User:Stargazer7334/Positive Psychology and Humor

Humor is a specific transcendent character strength according to the CSV classification system. [| Humor]is defined as “the tendency of particular cognitive responses to provoke laughter and provide amusement.” It has among its current meanings: playful enjoyment or creation of incongruities, a cheerful view on adversity that allows one to cope and thus sustain higher levels of happiness, and the ability to make others smile and laugh. In | positive psychology, humor is studied in a variety of functions, particularly as a coping mechanism and as a supporting character strength in the broaden and build theory of cognitive development. While an empirical definition of humor remains constantly elusive, due in part to its dependence on and variance with societal and cultural milieu, humor has been effectively shown to increase baseline happiness levels and resilience.

Major Theoretical Approaches to Humor
Historical Approaches to Humor There have been many attempts to explain and systematize humor throughout history. Historically, there are several specific theories which stand predominantly above the others and mark significant changes in the perception and development of humor theory.

The first notable theory is the superiority theory, which asserts that amusement and laughter arise from a recognition of one’s own superiority over others. It was made famous by [| Thomas Hobbes] and traces back to [| Aristotle] and [| Plato], who are considered superiority theorists because of their emphasis on the aggressive feelings which fuel humor. Aristotle claims that Comedy, and hence humor, originates in the perceived inferiority of other men. According to Plato, we laugh at the self-ignorance of others. Hobbes claimed that “the passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.”  The superiority theory marks one of the first major successful attempts to explain the causes of humor.

Made famous by [| Immanuel Kant], the incongruity theory holds that humor arises from perceived discrepancies between what is expected and what is observed in any given situation. Immanuel Kant states that “something absurd (something in which, therefore, the understanding can of itself find no delight) must be present in whatever is to raise a hearty convulsive laugh.”  The incongruity theory first established a theory for the underlying characterization of objects of humor.

The relief theory does not attempt to define humor, but instead states the purpose of humor as a release of tension or energy. [| Sigmeund Freud] and [| Herbert Spencer] are the two most prominent relief theorists. Relief theory was one of the first major theories to focus on the functional role of humor and laughter. In addition, it is also important as one of the first scientific theories of humor. Unlike Kant and Hobbes, Freud and Spencer tested the relief theory with empirical physical data rather than constructing a purely philosophical model of humor.

Current Theories on Humor

Present theories of humor have critiqued and built upon these earlier historical theories. Their methodologies span disciplines as diverse as (but not limited to) literature, psychology, biology, linguistics, history, sociology, and philosophy. While there are countless theories to describe humor, most all of them can fall under one of three major categories: response theories, stimulus theories, and functional theories.

Response Theories attempt to characterize the recipient of humor by explaining the conditions and underlying causes of humor. Hobbe’s superiority theory is a response theory. Most psychological studies on the characterization of an individual’s sense of humor and neurological research that examines the neurologic responses to differing humor stimuli can be categorized as response theories because they try to explain the underlying characterization of humor in the recipient.

Stimulus Theories try to characterize the objects of humor. Kant’s incongruity theory and [| Victor Raskin]'s linguistic theories are stimulus theories. Literary research, comic knowledge, and computational humor fall under this category because they try to explain what is and is not funny.

Functional Theories examine the purpose or function of humor. [| Gelotology], which deals with the (mainly positive) effects of laughter, and sociological research, which deals with the context of humor, joking habits, and the effects of humorous interaction on groups, fall under the Functional category because they attempt to explain the purpose of humor.

Positive Psychological Theory on Humor

There are two dominating views and a plethora of methodological approaches to measuring humor. The aesthetic view defines humor as a specific subset of amusing and playful behavior (among wit, sarcasm, irony, satire, and like traits of a comic). The other, more popular view in American psychology conceptualizes humor as an umbrella term for all that is considered laughable. In positive psychology, humor is synonymous with [| playfulness]. One of its marked characteristics is not only laughter, but [| smiling]. Presently, there is no agreed upon terminology and no consensual definition in either psychology or positive psychology.

In constructing methodologies for measuring humor, there are nearly as many measuring systems as definitions. Popular measuring systems include Martin’s Situational Humor Response Questionnaire (SHRQ), which focuses on human mirth in daily life, and the Coping Humor Scale (CHS), which deals more with humor being used as a coping measure for stress. Other important humor scales are the Humorous Behavior Q-Sort Deck, Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ), WD Test of Humor Appreciation, and the State-Trait Cheerfulness Inventory (STCI). The different humor tests are indicative of the underlying diversity and lack of consensus in defining humor.

Humor itself eludes concrete and empirical definition for a number of reasons which stem from its identity as a trait, underlying behavior, or emotion, and the diversity in which it expresses itself in different cultures and societies. Sociologically, humor expresses itself differently across gender, culture, nationality, age, social setting, and a number of other factors amongst individuals.

Major Empirical Findings
Humor and Laughter

One of the main focuses of modern psychological humor theory and research is to establish and clarify the correlation between humor and laughter. The major empirical findings here are that [| laughter] and humor do not always have a one-to-one association. While most previous theories assumed the connection between the two almost to the point of them being synonymous, psychology has been able to scientifically and empirically investigate the supposed connection, its implications, and significance.

In 2009, Diana Szameitat conducted a study to examine the differentiation of emotions in laughter. They hired actors and told them to laugh with one of four different emotional associations by using auto-induction, where they would focus exclusively on the internal emotion and not on the expression of laughter itself. They found an overall recognition rate of 44%, with joy correctly classified at 44%, tickle 45%, schadenfreude 37%, and taunt 50%. Their second experiment tested the behavioral recognition of laughter during an induced emotional state and they found that different laughter types did differ with respect to emotional dimensions. In addition, the four emotional states displayed a full range of high and low sender arousal and valence. This study showed that laughter can be correlated with both positive (joy and tickle) and negative (scadenfreude and taunt) emotions with varying degrees of arousal in the subject.

This brings into question the definition of humor, then. If it is to be defined by the cognitive processes which display laughter, then humor itself can encompass a variety of negative as well as positive emotions. However, if humor is limited to positive emotions and things which cause positive affect, it must be delimited from laughter and their relationship should be further defined.

Humor and Health

Humor has been conclusively shown to be effective for increasing resilience in dealing with distress and stress and also effective in undoing negative affect.

Madeljin Strick, Rob Holland, Rick van Baaren, and Ad van Knippenberg of Radboud University conducted a study in 2009 that showed the distracting nature of a joke on bereaved individuals. Subjects were presented with a range of negative pictures and sentences, from neutral to mild to intensely negative. Their findings showed that more humorous therapy attenuated the negative emotion elicited after shown negative pictures and sentences. In addition, the humor therapy showed increasing levels of effectiveness as the negative affect was increased in intensity. Thus, humor was immediately effective in helping to deal with distress. The escapist nature of humor as a coping mechanism, however, suggests that it is most useful in dealing with momentary stresses and that, for more intense negative stimuli, other approaches are necessary to heal.

Humor has been conclusively shown to be effective for increasing resilience and as an underlying character trait associated with the positive emotions used in the broaden and build theory of cognitive development.

Studies such as those testing the undoing hypothesis, which states that negative affect can be undone by positive affect, have shown several positive traits for humor as an underlying positive trait in amusement and playfulness. Several studies have shown that positive emotions can restore autonomic quiescence after negative affect. For example, Frederickson and Levinson showed that individuals who expressed [| Duchenne smiles] during given the negative arousal of a sad and troubling recovered from the negative affect approximately 20% faster than individuals who didn’t smile.

In addition, humor can serve as a strong distancing mechanism in coping with adversity. For instance, in 1997 Kelter and Bonanno found that Duchenne laughter correlated with reduced awareness of distress. Findings such as these have been numerous and well established and support the hypothesis that positive emotion is able to loosen the grip of negative emotions on peoples’ thinking. Such a distancing of thought also leads to a distancing of the unilateral responses people often have to negative arousal. In parallel with the distancing role plays in coping with distress, it supports the [| broaden and build] theory that positive emotions lead to increased multilateral cognitive pathway and social resource building.

Applications
Positive psychology in particular holds that humor, as a specific character trait, serves to increase resilience in coping with adversity and also helps in cognitive development to increase both [| creativity] and [| generativity] by encouraging multiple pathway solutions and analysis of challenges. Some parts of clinical psychology are employing humor as a coping means for people to reassess situations in which they must deal with incongruities.

To enjoy the benefits of humor, many programs have been designed to cultivate humor and playfulness for use in hospital, educational, and counseling settings, among other places. A representative example is one constructed by Mcghee in 1999. In his program, he outlines an eight-step program that encompass a range of difficulties. Although no published data exists on it, Simone Sassenrath reported that a group of adults had increased self-reported changes in humor, playfulness, and positive mood at one month after the end of the program.

Conclusions
Humor, as a character strength and virtue, although not easily definable, remains highly recognizable and applicable in psychology. Because of the great cultural and individual variation of what people find humorous, and because of the ambivalence of how humor itself is defined in a cognitive and social sense, a great variety of measuring methods have developed for humor. Most of these fall under one of two views, either the aesthetic or umbrella conceptualization of humor. However, despite how the different methods have shaped how humor is measured and its effects, its major correlation with resilience to adversity and long-term creativity and generativity in cognitive development render it an invaluable trait in the field of positive psychology. As a coping mechanism however, it is apparent that the distracting nature of humor in coping leaves other methods desirable for more intense negative stimuli. Measures taken to cultivate humor would be valuable to help individuals strive for happy and virtuous living and to help cope with daily stresses.