Encountering stressful life events is an unavoidable element of the human experience. Quite possibly, the extent to which these stressful events affect one’s mind and body are more severe than noticeable. Research has shown that such stressful events have the potential to adversely affect an individual’s physical and/or psychological state (Nezu , Blisset and Nezu, 1988; Porterfield, 1987; Cohen, Tyrell, & Smith, 1993). Studies have shown a relationship between stressful life events and both increased susceptibility to the common cold (Cohen, et al., 1993), and a depressed or anxious psychological state (Dohrenwend & Dohrenwend, 1981). With this in mind, it is important to investigate the ways in which an individual deals with stress; how one handles these events may determine the impact on one’s physical and/or psychological well being. For example, coping skills, problem-solving skills (Nezu, Nezu, Saraydarian, Kalmar & Ronan, 1986), and cognitive appraisals (Kuiper, Martin & Olinger, 1993) have been identified as psycho-social variables that moderate the negative impact of stress.
Humor, as well, has been investigated for its potential to moderate the negative effects of stress, as well as directly influence negative affect. In addition to receiving attention from the research community, the benefit of humor in dealing with stress or difficult life circumstances has long been recognized by many. How often do we hear that “laughter is the best medicine,” and how frequently do others try to make us laugh in an attempt to cheer us up? And for many, it is quite common to notice an uplifted mood after observing or creating a humorous situation, such as watching a funny movie or participating in humorous dialogue. In fact, there is an empirical basis for this common recognition, as various types of humor have been shown to play a role in dealing with the physical and psychological effects of stress and psychological state directly.
Effects of Humor 3
Stress can result from an individual misinterpreting ordinary events as threatening. According to Gillis (1992), “just as flawed thinking can produce negative affective responses to ordinary or even benign events, so should realistic cognitions serve to minimize distress in the face of negative or stressful circumstances” (p. 79). Perhaps humor functions to put things back into perspective by helping to distance oneself from the situation.
Additionally, Thorson and Powell (1993) developed the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (MSHS), assessing the following categories of humor: humor generation, coping humor, humor appreciation, and appreciation of humorous people. Finally, Moran & Massam (1999) describe “humor bias” as an individual’s propensity to seek out humor from the environment.
The ten item Perceived Stress Scale, developed by Cohen and Williamson (1988), assesses “the degree to which situations in life are perceived as stressful,” and was designed to “tap how unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloading respondents find their lives” (Cohen, Tyrell & Smith, 1993, p.132).
Another stress-rating scale is the Social Readjusting Rating Scale (SRRS). This scale is comprised of 43 items – life events that are considered “differentially stressful.” Individuals indicate which events they have experienced. By assigning points to each event/item, a Life Change Unit score is calculated and is indicative of total level of experienced stress. Related to the SRRS is the Life Experiences Survey (LES)(Sarason, Johnson, & Siegel, 1978). This scale contains the 43 items for the SRRS, plus an extra four items, as well as free space for an individual to note other life-impacting experiences. The individual is asked to rate the positivity or negativity of his or her response to each event.

Effects of Humor 4
Both the Inventory to Diagnose Depression (Zimmerman, 1983) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) are used in studies that assess depression. The former is used to diagnose and assess the severity of major depression, in accordance with the DSM III. Each item on the scale represents symptoms of depression, and includes: sad mood, energy level, level of interest in usual activities, guilt, worthlessness, weight loss, irritability, and several others. Martin & Lefcourt (1984) define sense of humor as “the frequency with which the individual smiles, laughs, or otherwise displays amusement in a variety of situations,” and created The Situational Humor Response Questionnaire (SHRQ) to assess this construct (p. 147). The Coping Humor Scale (CHS) also designed by Martin & Lefcourt (1983), measures use of humor in coping with stressful life events. A third scale commonly utilized in humor research is The Sense of Humor Questionnaire (SHQ; Svebak, 1974). This scale measures three aspects of humor appreciation and production: meta-message sensitivity - describing ones ability to “see” humor in daily life; personal liking of humor - enjoying humor; and emotional permissiveness - assessing ones ability to openly express emotions (Svebak). Each of these scales was utilized when Martin & Lefcourt (1983) first investigated the stress moderating effect of humor on mood in a series of three studies. These three studies used the Profile of Mood States (POMS; McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1971) to assess predominant current mood levels of the participants. In the first study, which used a sample of 29 male and 27 female college students, humor was measured by the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire (SHRQ), Sense of Humor Questionnaire (SHQ), and Coping Humor Scale (CHS). Negative life events were assessed by the Life Events of College Students Questionnaire, which is a checklist of 112
Effects of Humor 5 experiences common among this population. It was found that a high score on the SHRQ indicated a weaker relation between negative life events and depressed moods because participants who scored high on this measure of humor showed lower levels of mood disturbance as negative life events increased, as compared to the low humor participants. This moderating effect was also found when humor was measured by the CHS; Participants who scored lower on the CHS had a higher correlation between life events and total mood disturbance.
In their second study, Martin & Lefcourt (1983) attempted to avoid self-report bias by utilizing a behavioral measure of humor production. The sample consisted of 29 male and 33 female college students. To assess negative life events, the Life Experiences Survey was filled out by participants, who were instructed to answer questions as they pertained to the past year. Humor production was assessed by a task created by the researchers, in which participants were asked to describe an array of miscellaneous objects in as humorous a manner as possible. Scores for number of witty remarks and overall wittiness were combined because they were shown to be highly correlated. Martin & Lefcourt (1983) found that participants who scored higher on the humor task showed less of a relation between negative life events and disturbed mood (assessed by POMS) than their low humor counterparts. Additionally, these humor scores correlated with the humor scores on the SHRQ from the first study.
In their third study, Martin & Lefcourt (1983) used an experimental design to study coping humor and its stress moderating effects. Eleven female and 14 male college students participated in the study. As with the first study, participants filled out the Life Events of College Students to Questionnaire to assess negative life events in the preceding year, and
Effects of Humor 6 the POMS to assess current mood. For the experiment, participants were shown a “stressful” film, during which they were asked to make up a humorous narrative. These narratives were scored for overall humorous on a 0-3 scale. In addition, participants answered five questions to assess the likelihood that they would use humor in similar real-life situations.
Martin and Lefcourt (1983) found a high correlation between humor rating and both participants’ self-reported use of humor in similar situations and score on the CHS. They also found that coping humor did moderate the effects of stress in participants.
Nezu, Nezu, and Blissett (1988) investigated the “sense of humor” construct as a moderator between stress and distress symptomatology. The rationale of this study was to add to past literature (specifically, the study conducted by Martin & Lefcourt,1983) by incorporating a longitudinal design, including a pre-assessment of distress levels, assessing humor production rather than humor appreciation, and focusing on two forms of distress, depression and anxiety, rather than measuring total negative mood (Nezu, et al., 1988). Forty-six female and forty-one male students, with a mean age of 23.3 participated in the study. Humor was measured by two scales, the Coping Humor Scale and the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire; Negative life stress was assessed by use of the Life Experiences Survey; and distress symptomatology was assessed by the Beck Depression Inventory and the trait scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Negative life stress, humor, depression, and anxiety were assessed during the first testing period. Two months later, stressful events (that had occurred between assessments), depression, and anxiety were re-assessed (Nezu, Nezu, & Blissett, 1988).
Nezu, et al. found a significant relationship between humor and depressive symptoms of life stress, where higher humor scores, as measured by The Coping Humor
Effects of Humor 7
Scale and The Situational Humor Response Questionnaire, predicted lower stress-related depression scores. In addition, they found humor, both coping humor and sense of humor (defined as frequency of humor displayed in life situations), served as a moderating variable, between stress and depression. Generally, a moderating variable influences the natural effect of one variable on another; more specifically, humor as a moderator between stress and depressive symptoms functions to alter an individual’s progression from stress to depression. This influence has been referred to as the “stress-humor-outcome relationship” (Abel, 1998, p.267).
In a related study, Deaner & McConatha (1993) investigated the relationship between humor and depression. Their study, which included data from 129 college students, utilized the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire, Coping Humor Scale, and Sense of Humor Questionnaire to assess the “sense of humor” variable. Depression was assessed through use of the Inventory to Diagnose Depression. After learning that the three humor scales were only moderately correlated (measuring different aspects of “sense of humor”), data was analyzed separately for each scale. Results indicate a correlation between humor, as measured by the Coping Humor Scale, and depression; a low depression score tended to indicate a higher coping humor score. This finding suggests that “an individual who was less depressed tended to use humor more as a coping mechanism” indicating the possibility “it may be that humor is a mediating variable which helps to alleviate or prevent the onset of depression.” (Deaner & McConatha, 1993, 762).
Overholser (1992) asserts that commonly used humor scales are problematic because they assess humor appreciation rather than humor production; participants are likely to attest to their senses of humor because of its social desirability. Therefore, a scale that
Effects of Humor 8 measures humor production, the Humor Creativity Ratings, was included when investigating the relationships between humor, stress, and depression. Fifty-two female and forty-six male students participated in the study. Each completed three measures of humor: the Coping Humor Scale, Humor Creativity Ratings, and the Humor Appreciation Scale; the Life Experiences Survey; and the Beck Depression Inventory. Overholser (1992) describes the Humor Creativity Ratings as a series of eight cartoons with images of stressful situations, for which participants create humorous captions within a fifteen minute time frame, and which are scored by objective raters. The Humor Appreciation Scale also involves cartoons, however, these are already captioned. Participants are required to rate the funniness of each cartoon, on a five point scale (Overholser). It was found that humor moderated the relationship between life stress and depression for women. This was the case when humor was self reported by the Coping Humor Scale and when tested by both the Humor Creativity Ratings and the Humor Appreciation Scale. However, no relationship was found between humor and depression when participants were reassessed seven weeks later (Overholser, 1992).
Self reported use of humor when coping with stressful situations tended to indicate less depression among participants. Because this relationship was not evident when participants were re-assessed, it is suggested that humor may have a temporary effect on depression (Overholser). Additionally, the moderating effect of humor was found in participants who reported using humor infrequently, but not in those who reported using humor all the time when dealing with stressful situations. Therefore, Overholser (1992) suggests that in order for humor to function as an effective means of coping one must not over-use it, thereby using humor as a means of denial.
Effects of Humor 9
While humor has been found to function as a moderator between stress and distress symptoms (i.e. depression, anxiety), other studies have found a direct influence of humor on these symptoms. Similar to the first finding of Nezu, Nezu, and Blissett (1998), Porterfield (1987) found that individuals who scored higher on humor scored lower on the measure of depression. However, this finding did not establish the moderator role of humor, because high humor indicated low levels of depression regardless of life stress levels. Rather than serving to cope with stress, the researchers suggest that both coping humor (CHS) and sense of humor (also assessed by frequency of humor displayed in various life situations - SHRQ) directly counteract depression. Ninety-five male and 125 female college students participated in the cross-sectional study. The stressful life events variable was measured by the College Students’ Life Events Schedule; psychological disturbance was measured by the Center For Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Danzer, Dale & Klions (1990) also investigated the relationship between humor and depression, however, rather than a correlational design, an experimental design was adopted. Under investigation was the use of humor to counteract induced depression. After initial mood assessment, the thirty-eight female participants were shown twenty depressing mood statement slides. Again, mood was assessed by score on the Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist. After successful depression induction participants were divided into three groups: humor group, which was exposed to a comedic audio tape, non-humor control group, which listened to a geology tape of the same length, and a waiting control group, which waited in silence for the same 11.5 minutes. Induction of depression was equivalent among all groups. The final mood assessment indicated a significant decreased depression rating for both the

Effects of Humor 10 humor group and the waiting group. However, only the humor group experienced a decrease in depression rating back to the baseline score.
One of the largest shortcomings in humor literature involves the limited samples used in investigations. Each study presented in this literature review utilized a sample of college students; none included socio-demographic information. While the findings do suggest that relationships exist between humor and depression and anxiety, these findings are not generalizable to other populations.
Additionally, studies do not differentiate between degrees of depression. It may be that humor interacts with these variables in some conditions (i.e. low levels) but not in others. Finally, addressing the construction of humorous situations, which studies have included, it is difficult to be certain whether or not all participants find the same things humorous. For instance, humor tapes used in experimental designs may be funny to some participants but not to others.
Humor has been found to be related to depression, either acting as a moderator between stress and distress symptomatology or as a directly related variable. Specifically, coping humor and humor production have been shown to have the strongest correlation with depression.

Effects of Humor 11

References

Abel, M.H. (1998). Interaction of humor and gender in moderating relationships between stress and outcomes. The Journal of Psychology, 132(3), 267-276.
Cohen, S., Tyrell, D.A.J., and Smith, A.P. (1993). Negative life events, perceived stress negative affect, and susceptibility to the common cold. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(1), 131-140.
Danzer, A., Dale, J.A., & Klions, H.L. (1990). Effect of exposure to humorous stimuli on induced depression. Psychological Reports, 66, 1027-1036.
Deaner, S.L. and McConatha, J.T. (1993). The relation of humor to depression and personality. Psychological Reports, 72, 755-763.
Gillis, J.S. (1992). Stress, anxiety, and cognitive buffering. Behavioral Medicine, 18, 79-83.
Kuiper, N.A., Martin, R.A., and Olinger, L.J. (1993). Coping humour, stress, and cognitive appraisals. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 25(1), 81-96.
Lefcourt, H.M., Davidson, K., Prkachin, K.M., and Mills, D.E. (1997). Humor as a stress moderator in the prediction of blood pressure obtained during five stressful tasks. Journal of Research in Personality, 31, 523-542.
McNair, D.M., Lorr, M, & Droppleman, L.F. The Profile of Mood States. San Diego, Calif.: EDITS, 1971.
Nezu, A.M., Blissett, S.E., and Nezu, C.M. (1988). Sense of humor as a moderator of the relation between stressful events and psychological distress: A prospective analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(2), 520-525.

Effects of Humor 12
Nezu, A.M., Nezu, C.M., Saraydarian, L., Kalmar, K., & Ronan, G.F. (1986). Social problem solving as a moderating variable between negative life stress and depressive symptoms. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 10(5), 489-498.
Overholser, J.C. (1992). Sense of humor when coping with life stress. Personality and Individual Differences, 13(7), 799-804.
Porterfield, A.L. (1987). Does sense of humor moderate the impact of life stress on psychological and physical well-being? Journal of Research in Personality, 21, 306-317.
Sarason, I.G., Johnson, J.H., & Siegel, J.M. (1978). Assessing the impact of life changes: Development of the Life Experience Survey. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 56, 932-946.
Svebak, S. (1974). Revised questionnaire on the sense of humor. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 15, 328-331.
Thorson, J.A. & Powell, F.C. (1993). Relationships of death anxiety and sense of humor. Psychological Reports, 72, 1364-1366.
Zimmerman, M. (1983). The Inventory to Diagnose Depression. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa.