( Chadwick and Platt; Linge-Dahl et al. ). What research questions were posed and what have we learned in the different fields?

Humor and Humor-Related Traits

Seven contributions relate to humor. Two are systematic reviews summarizing the use of humor in their related fields. Chadwick and Platt 's paper draws upon the 32 existing articles on humor with regards to intellectual disability, which they found grouped into eight emergent themes. The paper showed humor to be of importance in social interactions, not only for people with intellectual disabilities but those who support them and highlighted both the positive and the negative role of humor for both groups. However, the authors suggest that future studies should aim for more empirical rigor when investigating this important, yet complex construct. As Heintz et al. highlighted, the terminology of a dichotomized thinking of positive and negative humor may be a too simplistic approach, especially when thinking about fostering positive relationships. For example, employing carers with a propensity for benevolent humor may help forge more than a work relationship, but a friendship.

In the study of humor assessment and interventions in palliative care, Linge-Dahl et al. reviewed 13 papers. The review found that although the papers were difficult to compare, it was clear that humor is an appropriate and useful resource in palliative care of terminally ill patients (in different settings, such as hospices or oncology wards). Given this review accounts for the last 20 years, the authors note that research is still exceptionally limited, although humor interventions showed promising results on many well-being outcomes.

Humor as a quality that can be trained and developed evidently has potential not only to increase well-being in the terminally ill but also to reducing stress, depressiveness, and anxiety in a population of sub-clinical individuals ( Tagalidou et al. ). This pilot intervention demonstrated encouraging evidence that a humor training can have a stable, long-lasting impact on increasing positive affective states and reducing levels of stress, depressiveness and anxiety. This study also reported a relatively low attrition rate, which would suggest that participants were enjoying themselves, whilst having an overall positive impact on their mental health.

Wellenzohn et al. studied who benefits from online humor-based positive psychology interventions. In Study 1, personality traits were tested and it was the extraverts that benefitted more from the three funny things intervention than introverts did. Remembering emotional events allows reliving the emotion and the extraverts' tendency to positive emotions (i.e., the amusement due to the funny events during the day) apparently contributed to increasing their level of happiness and to lowering their depressive symptoms. In Study 2, no moderating effects were found for sense of humor on the effectiveness of the five humor-based interventions tested. Interestingly, however, changes in sense of humor from pretest to the 1-month follow-up predicted later changes in happiness and depressive symptoms. Thus, increases in sense of humor during and after the intervention are associated with the interventions' effectiveness.

Instruments that measure aspects of humor were investigated in five studies. Heintz et al. investigate responses to the BenCor in 25 samples from 22 countries. The BenCor measures humor aiming at the good and may be seen as a character (as different from personality or temperament) approach to humor. Benevolent humor treats human weaknesses and wrongdoings benevolently, while corrective humor aims at correcting and bettering them. The 12 items exhibited sufficient psychometric qualities in most of the samples. Metric measurement invariance was supported across the 25 samples, and scalar invariance was supported across age and across gender. This study supported the suitability of the 12 marker items of benevolent and corrective humor in different countries, enabling cross-cultural research and eventually applications of humor aiming at the good. Importantly, benevolent and corrective humor were clearly established as two positively related, yet distinct dimensions of virtue-related humor.

Ruch and Heintz study the construct and criterion validity of the HSQ ( Martin et al., 2003 ), which assesses humor styles. They argue that each item entails construct-relevant content (i.e., humor) but also (unwanted) variance produced by the item context. The 32 items were experimentally manipulated to strip off the context or to substitute the humor content by non-humorous alternatives (i.e., only assessing context). Study 1 shows that humor is not the primary source of the variance in three of the HSQ scales with the self-defeating humor style being primarily determined by the context. Study 2 shows that also the relationships of the HSQ with personality were reduced and those with subjective well-being vanished when the non-humorous contexts in the HSQ items were controlled for. For self-defeating, removing the context rendered the results to a positive rather than a negative view of the humor in this humor style. The results suggest that the items of humor instruments warrant careful examination.

Ruch et al. enlarge the list of styles of humor by adding fun, benevolent humor, non-sense, wit, irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism and by providing first evidence for the reliability and validity of a set of 48 marker items for their assessment, the Comic Style Markers (CSM). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that the eight styles could be distinguished in English- and German-speaking samples, and studying self- and other-reports supported both convergent and discriminant validity. Studies also showed that the scales tapped differentially into personality, intelligence, and character strengths; for example, wit correlated with verbal intelligence, fun with indicators of vitality and extraversion, and while benevolent humor was related to strengths of the heart, the styles related to mock/ridicule (i.e., sarcasm, cynicism, but also irony) correlated negatively with character strengths. The results suggest that more styles may be distinguished than was done hitherto, which is also confirmed by Heintz and Ruch (2019) .

Two more studies examine irony in more detail and distinguish between two forms. Bruntsch and Ruch investigate irony in ironic criticisms (i.e., mock positive evaluation of negative circumstances) and ironic praise (i.e., mock negative evaluation of positive circumstances). They introduce the TOVIDA (Test of Verbal Irony Detection Aptitude) containing 26 scenario-based items for the detection of ironic criticism vs. ironic praise. Initial validation is provided by exploring personality and ability correlates of the two TOVIDA scales. Relatedly, Milanowicz et al. study mocking compliments and ironic praise from an interactional gender perspective. The ability to create irony is assessed and related to state and trait anxiety. Male responses were consistently more ironic but both genders used more irony in response to male ironic criticism than to female ironic praise. Anxiety predicted irony comprehension and willingness to use irony. The results enrich the discussion within the framework of linguistic intergroup bias and natural selection strategies.

Also Aykan and Nalçaci introduce a new instrument (ToM-HCAT) for assessment of ToM (i.e., theory of mind) by humor comprehension and appreciation suitable for healthy adult populations. This performance test consisting of cartoons measures perceived funniness, reaction time to perceived funniness decision, and meaning inference. While a first validation is presented (individuals high and low in the Autism Spectrum Quotient differ in the meaning-inference scores of the subscale with the ToM cartoons) it awaits further validation to support the claim it is useful to detect variations in ToM ability in the healthy adult population.

While Heintz et al. study country differences in measured humor traits, Tosun et al. explore lay conceptions of an ideal sense of humor in three countries, namely Iran, United States, and Turkey. As in prior US studies they find that the embodiment of an ideal sense of humor is predominantly a male figure. Country and gender had an impact on relative number of specific humor characteristics. For example, Americans mentioned hostility/sarcasm and caring more often than participants from the other countries. Further work is needed to replicate the observed group differences and to identify their sources.

Canestrari et al. use the Theory of the Pleasures of the Mind to study the enjoyment derived from both humor and insight problem solving as they share similar cognitive mechanisms. The results show that finding the solution to a problem is associated with a positive evaluation, and curiosity, virtuosity and violation of expectations are the most frequent explanations. Understanding a joke is accompanied by the joy of verification and a feeling of surprise. However, the choice for the most enjoyable cartoons related to other factors, such as recognizing a violation of expectations and experiencing a diminishment in the cleverness attributed to the characters in the cartoon.

Mendiburo-Seguel et al. investigate the effects of political humor on an individual's trust toward politics and politicians. They conducted two experiments, in which participants were exposed to political disparagement humor to non-humorous political information, or to non-political humor. Study 1 showed that an exposure to political disparagement humor and non-humorous political contents negatively affects trust in politicians immediately after the exposure. Study 2, in which semidaily messages were sent to the participants, did not yield significant effects.

The study by Wagner nicely demonstrates how close upside and downside of humor are together by showing that class clown behavior was positively related to different indicators of social status and peer-rated popular-leadership behavior, but also to aggressive-disruptive behaviors and negatively to prosocial behaviors. Thus, humor is involved in making a student popular but it may also be used in destructive ways. The study also demonstrates that it is important to distinguish among different dimensions of class clown behavior, as they yielded different results.

Laughter and Dispositions to Ridicule and Being Laughed at

Laughter is both a social signal and an expression of emotion with several behavioral and physiological components (e.g., respiratory, acoustic, facial, postural, hormonal). There are different motivations for laughter (with laughing with and laughing at being a minimal distinction made by many) and there are individual differences to be considered regarding both the laughing person and the one perceiving the laughter. Laughter is studied among the healthy but also within psychopathology. Clearly, the section of this research topic devoted to laughter and laughter-related dispositions received a variety of submissions.

Ritter and Sauter investigated whether listeners can identify in- and out-group members from laughter. They showed that listeners were unable to accurately identify group identity from laughter and the exposure to a group did not affect the classification performance. In conclusion, group membership cannot be inferred from the way people laugh.

Curran et al. test the notion that laughter is an ambiguous signal, which is only interpreted correctly in the context it occurs. They provide supportive data from two experiments in which participants judged the genuineness of audio–video recordings of social interactions containing laughter (either original or replacement laughter). When replacement laughter was matched for intensity, genuineness judgments were similar to judgments of the original recordings. When replacement laughter was not matched for intensity, genuineness judgments were generally significantly lower.

Stewart et al. used the 2016 US presidential debates to study laughter together with other responses of audience, such as applause, cheering, laughter, and even booing. In three interconnected studies the impact of the norm-violating audience behavior on those watching or listening was studied. Applause–cheering significantly enhanced liking of the speaking candidate, whereas laughter did not, and party identity mediated the response to applause–cheering, but not for laughter. Thus, in such settings, cheering may be more socially contagious and laughter more stereotypic and likely to be mimicked.

The study by Auerbach confirms that it is important to distinguish between Duchenne Displays as an indicator of joy and non-Duchenne displays. Only the former go along with a variety of indicators of positive experience during a visit of hospital clowns in a rehabilitation center. Thus, also in such interventions it pays off to invest into the fine-grained assessment of facial expressions; i.e., to use the Facial Action Coding System to code the patients' affective responses. Only the Duchenne displays are affected by trait cheerfulness and they can serve as an indicator that hospital clown interventions are beneficial for patients.

The study of laughter also includes the dispositions to laughter—more precisely individual differences in qualities relating to laughing at and being laughed at. They are still the new kid on the block of variables related to humor and laughter with a research tradition of about 10 years. Gelotophobia (i.e., the fear of being laughed at) represents one form of humorlessness and gelotophobes see humor and laughter as weapons directed at them not as a basis for a pleasant experience to be shared with others. Together with gelotophilia (i.e., the joy of being laughed at) and katagelasticism (i.e., the joy of laughing at others) gelotophobia forms the dispositions to being laughed at and ridicule.

Two of the articles in the present collection of articles relate to their assessment. Ruch et al. utilize a picture completion task to derive a more unobtrusive semi-projective test of gelotophobia. This alternative instrument for the assessment of gelotophobia turns out to yield comparable results to the standard assessment. Hofmann et al. fulfill the need for an ultra short instrument for the assessment of these three dispositions and extends research into the workplace. They propose (and confirm in a nationally representative sample of employees) that if friendly teasing and laughter of co-workers, superiors, or customers are misperceived as malicious, one may feel less satisfied with work and life and experience more work stress. Conversely, gelotophilia went along with positive evaluations of one's life and work, and katagelasticism was negatively related to work satisfaction and positively related to work stress. Torres-Marín et al. provide evidence that gelotophobia is related to a potential bias in gaze discrimination in two experiments. Interestingly, the nature of the emotion did not play the expected role raising the question what elements are necessary for smiling faces to elicit the effect among gelotophobes.

Renner and Manthey investigate humor creation abilities in their study of self-presentation styles and dispositions to ridicule and being laughed at. They derive scores for quantitative (e.g., number of punch lines) and qualitative (e.g., wittiness of the punch lines and wittiness of the person as evaluated by three independent raters) aspects of humor creation abilities. Results show that both gelotophilia and histrionic self-presentation are supported by fluency and quality of humor creation abilities.

Three manuscripts examine gelotophobia in circumscribed groups. Kohlmann et al. investigated the associations between the experience of weight-related teasing and mockery with overweight, self-perceptions of weight, and gelotophobia in youth. Deviations from normal weight were related to experiencing teasing, which in turn was related to the fear of being laughed at. The four studies suggest that research on well-being of youth with weight problems would benefit from studying weight-related teasing and mockery in connection with gelotophobia. Tsai et al. study the relation between the dispositions toward ridicule and being laughed at, personality, and presence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in high school students. As in prior studies, the ASD group was found to have a higher level of gelotophobia and the present study reveals that they also have lower levels of gelotophilia and katagelasticism. However, extraversion fully accounted for the observed lower gelotophobia scores among the ASD sample, and partly for the differences found for gelotophilia. Brück et al. investigated the prevalence of gelotophobia among Borderline Personality Disorder patients. They showed an extraordinarily high level of the fear of being laughed at (i.e., 87%) compared to other clinical and non-clinical reference groups.

Playfulness

The section on playfulness consists of five contributions of which two have a qualitative approach, while the others are quantitative in nature. Two contributions focus on play (the behavior associated with trait playfulness) and playfulness in school and the others employ adult samples. With 1,235 Tweets reaching an upper bound of 3,945,511 followers (March 25th, 2019) 1 , Barnett's article attracted much attention on social media. Her analyses show that teachers react differently—more negatively—toward playfulness expressed by boys than by girls (kindergarten-aged children followed up across 3 years). In contrast, playfulness in girls did not seem to be a concern for the teachers. The methodology employed and the study of gender differences provides a valuable update on earlier literature. Overall, the emerging question is how teachers, schools and societies in general may benefit from playfulness in the classroom.

Pinchover 's pilot study examines the interplay of playfulness in teachers and their students. Taking the limitations of this initial study into account, this may indicate that teacher behavior impacts children's playfulness. Given that there is initial evidence for a contribution of playfulness to academic achievement and more robust data on a beneficial use for stress coping, some functions of playfulness may be helpful for students in their learning experience and development.

The idea that a playful state of mind contributes to innovativeness and creativity has received much interest in the literature (for overviews see Proyer et al., 2019 ) and, for example, it has been argued that “[…] a child who experiences truly “playful play” learns cognitive and behavioral processes that enhance his creative potential” ( Bishop and Chace, 1971 ; p. 321). Heimann and Roepstorff introduce microphenomenological interviews as a method for research in playfulness. In this initial study, they found that autonomy and self-expression were of particular importance for achieving a playful state of mind.

Proyer et al. test associations of playfulness with self-reported health, activity, and physical fitness. Self- and peer-ratings (i.e., ratings by knowledgeable others; Study 1) and a series of behavioral tests (Study 2) to assess playfulness were collected. Overall, playfulness is linked to some facets of physical functioning. Future research will have to clarify the pathways and moderators of these associations (e.g., causality or indirect ways of impacting greater physical activity).

Finally, Pang and Proyer present first data on a comparison of playfulness scores in samples from two regions in the P.R. China and a sample from German-speaking countries—using measures from both, the East and the West. The article provides details on cultural differences and linguistic challenges in the translation of the term playfulness. Overall, the findings indicate that differences are smaller than expected, but that the differentiation between private and public situations impacts how people in the two regions enjoy expressing their playfulness. This study narrows a gap in the literature by providing initial data on cross-cultural differences (see also Barnett, 2017 ) and highlights that larger scale cross-cultural comparisons are encouraged.

These five studies support the notion that playfulness has an impact on various domains of life, but also that more research will be needed for a better understanding of its role across different age groups.

Cheerfulness

Cheerfulness has a tradition in psychological research for more than 100 years (e.g., Morgan et al., 1919 ). Trait cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood have been proposed to form the temperamental basis of humor. Bypassing the vague folk concept of the “sense of humor” they were expected to predict humor-related thoughts, feelings, and actions. Washburn in her early studies claimed that a person in the attitude of cheerfulness is incapable of a depressing thought, and meanwhile there is ample evidence that trait cheerful individuals maintain being in a cheerful state (i.e., keep humor) in the face of adversity. The contributions of the present collection of articles are diverse. First, a training of humor yielded outcomes for cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood) in the desired direction with medium to large effect sizes ( Tagalidou et al. ). Different to a recent study ( Ruch et al., 2018 ) the state version was utilized. Congruent with the assumption that cheerfulness predicts smiling and laughter, Auerbach shows that trait cheerful patients showed more genuine smiling and laughter during a hospital clown intervention than low trait cheerful individual do. Hofmann et al. present an adaptation of the instrument measuring state and trait cheerfulness using samples from the USA and the UK to providing the basis for studies with English-speaking participants. Next to the long version with 106 items, they provide the standard short form with 60 items and deliver initial validation data. López-Benítez et al. investigate a cognitive mechanism associated with trait cheerfulness. Utilizing a task-switching paradigm they find that while trait cheerfulness does not influence switching costs it modulates preparation and repetition effects. Studies like this are needed to further illuminate the processes associated with the traits be it cheerfulness, playfulness, or humor. Bruntsch and Ruch find trait cheerfulness and low bad mood facilitating the detection of ironic praise.

Conclusions

The individual contributions show how humor, laughter, playfulness, and cheerfulness are related and yet heterogeneous. Each field would profit from starting to talk to each other, see overlaps in scope, finding common structure, common language, and work on theories connecting these fields. Combining the domains in the prediction of important criteria might be important too. The topics studies in this research topic (plus others) may be understood as nodes in a larger net and the interrelations need to be better explored.

It is positive to see that integrative models within the domains are now developed. This indeed needs to be the prime goal, namely to work on a solid structure within the four fields. It took research of personality and intelligence more than half a century to arrive at models that are shared by many. Also in these fields we once had “schools” that did believe into one model and defended it a lifetime. Later generations of researchers then found that the competing models were incomplete variants and do fit into a more general, often hierarchical model. We recommend concerted efforts to solve those basic questions, perhaps by compiling special issues on pertinent topics.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the authors who agreed to participate in this Topic with their original contributions, and to all the reviewers who promoted the quality of research and manuscripts with their comments. Furthermore, special remarks go to Frontiers staff and Professors Marcel Zentner and Anat Bardi for the opportunity they gave to us.

1. ^ https://frontiers.altmetric.com/details/33125117/twitter

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Keywords: humor, playfulness, laughter, cheerfulness, gelotophobia, wit

Citation: Ruch W, Platt T, Proyer RT and Chen H-C (2019) Editorial: Humor and Laughter, Playfulness and Cheerfulness: Upsides and Downsides to a Life of Lightness. Front. Psychol . 10:730. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00730

Received: 22 February 2019; Accepted: 15 March 2019; Published: 09 April 2019.

Edited and reviewed by: Nadin Beckmann , Durham University, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2019 Ruch, Platt, Proyer and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Willibald Ruch, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Humor in Psychology: Coping and Laughing Your Woes Away

Humor just feels good; it distracts us from our problems and promotes a lighter perspective. For this reason, many famous quotes have been penned about the benefits of humor, such as:

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

Twain had a point, as the research literature supports a relationship between humor and a wide range of positive psychosocial outcomes. This article will provide readers with an abundance of information regarding the theoretical foundations of humor within the field of psychology, as well as empirical studies linking humor to various favorable outcomes.

Meaningful quotes and additional resources are also included, along with a bit of humor sprinkled throughout.

Before you continue reading, we thought you might like to download our three Grief Exercises [PDF] for free . These science-based tools will help you move yourself or others through grief in a compassionate way.

This Article Contains:

Theories of humor in psychology, humor as a character strength.

• Coping or Defense Mechanisms?

18 Examples of Humor as a Strength

Humor’s role in stress, 6 ways to explore and maximize this strength, a brief look at dark humor, 8 quotes on the subject, 10 relevant books, positivepsychology.com humor resources, a take-home message.

Philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle have been trying to explain humor since ancient times. Recent scholars have proposed several theories explaining the underlying mechanisms of humor.

Martin and Ford (2018) describe the three top humor theories. First, relief theory focuses primarily on the motivational mechanisms of interpersonal needs, positing that humor provides relief of tension. The authors describe this as akin to a hydraulic engine, with laughter serving the function of a steam pipe pressure valve. In this way, pent-up pressure is relieved through laughter.

More specifically, the muscular and respiratory processes involved in laugher serve the important role of releasing pent-up nervous energy (Martin & Ford, 2018).

Many of us may relate to high-anxiety situations where a joke feels like a much-needed outlet. For example, in a famous scene on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary is distressed by the death of Chuckles the Clown, who, while dressed as a peanut, was killed by an elephant in a circus parade.

Mary is deeply offended by office jokes following the parade incident. However, she finds herself overwhelmed with an anxious energy that finally reaches its peak at the clown’s funeral, where she is mortified by her inability to stop her pressure valve of nervous laughter.

The second theory described by Martin and Ford (2018) is the superiority theory , which focuses on interpersonal motivational mechanisms, with humor resulting as a function of self-esteem enhancement. In this way, humor results from feelings of triumph over the errors or misfortune of others, which promotes self-enhancement and feelings of superiority.

