This chapter discusses the social psychology of humor, starting with a walk through how the presence of other people can make things seem funnier. It shows how humor can have a positive or a negative tone and it can focus on ourselves or on those around us. Self-enhancing humor makes stress tolerable. It can keep folks from viewing minor annoyances as unbearable disasters. The chapter sketches how humor can function to maintain the status quo. People who report using self-enhancing humor show less anxiety, neuroticism, and depression; better psychological well-being and self-esteem, and more extraversion, optimism, and openness to experience. When it comes to hierarchies, getting a feel for who’s cracking jokes and laughing can communicate who’s top dog. The chapter finally focuses on gender differences, and then sees how humor contributes to developing friendships, finding a date, and maintaining an intimate relationship.

Sadness and anxiety are normal human emotions and stress is a normal occurrence in our lives. When we’re feeling somewhat down, anxious or stressed, we can benefit from exercise, relaxation, recreation, eating nutritious foods, allowing time for sleep, and talking to a friend. Clinical depression and anxiety are very common conditions. This chapter looks at what they are, what happens to sleep, and what helps recovery of mood and sleep. It outlines what is known about treating insomnia in three forms of clinical depression: major depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder, and Bipolar Disorder. Research on how people respond to natural disasters has told us that within the first months of disaster, many people develop signs of anxiety, depression and posttraumatic stress. With respect to sleep, people with posttraumatic stress disorder tend to get somewhat less deep sleep, longer periods of being awake during the night, and an overall shorter sleep duration.

As insomnia develops, one may start to worry about not sleeping. One of author’s friends had a stressful management position over which she started to lose sleep. She then feared that the lack of sleep would negatively affect her work performance. This made it even more difficult for her to sleep because the thought of underperforming increased her anxiety. One can see how this can become a cycle of worry and sleeplessness. This chapter discusses some of the common worries that are linked to insomnia. By examining these topics in the light of day, rather than ruminating during a sleepless night, we achieve a more balanced view of our sleep problem and its effects. Stressful thoughts at night have a way of expanding to fill the dark spaces around us. The chapter provides information that will help to bring one’s sleep-related worries down to earth.

Years of research have revealed that certain techniques reliably lead to improved quality and quantity of sleep and increased satisfaction with sleep. Together these techniques can be called “cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia” (CBT-I). In the mid-1990s two important reports were published on these techniques. These reports were based on meta-analyses. In a meta-analysis, the research data from many studies of a given treatment are carefully combined to provide the overall story on the treatment’s usefulness. In these particular meta-analyses, the authors reviewed studies that had compared CBT-I techniques with no treatment or with a placebo treatment. Research shows that CBT-I is useful even if one have some mild to moderate symptoms of anxiety or depression, or some long-lasting medical problem like chronic pain or cancer. This book shows how to deal with and overcome insomnia if one has insomnia that has lasted longer than 4 weeks.

The aim of genetic research on depressive disorders is to clarify the distal causal mechanisms that lead to individual differences in risk for developing these conditions. Genetic influences on unipolar depression overlap considerably with those for Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), as well as those for NE. This suggests that genetic influences may drive comorbidity across anxiety and depressive disorders. Bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia have shared genetic influences, as do bipolar and unipolar depressive disorders. The classic animal model of depression derived from studies of dogs exposed to repeated, uncontrollable, inescapable shocks. Animal models hold promise for helping to potentially identify endophenotypes of depression that could be useful targets for neuroscience or genetic approaches in humans. All the major theoretical models of the etiology of depressive disorders invoke mechanisms that are instantiated in biological processes including reactivity to emotionally salient stimuli and stress reactivity.

There are several aspects related to being intrinsically motivated that are important to everyone. The first is persistence. A second area is creativity. Stress and anxiety are lower when we are intrinsically motivated. Self-determination theory (SDT) is a large-scale model for motivation. In addition, SDT allows for the discussion of social development, individual differences, and cultural factors that can assist or impede a person’s progress. Competence is the need to be effective in our environment. Three areas to keep in mind with competence are cognitive competence, social competence, and performance competence. Relatedness is the need to develop long-term secure relationships with people. Cognitive evaluation (CE) theory explains and predicts how an external action affects your intrinsic motivation. Organismic integration (OI) theory focuses on understanding how people acquire, internalize, and then integrate extrinsic reinforcers. Causality orientations (CO) theory is used to explain individual differences in the motivational forces that cause behavior.

Individuals have beliefs and judgments about their ability to successfully complete an activity or task. In the motivation world, people call these expectations. In addition to expectations, people also have a value system associated with the expectation. Modern versions of expectancy value (EV) are still descendants of Atkinson’s work and are based on achievement performance, persistence, and choice. Within the task-value beliefs there are four components: attainment value, intrinsic (interest enjoyment) value, utility value, and cost. There are emotional components to success and failure or even the expectancy of the two. In addition to the poor performance, people tend to try and avoid making a mistake, quit early, and lose interest rapidly. This pattern, fear of failure leading to performance-avoidance goals, leads to poor adjustment skills and anxiety. Related to the performance and mastery concepts is an implicit theory of intelligence.