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Teachers of English to speakers of other languages have often incorporated humor in the curriculum, yet a recent computer search revealed that there were no empirical studies which have shown that curricular humor enhances English language learning. The three specific questions of the thesis are: does the use of curricular humor 1) improve memory/recall, 2) improve over-all English proficiency, and 3) result in the subjects' having more positive attitudes towards Americans, and if so, does a more positive attitude correlate with improved memory/proficiency?

This "Annotated Bibliography of Literary Mormon Humor" includes over five hundred sources, cross-referenced to pertinent commentary and criticism, and divided into seven sections: "Humor in Mormon Fiction," "Humor in Mormon Non-Fiction," "Mormon Criticism Assessing ‘Inside Humor,’" "Gentile Criticism of the Saints' Humor," "Gentile Humor About Mormons," "Mormon Criticism of Gentile Humor," and "Mormon Internet Humor," all made accessible to scholars by a comprehensive index of more than one thousand topics. The author has filed selected photocopied pages of alphabetized, annotated items by author, or chronologically as periodicals, into a twenty-volume Archive of Mormon Humor in Literature, housed at the Center for Study of Christian Values in Literature, 3076E JKHB, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. The introduction includes the author's survey of recent trends in Mormon literary humor.This compilation of Mormon humor and literary criticism conclusively dispels the notion that Mormons are humorless. Indeed, this bibliography convincingly documents the fact that the Mormon people enjoy laughing at themselves.

The study was designed to provide empirical data investigating children’s level of sense of humor with the severity of the hassles reported by the children. The sample included 82 children, 50 boys and 32 girls, ranging in age from 8-11 years, and representing the third, fourth, and fifth grades. Both male and female children participated in the study. The Hassles Scale for Elementary School Children (HSESC), a 22-item checklist, was administered to the children to assess the frequency of selected important hassles and the severity of the hassles. Subjects indicated those items that occurred in the past week and rated the severity of all the hassles on a 5-point Likert type response scale. The Children's Self-Rating of Humor (CSRH) questionnaire, a 20-item questionnaire, was completed by the children to evaluate children's level of sense of humor. Subjects rated each question on a 5-point Likert type response scale. Subjects were administered the scales individually and in small groups. To provide a more in-depth understanding of children’s use of humor, a subsample of 12 children, six boys and six girls, randomly selected to represent the three grade levels and high and low humor scores participated in a follow-up interview. The results of this study did not provide support for the contention that children with a high sense of humor would report hassles as being less upsetting as compared with children with a low sense of humor that would report hassles as being more upsetting. Further results seemed to indicate that the use of humor in stressful situations depended more on the child’s perception of the severity of the hassles rather than on the child's perceived level of sense of humor. The less upsetting the stressful situation was to the child the more likely the child would use humor and the more effective humor was in dealing with the stressful situation. More importantly, this study indicated that when humor was used it was not specific to the stressful situation but rather as a distraction, a more general coping mechanism. A recommendation for future research should include the need for a better understanding of how children produce humor in stressful situations. Also, future research should focus on investigating the differences in the effects of different types of humor on stressful situations and the timing of using humor on whether it is an immediate or delayed response to a stressful situation. Future studies should focus on the cognitive processes of children’s humor when applied to stressful situations. / Ph. D.