Incongruity theory , which focuses on the cognitive mechanisms of perception and interpretation, posits that it is the perceptions of incongruity that explain humor (Martin & Ford, 2018). In other words, laughter is a function of anticipating a different outcome than what was expected.

Incongruity theory is believed to be the most influential humor theory, with some proposing that “ incongruity is at the core of all humor” (Zhan, 2012, p. 95). This theory is intuitive, as a joke with an expected or obvious punchline is simply not funny. Instead, laughter occurs in response to unexpected punchlines or those that go against usual patterns (Wilkins & Eisenbraun, 2009).

I was raised as an only child. My siblings took it pretty hard.

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Positive psychologists have a keen interest in the role of character strengths, which have been described as virtues that are crucial to human thriving (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).

Peterson and Seligman (2004) propose six virtues and 24 character strengths that fall within each virtue category (a few examples below):

• Wisdom and knowledge — Creativity & curiosity
• Humanity — Kindness & love
• Justice — Fairness & leadership
• Transcendence — Gratitude & humor

Proposed links between humor and positive wellbeing are intuitive; it makes sense that those with a good sense of humor will be in a better position to weather difficult situations, enjoy more cohesive relationships, find humor in all sorts of experiences, and benefit from more positive mental and physical health (Martin, 2019).

These ideas are supported by empirical research, and here are several examples:

• Engaging in a humor exercise is associated with a positive mood (Edwards, 2013) and positive cognitive appraisals (Maiolino & Kuiper, 2016).
• A sense of humor is associated with increased life satisfaction and a pleasurable and engaged life (Ruch, Proyer, & Weber, 2010).
• Humor has been reported as among the top eight of 24 character strengths and is associated with increased life satisfaction, life engagement, and life pleasure (Samson & Antonelli, 2013).
• Adaptive humor is linked with increased stable positive mood and decreased stable negative mood (Cann & Collette, 2014).

An important caveat to the above findings is that the type of humor a person exhibits also plays a key role in determining its impact. This idea is evident in Cann and Collette’s study (2014), as positive outcomes were associated with self-enhancing humor.

Detrimental humor (e.g., sarcasm and self-disparaging humor), on the other hand, is believed to have potentially negative ramifications such as reduced relationship quality and low self-esteem (Martin, 2019). Therefore, it is suggested that the absence of detrimental humor is equally important to the presence of prosocial humor styles (Martin, 2019).

These findings have been supported by other research studies, such as that by Maiolino and Kuiper (2016), who investigated the ability of humor to predict positive outcomes.

The researchers found that greater wellbeing was related to affiliative and self-enhancing humor, whereas reduced wellbeing was linked to aggressive and self-defeating humor (Maiolino & Kuiper, 2016).

Similarly, in their review, Stieger, Formann, and Burger (2011) reported that self-defeating humor was linked to depression and loneliness, whereas self-enhancing humor was related to beneficial outcomes.

A sandwich walks into a bar. The barman says “Sorry we don’t serve food in here.”

The psychology of humor – Princeton University

Coping or Defense Mechanisms

When is a coping technique seen as a way to manage, and when is it seen as a defense mechanism?

What is a defense mechanism?

The concept of defense mechanisms originated in psychoanalytic theory. Defense mechanisms are believed to protect the ego from emotional pain through the unconscious mind’s distortion of reality.

The use of defense mechanisms may have positive or negative ramifications depending upon the particular mechanism and how it is used. For example, the mechanism of denial, when used by addicts, serves as a barrier to accepting the addiction and seeking help. In contrast, a person who is not yet ready to face trauma may use mechanisms such as regression or suppression as protective mechanisms until ready to face the situation.

Humor also may function as an adaptive ego defense by enabling people to perceive the comical absurdity in highly challenging situations. In this respect, humor serves as both a defense mechanism and a way of coping with adversity .

Research has supported this idea. For example, in a study by Samson, Glassco, Lee, and Gross (2014), humorous coping applied after viewing negative pictures was found to increase positive emotions at both short- and longer term follow-up.

Want to know more about defense mechanisms? Here we share defense mechanism worksheets as tools for practitioners.

Using humor to cope with medical problems

However, most evidence proposing a link between humor and improved health is anecdotal. For example, among physicians who do the exceedingly difficult work of treating cancer patients, humor has been reported as beneficial for patients, doctors, and relationships between the two (Joshua, Cotroneo, & Clarke, 2005).

Hope may represent a powerful mechanism through which humor brings relief to patients, as evidenced in research addressing the impact of humor on terminally ill patients (Herth, 1990). The results of this study indicated that 85% of patients believed that humor helped them to deal with reality by empowering hope.

The use of humor in medicine has also been studied from the perspective of healthcare workers. For example, among physicians who work with dying patients, humor has been reported as one of eight coping mechanisms used to handle the extreme stress involved in doing this type of work (Schulman-Green, 2003).

Similarly, other researchers have suggested that gallows humor is beneficial for emergency personnel by providing an outlet for painful emotions and by enhancing support via group cohesion (Rowe & Regehr, 2010).

Among nurses, humor has been related to lower emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, increased personal accomplishment (Talbot & Lumden, 2000), as well as greater coping efficacy and emotional expressivity (Wanzer, Booth-Butterfield, & Booth-Butterfield, 2005).

Using humor to cope with mental illness

As with other forms of illness, it is logical to propose that humor enhances coping among individuals dealing with mental health issues. The substantive literature is again lacking; however, some studies do show that humor serves as an important coping mechanism for psychiatric patients.

For example, one study examined the impact of humorous films on various psychological symptoms among schizophrenia inpatients. The researchers found reductions in anger, anxiety, psychopathology, and depression among participants (Gelkopf, Gonen, Kurs, Melamed, & Bleich, 2006).

In another study examining the effectiveness of humor among individuals with mental illness, a humor-based activity involving clowns (i.e., the “therapeutic clown approach”) was implemented among psychiatric ward inpatients. During the humor activity period, patients were reported as having significant decreases in multiple disruptive behaviors including self-injury, fighting, and attempted escapes (Higueras et al., 2006).

‘What are you allergic to?’ queried a stressed nurse as a gunshot victim was rushed into the ER. Patient: ‘Bullets!’

It also is advantageous for both elderly and child populations. Here are 18 examples of studies showing evidence of humor as a strength.

Humor and psychological strengths

There is something to be said for not taking everything too seriously. Internalizing criticism erodes self-esteem, a process that may be inhibited by a good sense of humor. This idea is borne out by research such as that by Liu (2012), who conducted a study with undergraduate students in Hong Kong. The results indicated that adaptive humor was linked to higher levels of self-esteem and happiness.

Similarly, Vaughan, Zeigler-Hill, and Arnau (2014) addressed stable and unstable self-esteem among college students and found that participants with stable high self-esteem were lower in less adaptive forms of humor (i.e., self-defeating humor). Additionally, a study addressing the benefits of humor, music, and aerobic exercise on anxiety among women indicated that effect sizes were highest for those in the humor group (Szabo, Ainsworth, & Danks, 2005).

