The Psychology of Humor

The Psychology of Humor and How It Can Be Used As an Effective Stress Coping Technique.

Humor is a part of our everyday lives and is often used as a form of Stress Relief. The word “humor” comes from the Latin word of the same spelling meaning fluid or moisture. This can be interpreted in today’s world as “going with the flow.” People all around the world love hearing jokes and telling them whether it be verbally, through greeting cards, or over the internet. People often tell jokes to lighten the mood on a dreary situation or to get their point across to another individual. Military members in combat will often use humor to joke about the bad situations that they are faced with; this type of humor is often referred to as black humor. Dating back to pre historic times human have been able to provide a good chuckle for one another. Ancient Greeks would often use theatre to balance tragedy with comedies. Examples of their humor can be found in the “Font of al literature” in which Homer’s epics include many humorous passages such as the “Seductions of Zeus,” in which the Greek God finds himself the object of his wife Hera’s sexual advances. Modern sexual comedies such as “Van Wilder” and “Harold and Kumar” are forever in debt to the Greeks. It was because of the Greeks that we have these sexual comedies, but of course during their days these types of comedies were referred to as Satyr Plays. Since the Greek times humans have evolved their humor into the forms of television shows and radio broadcastings. On any given night you could probably walk into the home of a family and find them huddled around their television watching comedies such as “Everybody loves Raymond” or “King of Queens.” What is thought to be humorous to one individual might not be so to another. Everybody has in their own mind what they think to be humorous or funny. There are around nine different types of humor ranging from the top “parody” defined as making fun