Humor and Life Stress

Herbert M. Lefcourt Rod A Martin

Humor and Life Stress Antidote to Adversity

Springer-Verlag New York Berlin Heidelberg Tokyo

Herbert M. Lefcourt Department of Psychology University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario Canada N2L 3G I

With II Figures

Rod A Martin Department of Psychology University of Western Ontario London, Ontario Canada N6A 5C2

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Lefcourt, Herbert M.

Humor and life stress. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Wit and humor-Therapeutic use. 2. Stress

(Psychology) I. Martin, Rod A. II. Title. BF575.L3lA3 1986 152.4 85-27754

© 1986 by Springer-Verlag New York Inc. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1986

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ISBN-13: 978-0-387-96249-8 e-ISBN-13:978-1-4612-4900-9 001: 10.107/978-1-4612-4900-9

Preface

This monograph reflects a culmination of influences. Over a decade ago, a graduate student at the University of Waterloo, Dr. Carl Sordoni, had worked with one of the present authors (H.L.) to develope a dissertation concerned with humor. At that time, the literature on humor was scanty. There was much that had been written by philosophers and scholars in literature. But in psychology, especially empirical research in psychology, there was not an overwhelming literature to give substance to the belief that humor was an important element in human affairs.

Memories of that dissertation are fond. The findings were disappoint­ing, but the execution of the research provided us with much hilarity. Though the dissertation research did not pan out as we had hoped, we had begun to look for the influence of humor in other investigations that we were conducting. Two published studies from that era are described in this book, one of which grew as an off-shoot of a dissertation by Dr. Paul Antrobus. In these studies not only did we find evidence that humor could be predicted and understood within particular contexts, but again we found enjoyment in doing the studies.

With the graduation of this team of researchers, and a sabbatical year away from Waterloo for H.L., that research-thrust concerning humor languished, especially in the wake of the greater involvement in research concerned with the locus of control. It was not until the late 1970s that events conspired to rekindle a keen interest in research on humor.

For one, H.L. had a "weird" experience at his father's funeral. Instead of the expected solemn occasion, the reuniting of disparate family members from far and wide proved to be an occasion for both mirth and good will. This was not at all out of disrespect for the deceased, but was almost in his honor. He had always been one ready to make light of the grimmest circumstances, often with a joke or cliche that somehow would fit the occasion and cause others to take the situation less seriously. The humor displayed at this funeral was very much in character with the way in which the deceased would have jested had he been there to take part. Most importantly, the relatives revelled in that good humor, so that

vi Preface

everyone departed from the various ceremonies with better feelings toward each other.

In the limousine on the way to the funeral, the members of the family who were closest to the deceased had, by the time the car reached the cemetery, been joking and laughing quite a bit, much to their own surprise. When H.L. had an opportunity to question the hearse driver about the frequency with which he might have observed such a seemingly bizarre ride to the cemetery, he was surprised, and relieved, to discover that this kind of humorous response to a funeral was not unfamiliar, though it was not highly frequent either. About one in twenty funerals seems to take the mirthful bend according to this hearse driver. He said that he wished they were all like this; "It seems so much better this way."

Within a year of this eventful funeral, the small book by Norman Cousins,An Anatomy of an fllness, was published. As a long-time reader of the Saturday Review, edited by Cousins, H.L. was predisposed to take Cousins' experiences seriously. At that very time, R.M. had entered graduate school and was looking for a subject area within which to become immersed. Discussions between the two authors subsequently led them to a joint quest to try to understand better what made humor so important to human beings.

Armed with personal experiences, the preceding attempts to work with humor, and Cousins' compelling story, we began our sortie into a research area that was a touch alien to us and, it would seem, to many of our professional colleagues. What we discovered, however, was that in the decade since H.L. had experimented with humor, there had been a monumental growth of interest in humor within such disciplines as psychology, sociology, medicine, and nursing. The sheer number of papers seemed to have grown exponentially since our first reviewing of the literature in the 1960s. However, what we did not see was an abundance of observational research from within psychologicallabora­tories. Because we were both trained as clinical psychologists and are devoted to research as a first priority, our own penchant was to create individual difference measures as a beginning and to try to predict what types of persons, in what conditions, were most apt to use humor effectively in their daily encounters.

