The Importance of Humor Research

Humor is as old as humanity. Seeing humor as a kind of psychological action, humor is a very common and frequent event. And considering that chimps and other primates laugh, humor has likely been around even longer than that. In comparison, psychological research on humor is just getting cracking.

Previously some scientists tried to look into it, but they didn’t have the scientific tool to get the job done. Martin Seligman, the father of the positive psychology movement even deems a good sense of humor to be one of 24 characteristics associated with well-being, yet the hugely influential field of happiness research has largely ignored the topic.

By examining humor's antecedents, we will also better understand (and harness) humor's many benefits.

But humor has physical benefits, too. Laughter - especially a hearty laugh - has been shown to benefit your circulation, lungs and muscles (especially those around the belly area). Humor also helps people deal with pain and physical adversity. Hollywood even made a movie, Patch Adams, about the benefits of humor in clinical settings.

Humor appears to help people's psychological and physical well-being - for example, helping folks cope with stress and adversity. Humor even seems to help people grieve: Dacher Keltner and colleagues found that people who spontaneously experienced amusement and laughter when discussing a deceased spouse showed better emotional adjustment in the years following the spouse's death.