HUMOR AND AGING: A COMPARISON BETWEEN A YOUNGER AND AN OLDER GROUP (YOUNG ADULT).
Contributors: University of Miami.
Published: 1992
Number of pages: 206
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, General.; Psychology, Developmental.
Description: This study investigated the differences of humor, mood states, and negative life event attitudes between a younger college-age group as compared to an older group over the age of 65.

The major differences between the groups included the following: (1) There was a significant difference between the groups on the liking of humor, total mood disturbance, and the negative moods of tension/anxiety and anger/hostility. (2) There was a difference in the interrelatedness of the emotional expressiveness of humor and mood states. (3) The older group revealed stronger, significant negative correlations of using humor to cope with the negative moods of depression/dejection, anger/hostility, and total mood disturbance than the younger group. (4) The younger group had a significantly stronger relationship between the sensitivity to humor and the liking of humor than the older group. (5) Both groups demonstrated inverse correlations between negative mood states and the humor measures of the sensitivity to humor, the liking of humor, and the use of humor to cope. (6) Both groups had significant inverse correlations between negative life event attitudes and total mood disturbance. (7) Both groups were found to have significant positive relationships between the sensitivity to humor and using humor to cope. (8) Both groups had negative correlations between using humor to cope and tension/anxiety.

The conclusions were as follows: (1) Younger persons have a more impulsive, or intense, liking of humor than older persons. (2) The use of humor in coping with the stresses of everyday life is associated with one's ability to habitually recognize humorous cues in everyday happenings. (3) Humor does not seem to be associated with negative emotional feelings. (4) Humor has the potential to provide the older person a mechanism for coping more effectively psychologically with possible age-linked trauma. (5) Older individuals are not necessarily afflicted with the depressive and adverse emotional changes inherent in the negative myths of aging. (6) Humor, as a stress-buffering phenomenon, is actively present in the lives of persons over the age of 65.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-08, Section: B, page: 4034.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI, 1992.

School code: 0125.