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The study was designed to measure the effects of a humorous experience on the problem solving behavior of married couples. Twenty married couples were randomly assigned to either a treatment or non-treatment group. Treatment couples viewed a humorous videotape prior to completing Olson and Ryder's Inventory of Marital Conflict (IMC). All couples were videotaped during their discussions of the IMC case situations and the tapes were later coded using Olson and Ryder's Marital and Family Interaction Coding System (MFICS). Data from the MFICS and the Post Discussion Form of the IMC were used in the statistical analysis. Couples who watched the tape prior to problem solving reported significantly higher levels of satisfaction with their decisions than couples who did not experience humor. They also reported a significantly higher level of involvement in discussing case situations that were similar to their own experiences than did the non-treatment group. It was predicted that treatment couples would experience less conflict and laugh more than non-treatment couples. This did not happen. It was also expected that there would be an interaction between the level of conflict that couples exhibited with the treatment condition and that the interaction would affect amounts of satisfaction and laughter. This did not demonstrate significance. The findings suggest that married couples can benefit from the use of humor prior to problem solving. They appear to be more focused in their efforts and to experience higher levels of satisfaction with the results. / Ph. D.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2003. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: At the start of the twentieth century Afrikaans humour was researched quite intensively. Since then, however, such research has been relatively sporadic and has concentrated on related sub-genres of humour, such as satire, irony and wit. This dissertation investigates anew the phenomenon of humour as manifested in Afrikaans short story texts, from the dual starting points of a current context and of the extensive theoretical studies done by other researchers worldwide. In the process, humour is viewed as a communicative strategy, a combination of codes which writers utilize within a specific socio-political context in order to create humorous effects and elicit resultant reactions from readers. One of the primary aims of this investigation into the codes and strategies employed by Afrikaans writers in the humorous short story genre, is to determine whether they coincide with universal tendencies or whether they have certain unique features. After a broad exposition of the historical background and of the evolution of the continually changing concept humour, attention is paid to theories regarding its nature and effect. The creative interaction between related modi, like comedy, satire, irony, wit, burlesque, travesty, parody, caricature, grotesque, absurd and black humour and their contribution to one's experience of humour are all researched. Initially, the Afrikaans humour-tradition is set against its historical background. Following this, a more detailed investigation considers strategies of humour selected from Afrikaans short story texts from 1884 to 2001. These are selected for their variety of types of humour and according to criteria relating to structure, style and convention. The major emphasis is placed on short stories of the past two decades, in an attempt to measure the era-relatedness of humour and the interaction with the prevailing socio-political context. These various stylistic strategies are contextualized in writers' deliberate attempts to create a humorous outcome. Along with generally universal characteristics - like the interaction of humorous and non-humorous texts, with time-bound trends (in common with other literatures) - it is concluded that the Afrikaans humorous short story is strongly ancho.ed both in relevance and contextuality. Humour remains a vibrant aspect of the Afrikaans short story and, by keeping this tradition alive, it also remains popular with the reading public. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Nadat daar aan die begin van die twintigste eeu betreklik intensiewe navorsing oor humor in Afrikaans gepubliseer is, het sedertdien slegs sporadiese studies verskyn oor verwante humormodi soos satire, ironie en geestigheid. Hierdie proefskrif wil gevolglik vanuit 'n huidige konteks, en na aanleiding van die uitgebreide teoretisering en navorsing elders ter wêreld, die verskynsel humor opnuut ondersoek, soos gemanifesteer in Afrikaanse kortverhaaltekste. Humor word in die proses benader as 'n kommunikatiewe strategie, 'n versameling kodes wat skrywers binne 'n bepaalde sosio-politieke konteks aanwend, met die oogmerk om humoristiese effekte te bewerkstellig en bepaalde reaksies by lesers uit te lok. Dié studie wil veral vasstel watter kodes en strategieë Afrikaanse humoristiese kortverhaalskrywers hierby gebruik, of dit ooreenstem met breë tendense elders of eie is aan Afrikaans. Na 'n oorsigtelike uiteensetting van die historiese grondslae en die evolusie van die steeds veranderende begrip humor, word aandag bestee aan teorieë oor die aard en effek daarvan. Die vrugbare interaksie tussen verwante modi soos die komedie, satire, ironie, geestigheid, die burleske, travestie, parodie, karikatuur, die groteske, die absurde en swart humor, asook die bydrae daarvan tot die humorbelewing, word vervolgens ondersoek. Die Afrikaanse humortradisie word eers oorsigtelik histories nagespeur, waarna nadere ondersoek ingestel word na humorstrategieë aan die hand van Afrikaanse kortverhaaltekste wat dateer van 1884 tot 2001, geselekteer op grond van sowel verskeidenheid met betrekking tot die tipe humor as kriteria soos struktuur, styl en konvensie. Die klem val op kortverhale uit die afgelope twee dekades, ten einde aspekte soos die tydgebondenheid van humor en die interaksie met die heersende sosiopolitieke konteks te probeer bepaal. Die verskillende stylstrategieë wat geïdentifiseer is, word in verband gebring met die skrywers se berekende opset om 'n humoristiese uitkoms te bewerkstellig. Naas meer universele kenmerke, soos die wisselwerking tussen humor en erns in dié tipe tekste en tydspesifieke neigings (in ooreenstemming met ander letterkundes), soos die toename in groteske en absurde tipe verhale, word bevind dat die Afrikaanse humor- en humoristiese verhaal sterk kontekstueel veranker is. Humor in die Afrikaanse kortverhaal word steeds op 'n lewenskragtige wyse beoefen deur skrywers en bly gewild by lesers.

Superiority, control, and dominance theories of disparaging humor were reviewed, and sexist humor was studied as representative of the field. The effects of educational level and sex of subject on the judgment of humor in sexist material were investigated, utilizing a set of 50 cartoons and jokes devised to approximate overlapping standard curves on the dimensions sexist content and humor. Subjects were 71 males and 73 females, comprising 84 undergraduates and 60 doctoral graduate students. Each subject performed a forced Q sort of the jokes, with 104 rating for humor and 40 rating for sexism to establish content weights. Subjects' rankings, age, sex, and educational level were recorded upon completion of the task. Significant negative correlations were found between educational level and judgment of humor in sexist material, and female subjects judged sexist material to be significantly less funny than males. Some support was indicated for existing theories.

This thesis offers the first critical examination of the sound of laughter in Romantic poetry. Part one locates laughter in the history of ideas of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and explores the interplay between laughter and key intellectual, aesthetic, ethical, and social issues in the Romantic period. I chart a development in thinking about laughter from its primary association with ridicule and the passions up to the early decades of the eighteenth century, to its emerging symbiosis with politeness and aesthetic judgement, before a reassertion of laughter's signification of passion and naturalness by the end of the eighteenth century. Laughter provides an innovative means of mapping cultural markers, and I argue that it highlights shifts in standards and questions of taste. Informed by this analysis, part two offers a series of historically aware close readings of Romantic poetry that identify both an indebtedness to, and refutation of, earlier and contemporaneous ideas about laughter. Rather than having humour or comedy as its central concerns, this thesis identifies the pervasive and capricious influence of the sound of the laugh in the writing of Robert Burns, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and John Keats. I detect the heterogeneous representations of laughter in their work that runs across a diverse range of genres, poetic forms, themes, and contexts. As such, I argue against the serious versus the humorous binary which prevails in literary criticism of Romanticism, and suggest that laughter articulates the interplay between the elegiac and the comic, the sublime and the ridiculous, the solitary and the communal. Moreover, I detect a double-naturedness to the sound of laughter in Romantic poetry that registers the subject's capacity to signify both consensus and dispute. This inherent polarity creates a tension in the poems as laughter ironically challenges what it also affirms. Never singularly fixed, the sound of laughter reveals the protean nature of Romantic verse.

Bakgrund: Varje sjuksköterska har som omvårdnadsansvarig ett etiskt och juridiskt ansvar för sitt bemötande, sina bedömningar och sina beslut. En personcentrerad vård förmodas kunna återförena den humanistiska omtanken till en alltmer medicinteknisk vård utan att reducera vårdtagaren till ett passivt vårdobjekt. Kan humor vara en bidragande komponent till att göra vården mer personcentrerad?  Syfte: Syftet var att belysa humorns betydelse för personcentrerad vård. Metod: En allmän litteraturöversikt med en kvalitativ innehållsanalys baserad på nio vetenskapliga artiklar publicerade mellan 2009–2019. Resultat: Innehållsanalysen genererade tre huvudteman: humor som ett kommunikationsverktyg, humorns betydelse för relationen mellan patient och sjuksköterska, samt förhållningssätt till humor. Slutsats: Humor har en central plats inom hälso-och sjukvård för att främja personcentrerad vård och bör betraktas som något att ta på allvar. Ett salutogent humorbruk har flera positiva effekter och undergräver inte sjuksköterskans professionalism. Genom att våga initiera, använda och återgälda humoruttryck kan sjuksköterskan stärka partnerskap, patientberättelse och dokumentation för den personcentrerade vården. Författarna efterfrågar mer forskning kring manliga sjuksköterskors upplevelser av humor då artiklarna i resultatet endast inkluderade kvinnliga sjuksköterskor, förslagsvis en empirisk studie med intervjuer i en svensk kontext. / Background: All nurses have an ethical and legal responsibility for their care, assessments and decisions. Person-centered care is assumed to bring a more humane aspect to the healthcare of today, without reducing the patient to a passive care object. Could the use of humor be a way to make the healthcare more person-centered? Aim: The aim was to explore the importance of humor to person-centered care. Method: A literature review with a qualitative content analysis, based on nine scientific articles published between 2009-2019. Results: The study generated three main themes: humor as a tool for communication, the importance of humor for the nurse-patient relationship, and approaches to humor. Conclusion: Humor has a key role in healthcare to promote person-centered care, and should be taken seriously. A salutogenic use of humor has multiple positive aspects and does not undermine the professionality of the nurse. Nurses can strengthen partnership, patient stories and documentation in person-centered care by initiating, using and reciprocating humor. The authors ask for more empirical studies targeting the experiences of the use of humor by male nurses, as the articles only included female nurses, for example an empirical study based on interviews conducted in Sweden.