Humor on the job

There is good reason to believe that humor at work leads to many positive outcomes, such as increased work performance and enhanced relationships with coworkers (Cooper, 2008). Additionally, in their comprehensive review, Cooper and Sosik (2012) reported that humor at the workplace was linked to enhanced relationships, more creative thinking, more collaborative negotiations, and better customer relations.

Similarly, Mesmer‐Magnus, Glew, and Viswesvaran (2012) conducted a meta-analysis of 49 studies focusing on the impact of humor in the workplace. Positive humor was found to buffer the impact of work stress on mental health, as well as to promote more effective functioning on the job.

More specific workplace benefits of humor included lower stress, burnout, and subordinate work withdrawal, and increased coping effectiveness, health, team cohesion, and job performance and satisfaction.

Humor and education

Not only does humor have the ability to make school more enjoyable, but it is beneficial in various meaningful ways. For example, among college students enrolled in language courses, 72% noted that humor enhanced their interest in the subject matter, 82% reported that the instructor’s use of humor made them more approachable, and 82% indicated that humor created an environment more conducive to learning (Askildson, 2005).

The humor students bring to the classroom is also essential. For example, in a study exploring humor among undergraduate students, a sense of humor was positively related to both sociability and creativity (Ghayas & Malik, 2013). The intentional use of classroom humor also has been linked to enhanced learning among nursing students (Ulloth, 2002).

Humor in the classroom also is believed to promote social and emotional development among children (Lovorn, 2008), and we share a few ideas in our article – Activities to Stimulate Emotional Development .

Humor as a strength among the elderly

While there is a paucity of research addressing humor among older people, there is some evidence of its potential to enhance the quality of life within this group. For example, research by Ganz and Jacobs (2014) indicated that attending a humor therapy workshop was associated with positive mental health outcomes among seniors.

In a similar study, following a 10-week ‘happiness and humor group’ within an urban senior center, participants reported significant improvements in life satisfaction (Mathieu, 2008).

Coping humor also has been associated with increased social support and self-efficacy among older community-dwelling adults (Marziali, McDonald, & Donahue, 2008). Lastly, following humor therapy sessions, elderly nursing home residents showed a reduced duration of agitation and an increased duration of happiness (Low et al., 2014).

Humor as a strength among children

Among humans, laughter begins as early as four months of age (Lovorn, 2008). A child with a well-developed sense of humor has been described as “ becoming a joy tracker or humor spotter in everyday life… a point of view that will be carried into adulthood” (Franzini, 2002, p. 11).

Indeed, by nurturing their sense of humor, adults equip children with important coping skills (Martin, 1989). Children have reported such benefits, noting that humor increases their ability to cope with stressors associated with relationships, school-related activities, and life at home (Dowling, 2014).

Additionally, humor may represent a vital strength during middle childhood by helping kids to gain the support of a peer group and by enhancing self-esteem (Klein & Kuiper, 2006).

A comprehensive look at how children are impacted by the experience of humor is described by Hogan (2003), who noted that humor benefits children in terms of enhanced social bonding, stress relief, and pain coping. Growing up with humor sets children on a more positive pathway. Once they begin college, humor is predictive of better college adjustment (Hickman & Crossland, 2004).

Sign on a repair shop door: We Can Repair Anything. (Please knock hard on the door, the bell doesn’t work.)

There is little doubt that humor enables people to cope better with stress. It has long been believed that “ humor and laughter play an important role in the maintenance of both psychological and physiological health and wellbeing in the face of stress” (Lefcourt & Martin, 1986).

Research supports this connection. For example, in a study by Abel (2002), coping strategies were examined concerning humor and various types of stress. Participants were categorized into either high or low sense of humor groups. It was found that those within the high sense of humor category appraised relatively lower amounts of stress and anxiety.

The impact of humor on stress also was investigated in a medical study using humor as a complementary therapy among cancer patients (Bennett, Zeller, Rosenberg, & McCann, 2003). After watching a funny video, cancer patients reported significantly less stress, and a negative correlation was found between stress and amount of mirthful laughter.

Interestingly, those who were higher in humor scores were also found to have increased immune functioning (Bennett et al., 2003). In general, research reviews have documented that positive styles of humor are related to lower perceptions of stress (Mauriello & McConatha, 2007).

I went to buy some camouflage pants the other day but I couldn’t find any.

If you don’t find yourself laughing nearly enough, here are six things you can do:

• Watch or listen to stand-up comedy. Many comedians have filmed their shows and made them widely available. Additionally, listening to comedians while walking or jogging creates a far more enjoyable experience, especially for those who don’t enjoy exercising.
• Spend more time around funny people. This idea is simple: if you have amusing people in your life, hanging around them is sure to make you feel better.
• Don’t allow others to dictate what you find amusing. If you have a dark sense of humor or enjoy potty jokes, that’s okay. As long as humor is not aggressive or offensive to groups of people, go ahead and laugh.
• Read funny books. Plenty of reading material is available for bookworms who love to laugh (please see the list of books below).
• Play with a pet. It’s tough to feel blue when playing with a puppy or kitten. If you have access to animals, they may do wonders to make your heart smile.
• Don’t be afraid to embrace your inner child.  Adults often feel that they must always behave in an “age-appropriate” way. However, if being silly and playful made you happy at age 12, it probably still will. Don’t deprive yourself of happiness because of perceived pressure to act a certain way.

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: “Does this taste funny to you?”

Dark or twisted humor is an acquired taste, as not everyone appreciates the taboo humor others find in disturbing subject matter. But, for people who experience stressful jobs or complicated family dynamics, dark humor often serves as an important protective mechanism.

This concept is exemplified by the ability of healthcare workers to employ dark humor as a way of coping with chronic job stress (e.g., Schulman-Green, 2003; Talbot & Lumden, 2000; Wanzer et al., 2005).

Importantly, gallows humor used in this way is not aggressive or hurtful to others. This idea is explained by Wanzer et al. (2005) in their aptly titled article If We Didn’t Use Humor, We’d Cry .

The authors note that nurses use humor to deal with specific situations such as daily medical routines, difficult patients/families, and even death. And while approaching such situations with humor may not make sense to others, humor helps nurses deal with their distress when encountering extremely difficult situations regularly (Wanzer et al., 2005).

Dark humor has also been found to enhance resilience during some of the most horrible events in human history. For example, during the Holocaust, victims reported using humor in ghettos, concentration, and death camps to better cope with extreme trauma and adversity (Ostrower, 2015).

Ostrower (2015, p. 184) describes humor coping within this context as a defense mechanism that “ under the nightmare circumstances of living in the ghettos and camps during the Holocaust, laughter was a form of rebellion against reality. Humor was the weapon of those whose lives were utterly in the hands of the executioners, those who were powerless to rebel or resist in any other way.”

Along with the Holocaust, dark humor has been used as a coping and survival mechanism across a broad range of life-threatening situations.

First the doctor told me the good news: I was going to have a disease named after me.

Steve Martin

The earth laughs in flowers.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.

