Preview

The Psychology of Humor

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
853 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Psychology of Humor
The Psychology of Humor and How It Can Be Used As an Effective Stress Coping Technique.

Humor is a part of our everyday lives and is often used as a form of Stress Relief. The word “humor” comes from the Latin word of the same spelling meaning fluid or moisture. This can be interpreted in today’s world as “going with the flow.” People all around the world love hearing jokes and telling them whether it be verbally, through greeting cards, or over the internet. People often tell jokes to lighten the mood on a dreary situation or to get their point across to another individual. Military members in combat will often use humor to joke about the bad situations that they are faced with; this type of humor is often referred to as black humor. Dating back to pre historic times human have been able to provide a good chuckle for one another. Ancient Greeks would often use theatre to balance tragedy with comedies. Examples of their humor can be found in the “Font of al literature” in which Homer’s epics include many humorous passages such as the “Seductions of Zeus,” in which the Greek God finds himself the object of his wife Hera’s sexual advances. Modern sexual comedies such as “Van Wilder” and “Harold and Kumar” are forever in debt to the Greeks. It was because of the Greeks that we have these sexual comedies, but of course during their days these types of comedies were referred to as Satyr Plays. Since the Greek times humans have evolved their humor into the forms of television shows and radio broadcastings. On any given night you could probably walk into the home of a family and find them huddled around their television watching comedies such as “Everybody loves Raymond” or “King of Queens.” What is thought to be humorous to one individual might not be so to another. Everybody has in their own mind what they think to be humorous or funny. There are around nine different types of humor ranging from the top “parody” defined as making fun

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Nickle and Dimed

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Humor can light up any situation if you use it at the right time it can make an experience more interesting. When you have a more positive attitude towards something it can make almost any situation better. Barbara Ehrenreich uses a lot of humor when she wrote Nickel and Dimed even though it was covering the economic difficulties in America and how people are just barely getting by she manages to use humor to lighten up her story and to engage the reader. People react better to humor than they do to seriousness.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Relate this to Black Sitcom Institute news paper to support the idea of how humor helps stress.…

    • 601 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The article “Solve That Problem with Humor” by William D. Ellis discusses the importance of humor. He begins by pointing out that being funny is a better way to win arguments. Ellis further argues that humor can be used to solve many other everyday complicated situations that we face in relationships, for example, giving constructive feedback. Later in the article, Ellis talks about how a funny joke is the greatest way to reduce conflict and help to let the people guard down. By the end of the article, Ellis discusses the idea that in some rare situation joking can save people from darkness. In Viktor E Frankl’s experience stated that joking support him to go through the tough time. The most significant idea in this article is humor…

    • 453 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Humor appear’s to help people’s psychological and physical well being.” It says in Peter McGraw’s essay “The Importance of Humor Research.” It has been proven that it is good for your body to react in such a way to a funny situation but the psychological portion of it is hard to understand. When someone laughs, endorphins are released from the brain and are sent throughout the body creating the feeling of pleasure. It is a healthy alternative to any negative situation, whether it be negative or awkward it can be made easier with a joke here or…

    • 483 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Alan De Botton Humorists

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Although some humorists attempt to convey a message about society at large, the main focus of most humorists is to entertain and not effect societal change. The…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    By maintaining a sense of humor where possible can encourage an individual to relax and alleviate stress, especially if they are having a difficult home life or experiencing a challenging period of their life. If they are experiencing a difficult time it is important to be considerate.…

    • 311 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and why not”, said by George Bernard Shaw (miscellaneous quotes). In society today, many people go about with things and don’t ask why they do such matter. In the article, “Corn-pone opinions” by Mark Twain, he uses a good example: he states that “fashion has established itself: it is admired, now, and no one laughs”. In other words, fashion is created, and people go along with it and never ask why they do so. Alain de Botton argues that humorists are not to entertain but “to convey with impunity messages that might be dangerous or impossible to state directly”. In agreement, humorists play a vital role in society.…

    • 388 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Man's Search for Meaning

    • 1235 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Life was consumed by constant orders, labor, malnutrition, disease, and murder in the concentration camps. Yet somehow the human psyche in many individuals was able to endure throughout these imprisonments. Men and women were almost completely dehumanized during this genocide, but their psyche survived it. People had to find little things to keep themselves content and to nurture their psyche. “Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation” (63). Humor allows a person to escape a situation and rise above it, even if only for a short time. Humor can never be taken away from anyone because it is naturally within us. Humor within the concentration camps allowed people, for even a split second, to feel like they were free and not in this confinement. “The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living” (64). It would be much more rigorous on the human psyche if one could not escape every so often and realize the humor in something. Humor allowed people to become more relaxed and release some stress, allowing the human psyche to stay healthier.…

    • 1235 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Humor In The Simpson

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Humor is the act of saying something funny and bringing laughter to others when doing so. Humor acts as a catalyst of what people think but will not say. Humor is a part of life. Humor is a necessity for free speech and free thought for that matter. Humor can be divided into various sub sections from cartoonist, stand-up comics, satirical writers, and hosts of television programs- just to name a few, as de Botton states.…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Short Stories

    • 1893 Words
    • 8 Pages

    "Humor." Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Web. 11 Sept. 2010. <http://dictionary.reference.com/>.…

    • 1893 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Philosophy

    • 994 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Laughter is important for both human emotional and mental health and it can play a helpful and healing role in parenting and family life. Laughing is one of the healthiest things one can do when confronted with the major stresses and emotional pains in life. The human capacity to laugh is significant and to understand our laughter is to go a long way toward understanding our humanity. Laughter has not always received the positive coloring it regularly enjoys in today's free societies. Laughter is a malicious response to the ignorance of others, and a principled individual must avoid such a hateful response to the faults of others(Grunberg, 2011).…

    • 994 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    “Dissecting a joke is like dissecting a frog, few people are interested and the frog dies.” E.B White. Despite this, looking at humour and what we find amusing raises some interesting questions. Why do we find some jokes humorous and not others? What can we define as amusing? And what philosophical value does ‘humour’ have in our lives. This essay will be exploring the three main theories of humour and the important of humour in Nietzsche’s philosophy and life.…

    • 1528 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Best Essays

    The two journal articles which I critique have in common the construct of humor (spelled in both international journals as humour). I will examine humor in the first article as a construct. It is utilized as a tool, as a component of therapy but I will examine the very basic underlying nature of humor as a construct and as a phenomenon that can be appropriately and adequately utilized in a gestalt modality (particularly tied to existing gestalt therapy tools). In the second article I will examine the actual use of humor – the specific functioning of humor as a therapeutic tool or therapeutic mechanism within the psychoanalytical modality. In brief, in the first article I critique the use of humor as a construct suitable for the gestalt therapy paradigm and in the second I critique the use of humor as a tool, actually used as a portion of the psychoanalytic therapeutic modality.…

    • 2707 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Power of Laughter

    • 2176 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Studies and researches show that laughter is a very effective reliever to stress, conflict, and pain. The ability to laugh easily and frequently is such a great and extreme way for developing your social relationships and interactions with the people around you. It is also a tremendous source of strength in facing and surmounting problems. And best of all, it is an effective way of supporting both physical and emotional health stability.…

    • 2176 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Humor is defined as something that entertains us. Humor is often used in literature for the purpose of making us come to a realization…

    • 1254 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics