Exposure to humor before and after an unpleasant stimulus: Humor as a preventative or a cure

Humor, in the form of a humorous videotape, was presented before or after exposure to an unpleasant videotape designed to arouse negative emotions. The effectiveness of the humor treatment was compared to a nonhumorous treatment to see which mood states and negative emotions were affected by the humor. The results indicate that the humor treatment had an effect regardless of the timing of the treatment on moods experienced as depression and anger. For moods and emotions experienced as anxiety, the humor intervention was most effective when it was presented before the unpleasant experience. In addition, measures of sense of humor were administered and those found to be reliable were used to predict emotional reactions to the unpleasant experience. The results indicated that sense of humor was not related to reported emotional reactions. Overall, the results suggest that humor may help as either a preventative or a cure, but with different emotional reactions responding to the timing of the humor treatment.