Humor 101

A concise, reader-friendly introduction to an important but often underappreciated topic in modern psychology, this book explains the role of comedy, jokes, and wit in the sciences and discusses why they are so important to understand. The author draws from his personal experiences in stand-up comedy to focus on how humor can regulate emotion, reduce anxiety and defuse tense situations, expose pretensions, build personal relationships, and much more. He irreverently debunks the pseudoscience on the topic of humor and leaves readers not only funnier, but better informed. Chapter 1 provides some ways to classify jokes into categories, discusses some theories about what makes something funny, and gets into the caveats about why this work can be so difficult. Comedy alters mood, thought, stress, and pain. Jokes and laughter may play an important role in health, mental illness, marital bliss, education, and psychotherapy. The second chapter discusses the social psychology of humor, and looks at how the presence of other people can make things seem funnier. Folks in both education and business often turn to humor in an attempt to captivate, inform, and persuade. A close look at the research on immune function, allergies, erectile dysfunction, and longevity reveals some promise for laughter’s health benefits. Research offers more support for humor’s impact on psychological well-being than on physical health. Humor can have direct effects on physical health and psychological well-being; it can buffer folks against the slings and arrows of daily hassles.