Mahatma Gandhi

People with a sense of humor tend to be less egocentric and more realistic in their view of the world and more humble in moments of success and less defeated in times of travail.

Bob Newhart

Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul.

Thomas Mann

I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.

If we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane.

Robert Frost

Honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small and laughter abundant.

Washington Irving

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.

Groucho Marx

Whether you are interested in learning more about the psychology of humor or in finding material that will make you laugh, plenty of books are available. Here are 10 examples:

• Humor at Work in Teams, Leadership, Negotiations, Learning and Health by Tabea Scheel and ‎Christine Gockel ( Amazon )
• Engaging Humor by Elliott Oring ( Amazon )
• Humor Theory: Formula of Laughter by Igor Krichtafovitch ( Amazon )
• Sweet Madness: A Study of Humor by William Fry ( Amazon )
• Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor by John Morreall ( Amazon )
• Laugh Out Loud: 40 Women Humorists Celebrate Then and Now… Before We Forget by Allia Zobel Nolan ( Amazon )
• Gallows Humor by Carolyn Elizabeth ( Amazon )
• Calypso by David Sedaris ( Amazon )
• Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson ( Amazon )
• I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron ( Amazon )

So many books, so little time.

Frank Zappa

17 Exercises For Grief & Bereavement

Apply these 17 Grief & Bereavement Exercises [PDF] to help others process difficult emotions, leverage self-compassion, and find balance following painful loss.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

As humor represents an important aspect of positive psychology, here at PositivePsychology.com, we have described several ways in which humor contributes to positive wellbeing. Here are a few examples:

• Humor is an effective way to find and build happiness . For example, laughing has a similar emotional impact to being hugged.
• Humor is related to resilience . For example, research suggests that resilient people have many qualities in common, including humor.
• Humor is an essential tool for enhancing teen resilience . For example, specific phrases have been identified that help kids to see the humor in stressful situations.
• Humor may be applied as part of resilience-building activities in the classroom. For example, Helen McGrath’s Bounce Back! Program (McGrath & Noble, 2003) includes lesson plans and suggestions for resilience-building in young children . Humor is included among the resilience-promoting principles.

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others move through grief in a compassionate way, this collection contains 17 validated grief and bereavement exercises . Use them to help others find balance as they attempt to make sense of a life that has been irrevocably changed.

Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it goes away.

This article provides readers with a comprehensive look at humor as an important concept in positive psychology. Top humor theories are described, along with the role of humor as both a defense mechanism and character strength. Some key takeaways are as follows:

• Self-enhancing humor is an invaluable strength that supports human thriving.
• There are numerous positive benefits of humor, such as enhanced positive mood, life satisfaction, self-esteem, job performance, creativity, social bonding, and emotional resilience .
• Humor plays an essential role in buffering the impact of stress and is important for positive wellbeing among both children and seniors.

Doable techniques for adding more humor to one’s life, meaningful quotes , useful books , and resources from PositivePsychology.com are also included. With this collection of information, it is the hope that readers will better understand humor and its many benefits, while maybe even enjoying a few chuckles along the way.

And so, with laughter and love, we lived happily ever after.

Gail Carson Levine

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Grief Exercises [PDF] for free .

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What our readers think.

As the world is transcending toward the unchartered waters–marked by more pandemics, more economic hardships, and more automation at work–Dr Lonczak has written a very useful piece of article to spread positivity across domains in places of work and life. Thank you very much, for your good work!

Hi Heather, I’m writing an essay entitled “Are Comedians an endangered species”? for an online course and found your article really helpful.Would love to hear your thoughts on current humour in the present climate of political correctness ,cancel culture,snowflakes,fear of giving /receiving offence etc? I am based in the UK and just at a time when we need more laughter it seems we are being gagged and guilt tripped into a kind of self-censorship at every turn which is not funny. Thank ,

That’s a really interesting topic you’re exploring. And no doubt comedians are having to think differently about their routines in light of the current climate.

Honestly, I hadn’t given this much thought before — perhaps other commenters can share their views — but I’ll point you toward an interesting read I just found by Nwankwọ (2021) , which explores this trend toward self-censorship with reference to the comedians Trevor Noah and Basket Mouth.

Hope this offers some food for thought!

– Nicole | Community Manager

Hi Heather, thank you for the insight and information. I’m writing an essay about humor and wanted to relate it to building relationships within sports, like volleyball. This was a great help 🙂

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111 Humor Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best funny essay topics & examples, 📌 simple & funny essay titles, 👍 good humorous essay topics, 😄 funny narrative essay topics.