Our perspective led us to use laboratory analogs to observe individuals closely as they tried to deal with quasi-stresses or to question persons to see how they dealt with the actual stresses in their lives. We have relied upon the real experiences of our subjects, invented experiences, and some of the most absurd contrived experiences that we could conjure up. In this process we owe much thanks to all of those subjects who have participated in our studies. It is notable that many subjects reported enjoying those studies, and, once again, we as experimenters found the conductance of humor research exciting and, at times, hilarious. We will

Preface vii

not quickly forget the time when our whole research team gathered together to create a monologue to accompany a stressful film that we hoped would induce mirth instead of anxiety. We did not succeed as far as our subjects were concerned, but we experienced one of those rare occasions when tears came rolling from our eyes uncontrollably. The hilarity seemed almost wild.

Our indebtedness to the research team goes without saying. We express our appreciation to Drs. Sandra Adams, Philip Miller, and Anne Vagi. Most especially, we owe so much to Wendy Saleh who, as H.L.'s research assistant, performed with professionalism and maturity. In addition, we owe much to the support of two foundations for the final production of this book. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada has supported each of the authors with research grants, fellowships, and scholarships. The continued support of this excellent agency has been indispensible for the conduct of research. The Leave Fellowship from that agency allowed H.L. to accept the support of a second foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Italy, at the Villa Serbelloni where several of these chapters were written.

Finally, there have been many individuals at the University of Waterloo who have played brief but essential roles: Barbara Lefcourt, whose continuous editing has helped to make our writing intelligible; Carol Sordoni, Paul Tower, Dan Cohen, Rob Shepherd, Carol Fick, Lisa Hicks, and Debbie Sherk, who each contributed to the empirical base that comprises this volume; and Deborah White and Jean Zadilsky, who with cheerfulness and cooperation typed the whole book.

Contents

Chapter 1 Theoretical Approaches to the Study of the Sense of Humor ....................................... 1

Arousal Theories ...................................... 4 Incongruity Theories .................................. 9 Superiority Theories ................................... 11 Conclusion ........................................... 13

Chapter 2 Questionnaire Approaches to the Assessment of the Sense of Humor ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

The Sense of Humor Questionnaire ..................... 18 The Situational Humor Response Questionnaire ......... 21 The Coping Humor Scale .............................. 28 Conclusion ........................................... 29

Chapter 3 Validational Studies of the Sense of Humor Questionnaires .................................. 31

Validity Study I ....................................... 31 Validity Study 2 ....................................... 35 Validity Study 3 ....................................... 39 Validity Study 4 ....................................... 42 Validity Study 5 ....................................... 44 General Discussion ................................... 46

Chapter 4 Sense of Humor as a Moderator of Life Stress ...... 48

Life Stress ............................................ 49 Humor as a Stress Moderator .......................... 50 Study I ............................................... 52 Study 2 ............................................... 57 Study 3 ............................................... 59 Conclusions .......................................... 61

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Chapter 5 Experimental Studies of Humor in a Stressful Laboratory Situation ............................. 64

Study I ............................................... 67 Study 2 ............................................... 74 General Discussion ................................... 78

Chapter 6 Humor and the Sense of Mastery.. ... . ... .... .... . 80

Study I ............................................... 82 Study 2 ............................................... 88 Study 3 ............................................... 95 Additional Observations ............................... 97 Conclusions .......................................... 98

Chapter 7 Sense of Humor and the Coping Process in Marriage ..................................... 100

Method and Procedure ................................ 102 Results ............................................... 104 Discussion ........................................... 107

Chapter 8 Sense of Humor and Coping With Physical Disability ............................... 110

Method and Procedure ................................ 111 Results ............................................... 116 Discussion ........................................... 119

Chapter 9 An Overview .................................... 123

References

Author Index

Subject Index

127

137

140