Laughter Essay

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Is laughter health-promoting? Do cross-generations have different views on which types of laughter are more health beneficial than others? Is laughter done behind a hand equal to laughter done with the head thrown back and the mouth wide open? Is loud better than soft, “laughing with” better than “laughing at,” mirthful laughter better than bitter or ironic laughter? People do expect laughter to provide relief from pain and discomfort, but does the type of laughter matter in which one is more beneficial than the next? Laughter has shown physiological, psychological, social, spiritual, and quality-of-life benefits. Diana L. Mahony, W. Jeffrey Burroughs, and Louis G. Lippman teamed up to research the popular belief that laughter benefits health …show more content…

Laughter is associated with positive affects and social appropriateness and is correlated most strongly with the perception of a contribution to health made by a laughter type. The data received from the surveys revealed an interesting pattern, according to the researchers. The results suggest that young adults, relative to the older participants, saw high-volume, less controlled laughter as more healthful. The older, but not younger, participants indicated that social appropriateness is an important attribute of health promoting laughter. Both groups indicated that positive emotion was an important attribute. In sum, the laughter types perceived as most beneficial by the older group can be described as gentler, kinder, and less active; preferences of the young adults are greater volume and movement. There have been many changes in the social norms governing types of humor and responses to humor that are acceptable. (The Journal of Psychology, Mahony, Burroughs, & Lippman pg. 179) Mora-Ripholl hypothesized that it is necessary to discriminate between variables of laughter, as many analyses of humor have used a humor stimulus, for example a comic movie, to determine the effect of "humor" on a health-related outcome, and others look categorically at the effects of laughter on these conclusions. Still others explore different ways to test sense of humor in an attack to analyze whether scoring higher on a sense-of-humor scale is associated with certain health outcomes. (Mora-Ripoll pg.

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