Psychology -- Laughter & Humor

Psychology -- Laughter & Humor How Humor Makes You Friendlier, Sexier The article chosen for this assignment was written by Steve Ayan and published in the Scientific American on March 25, 2009. Entitled "How Humor Makes You Friendlier, Sexier" Ayan's article takes the position that not only is humor "psychologically beneficial" but it actually can cure diseases. The author uses several interesting and even compelling anecdotal examples to bring the reader an entertaining as well as informative experience.

Ayan clearly knows how to get a reader enthused to dig into a psychological article. And by using the word "Sexier" in the title of his article Ayan is assured of attracting attention no matter the age or gender of the potential reader. There are many reasons why Ayan believes his assertion is true, and he opens by invoking the name of iconic journalist, editor Norman Cousins as an example of how humor can aid a person with serious health problems.

Cousins had suffered from "inflammatory arthritis" and found no cure for that malady until he began using old Marx Brothers clips, Ayan writes. Cousins then found that "10 minutes of uproarious laughing at the hilarious team" of Marx Brothers brought him "two hours of pain-free sleep." As to the statement that humor can actually "cure disease" Ayan carefully notes a few paragraphs later that there is "…only a smattering of scientific evidence" that supports such a seemingly audacious assertion.

But, the author continues, using a generalization that lets him off the hook, "…laughter and humor do seem to have significant effects on the psyche, even influencing our perception of pain." Beyond the actual act of laughter, cheerfulness is "linked to emotional resilience" Ayan explains, and is also associated with the ability to "keep a level head" during stressful moments and laughter is part of maintaining "close relationships," according to Ayan.

For a man who has no current relationship with a female, but desires to have one, if readers are to believe Ayan then there is a secret to that fellow finding that female companionship: "Women are attracted to men who have" a good sense of humor. No writer who is publishing in a scientific journal can resist tapping into an ancient Greek philosopher's ideas, and Ayan doesn't disappoint in this regard.

He writes that Aristotle viewed laughter as "a bodily exercise precious to health," but beyond that non-empirical passage from Aristotle Ayan goes on to point out that psychologically there are changes in the human body that result from laughter. To wit, laughter: one, boosts heart rate; two, boosts respiratory rate and depth; three, boosts the consumption of oxygen. Delving deeper into his piece, the reader learns about the empirical and non-empirical studies that allowed Ayan to generalize about the benefits of humor at the outset of his article.

For example, "studies" (Ayan doesn't say which ones) have demonstrated that laughing at a funny movie "can cause a drop in the blood's concentration of the stress hormone cortisol." Why would this be a healthy dive into humor? Ayan explains that in this example laughter could be pivotal to a human's health because "chronically elevated cortisol levels have been shown to weaken the immune system." Hence, Ayan adds, with laughter, the lives of people with elevated levels of cortisol might be saved.

Arguably that's a bit of a stretch, but for the purposes of his article Ayan is justified in using it. Keeping anxiety "at bay" through humor is the sum and substance of a 1990 study conducted by psychologists; 53 college students were told they were going to get an electric shock in 12 minutes albeit there was no such shock forthcoming. While waiting for this inevitable shock, some of the students were given a funny tape to watch while others watched a boring tape or nothing at all.

The results were predictable: those exposed to humor "rated themselves as less anxious as the fictitious shock approached than did those in the other two groups" (Ayan).

In yet another study presented by Ayan to make his point, 56 women were asked to stick a hand in ice-cold water before, immediately after and 20 minutes following a "funny seven-minute film." There's more to the experiment than space in this paper to explain, but the upshot was that witnessing the humorous film "did boost pain tolerance in all the women." In fact, after being exposed to the comedy movie, all 56 of the women "required a long exposure to the water" to feel any pain, and all of the women participants could "tolerate longer submersions before pulling their hand out." Late in his article, Ayan asserts that beyond reducing pain, acting funny or doing funny things "can cultivate friendships" because it is a valid psychological assumption that "cheerful people have a lighthearted interaction style that facilitates bonding closely with others…" My reaction to the article is that Ayan has done a very good.