Laughter as a Buffer for Negative Thoughts in Anxiety-Provoking Situations

Public Deposited
Analytics

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
Request Version for Screen Reader
Last Modified
  • February 26, 2019
Creator
  • Knowles, Kelly
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
Abstract
  • Laughter is a phenomenon that occurs in a variety of contexts and has effects at social, cognitive, and physiological levels. Laughter is linked to positive emotions, which have been theorized to broaden thought-action repertoires and build social and psychological resources; however, few studies have examined the effects of laughter in an experimental manner. In times of anxiety, people could especially benefit from more flexible thoughts and increased social and psychological resources, and laughter may be a useful tool in the psychological arsenal. In this study, I attempt to use laughter as an intervention to reduce anxiety after the induction of an anxious state. I compare the effects of genuine laughter to the effects of another positive state, relaxation, as well as to a forced laughter condition and a control condition without an intervention, on subjective ratings of anxiety and cognitions. Although laughter was not found to affect self-reported ratings of anxiety, it did significantly lessen the degree of negative thoughts regarding the anxiety-provoking situation compared to the other three conditions. Genuine laughter also reduced implicit attentional bias toward social threat compared to the control condition, as measured by an emotional Stroop task. Future research could extend this finding by exploring the utility of laughter in a therapeutic setting with clinically anxious clients, as anxiety disorders are characterized by an attentional bias to perceived threat and inflexible, negative cognitions about situations or objects that are found threatening. Using laughter along with traditional cognitive-behavioral therapy might increase treatment success rates and overall client well-being.
Date of publication
Keyword
DOI
Resource type
Rights statement
  • In Copyright
Note
  • Funding: None
Advisor
  • Algoe, Sara
Degree
  • Bachelor of Arts
Honors level
  • Highest Honors
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Extent
  • 37

Relations

Parents:

This work has no parents.

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details 2013_Knowles.pdf 2019-05-17 Public Download