Laughter

By Janice Mcmurray. 1885

AJN ▼ April 2001 ▼ Supplement http://www.nursingcenter.com T he mere mention of cancer can inspire dread. The grief, anger, fear, anxiety, and depression that commonly beset cancer patients and their families can further erode health and well-being. However, there is a favorable aspect to cancer. A person who has been diagnosed with it, defined as a survivor, will often lead a fuller, more meaningful life. Survivors may have a greater appreciation of being alive, a diminished fear of death, a more optimistic outlook, and a deeper faith in God. They have described the experience as life changing “from black and white to full color” and one expressed his spiritual renewal in these terms: “I savor and cherish every moment. I smell the grass when I cut it, bask in the feel of the sun on my face, and watch ants and clouds go by.” Harold Benjamin, PhD, and founder of the Wellness Community, a support program for those fighting for recovery from cancer, once said, “The more laughter there is, the higher the quality-of-life, and the higher the quality-of-life, the greater the will to live.” This article explores the effects of therapeutic humor and an optimistic perspective on the quality of the lives of cancer survivors.

Subfields: Speech & Audio, Cognitive Science & Psychology

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In Speech & Audio

R. Provine

In Cognitive Science & Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Human-centric Dialog Training via Offline Reinforcement Learning (2020, background): “Laughter has been shown to be very important to human afﬁliation (Provine, 1996) and solidarity (Hay, 2000).”
Integrating perceived playfulness into expectation-confirmation model for web portal context (2005, background): “Characterizing playfulness is difficult [5], because laymen and researchers use the term ‘‘play’’ in several ways [17,20].”
The psychology of coordination and common knowledge. (2014, background): “…signals which accompany self-conscious emotions evolved with their peculiar anatomy and physiological configurations (Tracy & Matsumoto, 2008) precisely because those configurations are simultaneously salient to the expresser and the perceiver (see Provine, 1996, 2012, for discussion).”
Laughing, Tickling, and the Evolution of Speech and Self (2004, background): “In contrast, laughing chimpanzees do not parse their exhalations, but produce one laugh sound per outward and inward breath (Provine, 1996).”