ESSAYS 2 {Change in your topic or conducting your own study}

Humor is the act of making some funny jokes to make people laugh. When a person smiles, even if they were angry about something, they will tend to forget it. For college students who are angry over some issues, I find laughter to be the best weapon for them to forget their anger. For example, athletic students may come from a competition where they did not win. It makes them gloomy because of the thought. Therefore, humor can be the best medicine for them.

Humor has been difficult to analyze over time. If a joke is mentioned and people do not laugh, then the joker has to explain it, which makes it less of a joke and more of an elaboration. Hence, people will not laugh as they were supposed to. Humor is a social phenomenon that is enjoyable and pleasant when enjoyed by a group of people. For example, when watching something funny alone, one cannot laugh as much as they would when with a group of people. Thus, the question of interest is, can laughter defuse anger in college students and bring happiness? The problem is crucial because it helps in the understanding of how humor can get rid of anger. The college athletic team might disagree with the thesis because they feel like the anger they have can only disappear with time and not with the help of humor.

Most people do not believe that humor can defuse anger and bring happiness, but research has been done on the field and found that laughter is indeed a weapon. Satisfaction is not only shown by laughter, but also with smiles and grins. Humor is a form of communication where the person experiencing the humor passes it on to others for them to laugh. Thus, for it to work, the audience must be a group of many people.

Humor is vital in keeping college students happy because they will tend to make a joke out of every bad situation. For instance, if the athletic students are a bit in a competition, they can make fun of the moments they experienced, and no one will be angry about the experience. Staying as a group is also important because one will not find someone to laugh with if they are alone. Also, people grow stronger and healthier when they laugh because they will not have time to think of bad moments that can stress them.

Overall, to make humor essential tools to release anxiousness and stresses for college students, humor should be understandable. For one to laugh when humor is presented, they must first be able to understand what is said. So, humor should be composed using understandable words for every individual in a group to interpret it and laugh. Thus, laughter is a weapon and a form of communication that is important in a college setup.

Annotated Bibliography

Baisley, Margaret C., and Neil E. Grunberg. "Bringing humor theory into practice: An interdisciplinary approach to online humor training." New Ideas in Psychology 55 (2019): 24-34.

The research is about humor theories and their elements. It also talks about the importance of humor in health and education. It is good because a positive association was obtained. Further research should be conducted to show the association between humor and health outcomes.

Gilliam, Linda Marie. Magical Management in the Classroom: Using Humor to Speak Their Language. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.

The book talks about how humor can be used to get the attention of others. It is good, and if a person does not seem to be interested in what you say, it is good to be patient and learn their ways; therefore, humor can be the best form of communication.

Here, humor is seen as a serious help in dealing with serious issues such as blood pressure, also used as a tool in reducing tension. The article is useful because positive results can be observed. More research should be conducted on the positive and negative consequences.

King, Brian. The Laughing Cure: Emotional and Physical Healing—A Comedian Reveals Why Laughter Really Is the Best Medicine. Skyhorse, 2016.

The book talks about how humor acts as a medicine that cures people because happiness comes along with humor. The book is good for this particular research because it shows that humor can reduce depression. I suggest that more research should be conducted to support the idea.

Kalaivani, S., and Karaline Rajkumar. "Laughter is the best medicine for stress relief." International Journal of Advances in Nursing Management 5.3 (2017): 262-264.

The journal explains that laughter is the best medicine in relieving stress. It is good, and the results reveal that when one is happy, they tend to forget about their worst moments. I suggest more research to be conducted.

Laursen, Julie. "(No) Laughing Allowed—Humour and the Limits of Soft Power in Prison." British Journal of Criminology 57.6 (2017): 1340-1358.

The journal talks about how humor helps keep prisoners in a happy mood. It can also relate to college students. It is partially good because prisoners may be slightly different from students. I suggest more research to be done on the field.

Mahan, Robert. The Experience of Using Humor in the Workplace: A Case Study. Diss. Capella University, 2019.

Humor is best when a group of people handles it and not alone. It is good, and the results show that when working, humor keeps people motivated to accomplish a specific task when they keep laughing. I suggest more research to be conducted.

Scheel, Tabea. "Humor and Learning in the Workplace." Humor at Work in Teams, Leadership, Negotiations, Learning and Health. Springer, Cham, 2017. 79-94.

The research shows how humor can be used in learning. It is good, and results show that humor is seen as a form of motivation and development of a positive attitude towards learning. I suggest more research to be conducted.

Schwartz, Jesse W. "Preaching to the Choir: Turning Anger Into Engagement at Urban Community Colleges." Radical Teacher 111 (2018): 6-11.

The article shows how humor can be used to defuse anger. It is good, and results show that it can help create some form of engagement in something common. I suggest more research to be conducted.

Tay, Benedict TC, et al. "Types of humor that robots can play." Computers in Human Behavior 60 (2016): 19-28.

This is research on humor that can be performed by both robots and humans. It compares jokes performed by a human and the ones conducted by a robot to determine the one people like most. It is good, and results show that people prefer jokes that can be offensive to be done by a robot. I suggest more research to be conducted.