No kidding: Humor eases fear

Humor, particularly positive humor, can help us manage fear when we see something frightening or disturbing, new research shows. Call it the Woody Allen effect.
For the study, researchers at Stanford University asked people to rate the intensity of positive and negative emotions after viewing disturbing pictures, such as car accidents, corpses, aggressive animals, and dental exams.
They also were asked to improvise jokes—either positive or negative—reinterpreting the photos before reporting their emotions. Researchers found that subjects who made any kind of quip benefited, reporting both increases in positive emotions and decreases in negative emotions. But positive humor had the biggest impact.
Full story at Futurity.