Psychologists unpack whether “laughter is the best medicine” maxim is scientifically sound

Avery Caudill
Thu, 28 Mar 2024 02:02:43 +0000
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Derived from a biblical proverb, “laughter is the best medicine” is an adage long-used to reflect the health benefits that can result from good humor.

Through a 2024 lens, it’s difficult to discern whether the saying is scientifically legitimate or overly optimistic.

Laughter, humor and comedy are shared human experiences that are often not deeply analyzed beyond people’s surface-level perceptions of them, Ohio State psychology department lecturer Lauren Pino said. Humor is a handy tool humans can use to cope with undesirable emotions, build relationships and entertain one another, said Mark Shatz, an Ohio University psychology professor with expertise in comedy, death and dying.

“What humor does is allow individuals to spin [life] on some level, rationalize what happens,” Shatz said. “But once they do that and once they get that laugh, they can see life with clear eyes. So what humor does is it doesn’t fix stuff, but it helps you see better.”

Nevertheless, there are situations where humor is no laughing matter, Shatz said. Though it can be effective when used for positivity, humor can be detrimental to one’s mental health when used to offend and ridicule.

“You can be passive-aggressive with humor and actually hurt people with it,” Shatz said. “It’s a tool, and it’s your choice how to use the tool. Fortunately, most people tend to use it for its benefits, but all you have to do is go on to social media and you’ll learn very quickly they can use humor as a weapon to hurt others.”

Because humans have been socialized to laugh when someone tells a joke, Pino said those hurt by another’s intended-to-be humorous comments may reflexively laugh despite feeling wounded. She said it’s important for people to be cognizant of when humor is being used with ill intentions, or when laughter is weaponized against others.

“I’ve found in my research that although we’re decently good at telling when something’s meant to be friendly versus mean and teasing, it’s not a 100% thing on average,” Pino said. “What could be funny to one person might be really hurtful to another and they could still laugh, despite that. So you might get a kind of skewed idea of what the impact is if you don’t understand all these moving parts.”

Nevertheless, there is an upside to joke-like humor, so long as it’s delivered in the correct format. Pino said prosocial teasing — or intentional but playful teases not meant to be taken seriously by the joke’s subject — is one particularly effective example, Pino said.

“Prosocial teasing seems to be helpful in a lot of situations, including just generally relationship building and a lot of people value it as part of their relationships,” Pino said. “But obviously, you do have to be careful because not everyone values it and not everyone can recognize it.”

Though Shatz said laughter can be used to cope with life’s harsh realities, as it can reduce the intensity of one’s outlook on day-to-day stressors, he said there is an important distinction to be made between “daily humor” and the capitalized comedy industry.

“There’s a difference between daily humor where, if you and I were together and something stupid happened to you and I, we can make a joke about it,” Shatz said. “To me, that’s just humor, it’s a gift that we have and as advanced primates, we can do that. The comedy market, the production of it and delivery of it, that’s a totally different beast.”

Notably, Shatz said daily humor is something humans often use to regulate emotion and, on an even deeper level, grieve.

“Life is limited, we often forget that. It’s really easy to forget that we’re only here for a brief period of time and when somebody dies that we care for and love or somebody famous that we cared for, we remember that,” Shatz said. “That’s where the death gives you the big perspective and humor again, it gives you daily perspective. However, I will often say the two do mix because if you think back to the most memorable funerals you had, I would bet the house they involve laughter.”

It may seem obvious that positive humor and laughter can combat negativity, but Pino said these mechanisms can even serve to reduce stress and moderate one’s mental health.

“If you have that negative, stressful event happen, and then you engage in humor and laughing and so forth, that could kind of help you think about the stress in different ways, and as a result, might lower any negative impacts on your mental health that that event otherwise could have had,” Pino said.

Similarly, Pino said interpersonal relationships can be strengthened through laughter because of the way humor affirms positive thoughts and feelings from others, helping an individual feel a greater degree of acceptance.

“Laughter is one of the things that we know kind of leads to people feeling their relationships, getting a better sense that they’re supported in their relationships with others,” Pino said. “And it might be laughing at those emotions and experiences that leads to you feeling more supported by people in your life, and in turn is what drives you to have a stronger or greater sense of well-being.”

All in all, while Shatz said laughter may not be the “best” medicine, it is one of the most accessible.

“It is the cheapest medicine,” Shatz said. “Laughter has limits, your body does what it wants to do, and even if you have a great attitude, the end game is still the same.”