It has been proposed that four main styles of humor exist, two which are thought to be adaptive (affiliative, self-enhancing) and two which are thought to be maladaptive (aggressive, self-defeating). Whilst the existence of these four humor styles has been supported in older children, it is suggested that for younger children, self-enhancing and self-defeating humor may develop at a later point...

Both laypersons and scholars assign the sense of humor a prominent role in our lives. In everyday life individuals use expressions like having or lacking a sense of humor to explain why people behave the way they do. This need to distinguish among facets of humorous and humorless personalities can be deduced from the fact that cultures typically have developed a rich vocabulary of humor-related...

There is increasing recognition of the stress and burnout suffered by critical care workers. Physicians have a responsibility to teach learners the skills required not only to treat patients, but to cope with the demands of a stressful profession. Humor has been neglected as a strategy to help learners develop into virtuous and resilient physicians. Humor can be used to reduce stress, address f...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to investigate failed interpersonal affect regulation through the lens of humor. We investigated individual differences that influenced people's affective and cognitive responses to failed humor and their willingness to persist in the interpersonal regulation of positive affect after a failed attempt. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH Using well-established aut...

Humor and laughter can be effective self-care tools to cope with stress. An ability to find humor gives us a sense of perspective on our problems. Laughter provides a physical release for accumulated tension. The article reviews research on the effect of humor and laughter on our immune function and resilience to stress. Resources for finding humor are included.

This study examined women’s and men’s preferences for humor production and humor receptivity in long-term and short-term relationships, and how these factors interact with physical attractiveness to influence desirability. Undergraduates viewed photographs of the opposite sex individuals who were high or low in physical attractiveness, along with vignettes varying in humor production and recept...

Mark Twain made use of repetition and parallelism as two comedic literary devices to bring comic effect to the readers. Linguistic devices of humor, repetition and parallelism seemed to create many difficulties in the translation of literary texts. The present study applied Delabatista‟s strategies for translating wordplays such as repetition and parallelism in the translation of humorous texts...

PURPOSE Ocular immune privilege is mediated in part by the activity of constitutively produced immunosuppressive cytokines and neuropeptides. Aqueous humor was examined for content of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), and the potential of CGRP to mediate immunosuppressive activity within aqueous humor was determined. METHODS The concentration of CGRP in fresh, normal rabbit aqueous humo...

As a high-level cognitive activity, humor comprehension requires incongruity detection and incongruity resolution, which then elicits an insight moment. The purpose of the study was to explore the neural basis of humor comprehension, particularly the moment of insight, by using both characters and language-free cartoons in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. The results showed that i...

Humor and laughter have been a focus of attention in the popular media and in the medical literature. Despite statements about the health benefits of humor, current research is insufficient to validate such claims. There is support in the literature for the role of humor and laughter in other areas, including patient-physician communication, psychological aspects of patient care, medical educat...