Study of the effect of positive humour as a variable that reduces stress. Relationship of humour with personality and performance variables

• Autores: Glòria Grases Colom, Cristina Trías Alcover, Cristian Sánchez Curto, Juan Zárate-Osuna
• Localización: Psychology in Spain, ISSN-e 1137-9685, Nº. 15, 2011, págs. 9-21
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen
  • español

    The purpose of this study was to increase positive humour as a strategy for reducing participants' levels of anxiety. To this end, 31 volunteer students were selected and given a test of perceptual speed to generate stress response (anxiety).

    Subsequently, participants were exposed to a comedy video of about 25 minutes' duration (made specifically for this study).

    State-anxiety levels were assessed three times: at the beginning of the study (baseline), after the perceptual speed test and after watching the humorous video. Personality variables and level of dispositional optimism were also measured. The results indicate a statistically significant decrease in state-anxiety levels after viewing the comedy video. We also found that those participants with higher levels of dispositional optimism had lower levels of state-anxiety after viewing the comedy video, and scored lower on neuroticism and higher on extraversion. Statistically significant positive correlations were also found between neuroticism and state-anxiety. Furthermore, the results indicate that those with higher levels of anxiety at baseline were not those with the poorest performance on the perceptual speed test.

  • English

    The purpose of this study was to increase positive humour as a strategy for reducing participants' levels of anxiety. To this end, 31 volunteer students were selected and given a test of perceptual speed to generate stress response (anxiety). Subsequently, participants were exposed to a comedy video of about 25 minutes' duration (made specifically for this study). State-anxiety levels were assessed three times: at the beginning of the study (baseline), after the perceptual speed test and after watching the humorous video. Personality variables and level of dispositional optimism were also measured. The results indicate a statistically significant decrease in state-anxiety levels after viewing the comedy video. We also found that those participants with higher levels of dispositional optimism had lower levels of state-anxiety after viewing the comedy video, and scored lower on neuroticism and higher on extraversion. Statistically significant positive correlations were also found between neuroticism and state-anxiety. Furthermore, the results indicate that those with higher levels of anxiety at baseline were not those with the poorest performance on the perceptual speed test.