• Humor in Lysistrata and She Stoops to Conquer: Still Funny Today For contemporary audiences yet delight in the satire of Lysistrata, the farcical comedy of manners in which the themes of national war and peace, and yes, even war and peace between the sexes, all receive […]
• The Effects of Humor and Persuasion Nevertheless, humor does still have a firm standing in as far as enhancing persuasion is concerned since the source is able to build rapport with the receiver which is the fundamental goal of persuasion. Humor […] We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Sense of Humor: How Does It Help? Satire is more particular because it is based upon a proper understanding of the target of the humor and may only be interesting and entertaining to a mature and probably educated audience.
• Humor and Parody in Japanese Literature The aim of this paper is to explore the use humor and parody in the following works of Edo and Tokugawa periods: Shikitei Sanba’s Ukiyoburo, Ihara Saikaku’s Life of a Sensuous Man, and Hiraga Gennai’s […]
• Humor in Zadie Smith’s Novels The style in which Zadie Smith writes serves as a shorthand to introduce the reader to a situation that can be regarded as ethically or socially problematic and approached from the perspective of Zadie Smith’s […]
• Comedy and humor in World Literature Here, the comedy of absurd is presented in the description of the state of poverty in the family of Okonkwo’s father.
• Drew Hayden Taylor’s Aboriginal Humor: Just Joking? This essay looks at the classical theories that could be applied to aboriginal joking while touching on the functions of joking, comedy as serious, and the analysis of a joke. It informs us of the […]
• Harpagon – The Achievement of Humor in “The Miser” by Moliere Since he has alienated himself from all the other characters, whatever unfortunate happens to him in the course of the play is a source of humor for the audience.
• Humor Importance in the Workplace Since the HRM function is charged with the development of motivation in the workplace, humor can be instrumental in the development of a free social environment.
• Racial Humor and Stereotypes in “Rush Hour 2” Due to the influence of the process of globalization various cultures on our planet started to interact very closely, massive waves of migrations covered every country and the clash of customs, traditions, religions and lifestyles […]
• Humor and Technology in “Young Frankenstein” Film One of the debates of the day was the question of the proper role of the scientist in the contemporary age, addressed in the novel Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley.
• Humor and Horror: The Last House on the Left by D.Iliadis Review On the other hand, humor in the Film is used to generate fun, make the viewers laugh, reduce tension, and offer empathy to the characters.
• Film Noir and Black Humor in “The Missing Gun” Black humor and noir elements can also be viewed as features helping to create a specific visual image of a movie and atmosphere that would affect viewers.”The Missing Gun” combines these aspects to depict an […]
• Humor as the Leading Strategy of Stress Relief The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of humor as one of the leading stress management strategies. In other words, it does not suffice to know the sources of stress, as the […]
• Humor as a Means to Achieve Positive Results in the Workplace However, when a team represents a wide variety of ethnic groups who are hostile to each other, the manager should know how to build a good relationship in a multi-ethnic team.
• Humor Application in Conflict Management: Facilitating and Regulating Communication To an extent, the value of humor can be explained by the fact that it helps to establish a more relaxed atmosphere, the quality sometimes needed at a workplace.
• Humor as a Therapeutic Tool at Health and Humor Website Humormatters.com It can be found through the google search of “Sultanoff” and is also listed on the Pepperdine University website in the section dedicated to the researcher, as to one of the faculty members.
• Humor and Health in the Workplace: Communication and Reducing Employee Tension Additionally, the cartoon reduces tension in the workplace since it gives the employer a chance to advise the specific worker. The organization management comprehends that employees are free to develop a great deal of expertise […]
• Ethics and Persuasion of Humor: In Context to the Social Functions of Humor in the Society The mental position in this case is taken to be the attitude of the person. Humor in persuasion helps the receivers have interest in what one is trying to communicate.
• Culture-Based Humor and Stereotypes: A Comedian’s Relationship With the Audience It is impossible to distinguish the type of comedy that would be interesting for a person without analyzing one’s reaction to humor on various topics.
• Humor in Asian Cinema: The Functions of Humor in Japanese Films To conclude, humor in cinema is a valuable instrument for developing the major topics of films and adding certain distinguishing details to them.
• The Racial Humor in America: Jokes With Racial and Ethnic Contents Connotations The Indian childhood and racial stereotypes are the major areas covered by Peter Russell since the start of his performance in 1989.
• Mark Twain and His Humor According to Critics He and his family moved to Nook Farm in Hartford, Connecticut in the 1860s then to Fredonia, New York and Keokuk, Iowa.
• Humor With a Multifunctional Nature: Cultures and Traditions in Works of Comedy Considering the 2008 elections in particular, the Colbert Report served as accelerator of the people’s self-awareness and patriotism; it aimed at revealing the truth to people in humorous ways in order to compensates the lack […]
• The Strategies of Humor and Australian Art Post 1970 The role of humor concerning needs and emotions illustrates a society as a powerful teacher in the construction of the social self-reinforcing of which emotions are acceptable.
• Different Tastes of Humor Humor is a part of life, and if we try to ignore it because of too many activities, or of little things that we tend to magnify in spite of their irrelevance in our lives, […]
• Humor Therapy for Patients With Mental Illness Thus, the researchers concentrated on humor as one of the most valuable components of therapy, having the potential to lead to positive patient outcomes.
• African-American Humor as a Reflection of Change The purpose of this article is to show that humor has been employed by the African-American population as a tool of diminishing the stereotypes that get in their way towards the realization of equal privileges […]
• “Humor and Laughter” by Attardo Since then up to now, a synthesis of the different elements of humor and laughter lacks thereby, triggering the relevance of evaluating the maturation of the field.
• Humor in the Workplace The findings of this paper can be important from theoretical and practical perspectives: on the one hand, they can better explain those forces which govern the relations among colleagues; while on the other hand, they […]
• The Nature of Humor: What Makes People Laugh Academically, literary works are a creative and constructive way of condemning evils such as corruption, impunity, gender violence and discrimination of any kind, which could be understandably an obstacle to the progress of a society […]
• Dark Humor in The Cask of Amontillado Essay The use of horror and humor in “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe is one of the literary features that the author uses to constructs the story.
• The Impact of Fun and Humor in the Workplace on Employee Morale and Performance Although it has always been known that laughter can lower stress levels and provide several other benefits, it is generally believed that kidding around and having some laughter in the workplace is not helpful at […]
• The Theme, Message, Humor and Setting of The Fault in Our Stars, a Novel by John Green
• The Theme of Humor in The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
• Uses of Humor in The Crying Lot of 49 by Thomas Pynchon and White Noise by Don DeLillo
• Transforming the Moment: Humor and Laughter in Palliative Care
• The Humor of Absurdity in Adams’ Hitch Hiker’s Guide
• The Humor Through the Characters By Creating False Realities in the Taming of the Shrew
• The Humor and Satire in Mark Twain’s Writings
• The Use of Comedy to Add Humor in the Movie Zombieland
• The Principles of Satire and Humor in Candide by Voltaire
• Use Of Tone, Irony and Humor in The Hammon and the Beans
• The Use of Irony and Humor in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest
• The Importance of Humor in Literature for the Beginning Reader
• Use Of Humor And Language Techniques In Monbiot’s Article Modest Proposal For Youth Scourge
• The Potential Correlations Between Self Defeating Humor
• Use of Humor by Woody Allen and Sigmund Freud
• The Importance of Humor in Tragic Hamlet, a Play by William Shakespeare
• The Relationship Between Humor And Culture: Emma Jameson
• The Humor Functions in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest
• The Definition of a Parody and the Different Strategies of Finding Humor
• The Positive and Negative Implications of Humor
• The Cooperative Principle of Pragmatics: An Analysis of the Verbal Humor in Friends
• The Use of Literary Devices to Create Humor in Romeo and Juliet
• The Use of Humor in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a Play by William Shakespeare
• What Is The Triumph Of Humor Over Human Adversity
• The Similarities and Differences between Popular and Academic Sources on Humor Comprehension and Humor Production
• Using Humor in the Teaching-Learning Process To Improve the Students’ Speaking Skill
• The Truth Behind Comedy: An Analysis Of Comedians And Humor
• The Subtle Humor of Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
• The Humor in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
• The Cynical Views and Dark Humor of Voltaire in Candide and Zadig
• Therapeutic Use of Humor Description
• Women And Comedy: Sexual Humor And Female Empowerment
• Using Dark Humor And Journals
• The Use of Humor in the Writings of Mark Twain
• The Importance of Humor in Creating an Effective Advertising for Marketers
• The Effects Of Humor At The Cellular Level And On The Immune System
• What Roles Does Humor Play in Flight
• The Satire and Humor In Chaucer8217s Canterbury Tales
• The Use of Humor in Richard Iii by Shakespeare
• The Powerful Humor Presented in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• The Life of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and His Dark Humor in Satirical Novels
• The Difference Between American and British Humor
• Use Of Humor To Describe Historical Events Illustrated In George Orwell’s Animal Farm
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving and Humor
• The Use of Different Forms of Humor to Face the Harsh Reality of Everyday Life as a Prisoner During the Holocaust
• Use of Humor in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
• The Development of a Sense of Humor in Childhood
• The Main Effect of Humor Through the Contradictions Within Each Component in Foreign Bodies by Hwee Hwee Tan
• Wit and Humor in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
• Theories of Humor in Stop Me If You’ve Heard this by Jim Holt
• The Humor in 21 Jump Street, a Film by Phil Lord and Chris Miller
• What Is Mean “Bad” Humor?
• What Is the Meaning of Humor?
• What Is the Opposite of Humor?
• What Is the Best Synonym for Humor?
• Which Is the Closest Synonym for the Word Humor?
• How African American Humor Has Evolved and the Way We Look at Comedy?
• How Does Chaucer Use Humor to Make Social Criticism?
• How Does Dorothy Parker Use Humor to Explore Gender Differences?
• How Does Humor Affect Our Society?
• How Does Humor Use Humor?
• How Emily Dickinson Uses Humor and Irony in Her Poetry?
• How Can Humor Benefit Workplace Relations and Improve Employees?
• How Can Humor Create Different Emotions Within the Comedy?
• How Can Humor Serve as an Important Part of Health?
• How Humor Makes More of an Impression Than Stern Speeches?
• How Would Open-Mindedness, Responsibility, and a Sense of Humor Help Japan Become a Better Country?
• How Russel Peters’ Uses Race-Based Humor?
• What Are the Unique Characteristics of Jewish Humor?
• Who Benefits From Humor-Based Positive Psychology Interventions?
• The Moderating Effects of Personality Traits and Sense of Humor?
• Does the Relation Between Humor Styles and Subjective Well-Being Vary Across Culture and Age?
• How Does Humor Affect Brand Imaging, Interpersonal?
• How Does Humor Influences Perceptions of Veracity?
• Can a Person Be Described as Humorous?
• What Is the Importance of Humor?
• How Did Social Change and Its Humor Idiom in the Twentieth Century?
• Which Are Different Styles of Humor?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 25). 111 Humor Essay Topic Ideas & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/humor-essay-topics/

