Experimental Studies of Humor in a Stressful Laboratory Situation

Abstract

In the preceding chapter we described a series of studies that were designed to investigate the hypothesis that a sense of humor reduces the impact of stressful experiences. In these studies self-report measures of negative life events and moods were used, as were self-report and behavioral measures of subjects’sense of humor. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine whether the magnitude of the correlation between negative life events and disturbed moods differs as a function of subjects’ scores on the various sense of humor measures. Our hypothesis was supported by findings of decreased correlations between life events and moods for individuals with higher humor scores than for those with lower humor scores.