Bringing humor theory into practice: An interdisciplinary approach to online humor training

To bring humor into practice, we conducted a thorough review of humor literature and integrated known therapeutic techniques which have found empirical support over the past decades. There are many common elements to humor theories, despite debates in the field. The theoretical debates are less relevant to the practice of humor, which necessarily should be consistent with all valid theories. We constructed a workshop as a method to explore, integrate, and resolve inconsistencies to bring the theories into practice. Decades of research suggest the way people use humor relates to health. However, few studies target humor to improve health. Existing applications do not incorporate recent humor research or other disciplines, and focus on clinical recovery, rather than general wellbeing. This workshop combined research areas of humor, psychotherapy, health behavior change, and education. We then subjected the workshop to evaluation by a diverse group of humor experts and a diverse group of general participants during a qualitative usability phase. Our ultimate aim was to develop a workshop that was useable and acceptable to people of many ages and backgrounds, as humor and laughter exists in babies through elders and across languages. After revisions made during the usability phase, we broadly disseminated the workshop to assess interest, satisfaction, and partial validity in the final version. Humor experts supported the use of the workshop and integration of humor concepts. General participants provided critical (e.g., time-consuming) and positive feedback (e.g., specific concepts). For the revised workshop, completion rate was comparable to other online platforms (36%; n = 44/122 started). Self-reported satisfaction was statistically positive, and on a pre-post measure, participants understanding of humor improved, but motivation and self-efficacy were unchanged. Preliminary data supports the validity and feasibility of the workshop as a working humor training model. Future studies need to assess health outcomes of humor training.