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "111 Humor Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." February 25, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/humor-essay-topics/.

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• Vehicle Technologies Office
• About the Vehicle Technologies Office
• Technology Areas
• Technology Integration
• Reports and Publications

Office: Vehicle Technologies Office FOA number:  DE-FOA-0003248 Link to apply:  Apply on EERE Exchange FOA Amount: $45,800,000

Today, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced $45.8 million in new funding for projects that will advance research, development, demonstration, and deployment (RDD&D) critical to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. The funding will drive innovation in equitable clean transportation and is aligned with strategies detailed in the U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization . 

The funding is through DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). Topic areas in the Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 R&D funding opportunity include:

• Next-generation phosphate-based cathodes.
• Advancing the state of the art for sodium-ion batteries.
• Developing concepts for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions from off-road vehicles such as construction, agriculture, mining, and forestry vehicles.
• Developing and deploying vehicle-to-everything technologies that can lead to meaningful savings at the vehicle and transportation system level.
• Developing high-performance, domestically produced electrical steels (E-steels) for use in electrified powertrains.
• Addressing critical cybersecurity needs for smart and secure electric vehicle charging.

As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to ensuring the benefits of a clean transportation system are shared equally, the funding seeks the participation of underserved communities and underrepresented groups. Applicants are required to describe how diversity, equity, and inclusion objectives will be incorporated into their project. 

VTO provides a series of funding opportunity announcement (FOA) information session videos , which help applicants understand VTO’s FOA process and requirements. The recently released, Session 3: Tips for a Strong FOA Application, includes best practices for incorporating Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in a project.

Learn more about this and other funding opportunities on VTO’s funding webpage . 

Topic Areas

Topic Area 1: Next-Generation Phosphate-Based Cathodes

This topic area targets the development of phosphate-based cathode materials that surpass the performance of state-of-the-art lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode materials, which are currently gaining traction as an alternative low-cost solution. The primary objective of this area of interest is to develop high energy density battery cells containing phosphate-based cathodes at the material and cell level.

Topic Area 2: Na-ion Battery Seedling Projects for Electric Vehicle Applications

While shifting to alternative cathode materials like LFP can alleviate the impact of nickel and cobalt, the impact of lithium has not been adequately addressed. One alternative to lithium is sodium (Na). While there is much promise for Na-ion chemistries, key issues still limit their adoption. This objective of this topic area is to advance the state of the art for Na-ion batteries by solving key challenges for the cathode, anode, or electrolyte through the development of 1 Ah full cells utilizing cell chemistries that are significant advancements over current industry state-of-the-art Na-ion technology.

Topic Area 3: Low-GHG Concepts for Off-Road Vehicles

The objective of this topic area is to develop and validate technology concepts capable of significantly decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, harmful criteria emissions, and total cost of ownership across the entire off-road vehicle sector, including construction, agriculture, mining, forestry, ports, warehouses, etc. Concepts must demonstrate they can meet the unique requirements for off-road vehicles and gain customer acceptance.

Topic Area 4: Saving Energy with Connectivity

Research has shown that vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications can lead to meaningful energy savings at the vehicle and transportation system level by integrating interoperable vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), and vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) communications. The objective of this topic area is to develop and deploy V2X technologies with a focus on the efficiency and convenience of the mobility ecosystem, while reducing transportation’s environmental impacts. Examples could include but are not limited to eco-driving along connected corridors, transit or freight priority, integrated corridor management, or passenger or freight trip-chaining optimization.

Topic Area 5: Domestically Produced Electrical Steels (E-Steels)

The US transportation sector is in a technology revolution where light-duty vehicles are rapidly transitioning from internal combustion engines to electrified powertrains. Although most of the vehicles are produced in the US, many of the powertrain components rely on imports and foreign supply chains. Of particular interest are traction motors and their components. The objective of this topic are is to develop E-Steels meeting properties including frequency, thickness, ductility, cost, and manufacturability. 

Topic Area 6: Cybersecurity for Smart and Secure Electric Vehicle Charging

This topic area is addressing critical cybersecurity needs to address through two subtopics: 

• Subtopic 6.a: Enabling Wide-scale, Cybersecure EV/EVSE Aggregation for Grid Services :  To support the integration of electric vehicles (EVs) and their charging requirements with the electric grid, both government and the private sector have made significant investments in the development of smart charge management (SCM) systems and technologies for EV charging infrastructure. The objective of this subtopic area is to research, develop, and demonstrate systems, technologies, and tools necessary for the cybersecure aggregation of EVs and charging infrastructure to provide widescale, cybersecure grid services.
• Subtopic 6.b: Tools to Assess EV/EVSE/Charging System Cybersecurity Posture and Compliance with Standards and Protocols for Communications, Controls, and Monitoring :   Testing and evaluation of Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) by DOE national laboratories has clearly indicated a lack of compliance by many vendors with certified and/or regulated EV charging standards and protocols. In addition to creating cybersecurity vulnerabilities, this non-compliance greatly inhibits interoperability, supplier-managed SCM, and right-to-repair. The objective of this subtopic is to research, develop, and validate a suite of tools and associated procedures to comprehensively assess EV/EVSE/charging system compliance with relevant standards and protocols and cybersecurity posture.

Additional Information

• Download the full funding opportunity  on the EERE Exchange website.
• For FOA-specific support, contact  [email protected] . 
• Sign up for the  Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) funding email list  to get notified of new EERE funding opportunities. Also sign up for  VTO’s newsletter to stay current with the latest news.
• Watch the VTO Funding Opportunity Announcement information series webinars.