Humor research
Research in humor has been done to understand the psychological and physiological effects, both positive and negative, on a person or groups of people.
Brain imaging techniques such as fMRI and PET scans have been implemented in this subfield of humor research.
Wild et al. (2003)[3] propose that the generation of laughter is mostly influenced by neural pathways that go from the premotor and motor cortex to the ventral side of the brainstem through the cerebral peduncles.
When the electrical activity of the brain is measured during and after hearing a joke, a prominent response can be seen approximately 300ms after the punchline, followed by a depolarization about 100ms later.
A study by Ozawa et al. (2000) found that when participants heard sentences that they rated as humorous, the Broca's area and the middle frontal gyrus were activated.
[4] Another study using fMRI showed that the linguistic basis of jokes participants found to be humorous impacted which parts of the brain were activated.
[5] Induction of laughter through direct brain stimulation has been reported in a number of studies, and includes areas such as anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), globus pallidus, floor of the third ventricle, and most recently left superior frontal gyrus – though these results are hard to draw inferences from (may be inhibitory, may be artefacts, etc.)
Because the nature of laughter is so complex—involving facial muscles, respiratory actions, etc.--a control center has been hypothesized in the upper pons.
Studies on how play "promot[es] social cohesion, cooperation, and even altruism,"[6] have been used to describe humor's function.
Evolutionary theorists have attempted to study and explain the phenomena of laughter and humor in terms of survival benefit.
During moments of displays of social superiority, laughter could be used to dissolve tensions that otherwise could lead to fighting or exclusion from a group, by designating those situations as play rather than as a real challenge.
Duchenne laughter, which should be thought of as emotionally-valenced rather than simply spontaneous, can increase positive affect and mood of an individual as well as a group.
[7][8] So, early laughter most likely provided survival benefits through effects of emotional contagion that served to strengthen within-group ties.
General intelligence predicted higher ratings on humor tasks, even after controlling for Big Five personality factors.
A large proportion of humor is produced during informal conversation and involves the derision of a specific person (either oneself or another).
Drawing attention to one's own faults seems counter-intuitive when considering humor's function of strengthening within-group fitness and sexual desirability.
Self-deprecating humor may only work for high-status individuals because it ironically points out the desirable traits by way of discrepancy.
Kuiper and McHale (2009) found support for humor styles being mediators between self-evaluation and psychological well-being.
Importantly, self-efficacy, positive affect, optimism, and perceptions of control were found to go up while other negative measures decreased.
Crawford & Caltabiano (2011)[15] found support for humor as an intervention which may increase positive aspects of emotional well-being.
It is important to note that the relevant psychological states may have preceded the humor style rather than vice versa.
Similarly, humor research helps people to ease their suffering from pains like anxiety and depression.
[17] In addition, this is why humor plays a huge part for patient who has either depression or anxiety because it provide your physical body to be healthy and improves your mental state as well.
Using humor as a coping style is a way which these long-term effects on the immune system may be enacted.
[23][24] Humor is thought to play a role in the levels of stress that people experience, both in the short-term and long-term.
Hypotheses for this research include the idea that the positive feelings of humor will increase the threshold of pain that a person can endure.
[32] Further, some studies that used negative affect control groups found that pain thresholds also increased for people experiencing unsettling stimuli, such as a clip from a horror movie.
The scientific support for the physical benefits of humor are somewhat sparse, and the findings from the existing research have been called into question in some cases.
Some experimental findings are encouraging, but no firm conclusions involving humor and physical health where controls were not used correctly can be drawn.
This suggests that whether or not husbands use positive humor, it has nothing to do with how closely they feel to their partner or their marital satisfaction.
