section_path: Studies/Health
section_name: Health
paragraph_text: Health
  
  Adaptive Humour use has shown to be effective for increasing resilience in dealing with distress and also effective in buffering against or undoing negative affects. In contrast, maladaptive humour use can magnify potential negative effects.
  
  Madelijn Strick, Rob Holland, Rick van Baaren, and Ad van Knippenberg (2009) of Radboud University conducted a study that showed the distracting nature of a joke on bereaved individuals. Subjects were presented with a wide range of negative pictures and sentences. Their findings showed that humorous therapy attenuated the negative emotions elicited after negative pictures and sentences were presented. In addition, the humour therapy was more effective in reducing negative affect as the degree of affect increased in intensity. Humour was immediately effective in helping to deal with distress. The escapist nature of humour as a coping mechanism suggests that it is most useful in dealing with momentary stresses. Stronger negative stimuli requires a different therapeutic approach.
  
  Humour is an underlying character trait associated with the positive emotions used in the broaden-and-build theory of cognitive development.
  
  Studies, such as those testing the undoing hypothesis, have shown several positive outcomes of humour as an underlying positive trait in amusement and playfulness. Several studies have shown that positive emotions can restore autonomic quiescence after negative affect. For example, Frederickson and Levinson showed that individuals who expressed Duchenne smiles during the negative arousal of a sad and troubling event recovered from the negative affect approximately 20% faster than individuals who did not smile.
  
  Using humour judiciously can have a positive influence on cancer treatment. The effectiveness for humour‐based interventions in patients with schizophrenia is uncertain in a Cochrane review.
  
  Humour can serve as a strong distancing mechanism in coping with adversity. In 1997, Kelter and Bonanno found that Duchenne laughter correlated with reduced awareness of distress. Positive emotion is able to loosen the grip of negative emotions on people's thinking. A distancing of thought leads to a distancing of the unilateral responses people often have to negative arousal. In parallel with the distancing role plays in coping with distress, it supports the broaden and build theory that positive emotions lead to increased multilateral cognitive pathway and social resource building.