Theories of Humor Books

The Healing Power of Humor

Allen Klein

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Helps us lighten the load of life on a daily basis. 5 out of 5 stars.
22 of 22 people found this review helpful.

Educational and entertaining, this book relays convincing evidence as to the psychological and physiological benefits of humor. The author gives concrete and helpgful techniques and suggestions as to how we can begin to bring more joy and laughter into our lives. Lots of humorous anecdotes and examples bring the points home. I found this book informative and motivational.

A real pick-me-up 5 out of 5 stars.
20 of 20 people found this review helpful.

Wonderful book, which truly elevated my spirits so much that people started complimenting me about my positive attitude. Good bedtime reading. Chapters are written so that you study one "lesson" per day.

This book will convince you to keep humor in your life 5 out of 5 stars.
19 of 19 people found this review helpful.

This book showed me the evidence that I need to have humor in my life on a daily basis. I have always loved humor, but until I read this book I didn't really realize the powerful effect it has on me and my family. This book will help anyone learn how to have a more healthy, mind, body and spirit. --Tom Antion

Editorial Review:

The ability to laugh at annoyances, crises, and even outright disasters can literally save your life. The author presents a series of proven techniques for overcoming the negative effects of loss, setbacks, upsets, disappointments, trials, and tribulations.

Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious

Sigmund Freud, James Strachey, Peter Gay

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

To make a Freudian slip on a banana peel 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

Freud did not see jokes as minor nonsense and insignificance. He saw them as deeper messages delivered to us from our unconscious. He saw them as telling the secrets about ourselves to ourselves and the world that we do not necessarily want to tell. He saw them as acts of aggression and as acts of self- defense. In fact Freud is one of the few theorists of jokes and laughter that the world has had. In my opinion while Freud's understanding of jokes is not exhaustive and all- comprehensive it does illuminate much about a certain kind of humor. And it does teach us something about ourselves which we had not really noticed before Freud taught it to us. Freud himself is of course a source of endless jokes today , but it is not wrong to say that at least some of these jokes should be about his great genius and ability to see and say where others before him did not.

Freud loosens up a little 4 out of 5 stars.
9 of 13 people found this review helpful.

The logic of Freud can sometimes be overbearing when he is dealing with the makings of a joke. However, he does at times seem to drop his guard, speak in easy to understand terms, and give information that can be understood. If anyone is pursuing comedy in any form, this book would be helpful, and will help you compare your analyzation of what you do with someone who knew very well how the human mind worked. I've applied several of his concepts on stage and have found them successful.

Laughter: A Scientific Investigation

Robert R. Provine

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Is it really the best medicine? Neurobiologist Robert R. Provine discovered that no scientist had ever looked into the weird, uncontrollable, and very human phenomenon of laughter, so he started off on his own. Laughter: A Scientific Investigation is his warm and--of course--funny report on how and why we giggle and snort with such regularity. Basing his views on field research conducted in a broad array of social situations (laughter being notoriously difficult to evoke in the laboratory), Provine posits that we use it as a universal, preverbal means of communication. Though animal research is controversial, it suggests that apes establish and maintain relationships using laughlike behavior, so it could be the missing link between animal communication and true language. He also explores instances in which we seem to laugh our way into and out of social situations, and includes a list of tips for keeping the laughs flowing. The irony of the scientific community not taking laughter seriously isn't lost on Provine, and he takes every opportunity to remind his fellows that even the seemingly most trivial matters can hide the most profound truths. If that isn't funny, what is? --Rob Lightner

The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach

Rod A. Martin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Research on humor is carried out in a number of areas in psychology, including the cognitive (What makes something funny?), developmental (when do we develop a sense of humor?), and social (how is humor used in social interactions?) Although there is enough interest in the area to have spawned several societies, the literature is dispersed in a number of primary journals, with little in the way of integration of the material into a book.

Dr. Martin is one of the best known researchers in the area, and his research goes across subdisciplines in psychology to be of wide appeal. This is a singly authored monograph that provides in one source, a summary of information researchers might wish to know about research into the psychology of humor. The material is scholarly, but the presentation of the material is suitable for people unfamiliar with the subject-making the book suitable for use for advanced undergraduate and graduate level courses on the psychology of humor-which have not had a textbook source.

2007 AATH Book Award for Humor/Laughter Research category!

*Up-to-date coverage of research on humor and laughter in every area of psychology
*Research findings are integrated into a coherent conceptual framework
*Includes recent brain imaging studies, evolutionary models, and animal research
*Draws on contributions from sociology, linguistics, neuroscience, and anthropology
*Provides an overview of theories of humor and early research
*Explores applications of humor in psychotherapy, education, and the workplace
*Points out interesting topics for further research and promising research methodologies
*Written in a scholarly yet easily accessible style
*2007 AATH Book Award for Humor/Laughter Research category

Humor at Work: The Guaranteed, Bottom-Line, Low Cost, High-Efficiency Guide to Success Through Humor

Esther Blumenfeld, Lynne Alpern

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Humor can be an extremely useful tool for success; when used properly it can reduce dtress, improve communication, and create a more comfortable work environment. Now best-selling humorists Esther Blumenfeld and Lynne Alpern offer guidance for identifying and developing your own sense-and style-of humor. Focusing on both traditional and nontraditional workplaces-whether you're a seasoned executive or an entry-level assistant-HUMOR AT WORK reveals the inside track on using humor to improve you speeches and negotiations, to develop management abilities and leadership roles, and to guide you through the pitfalls of day-to-day life.

Key chapters deal specifically with such professions as teaching, sales and customer relations, secretarial and support positions, and the health care field, with a special chapter devoted to women in the workplace. An extensive resource chapter offers further information on conferences and organizations, publications and courses, and recommended reading.

Lighten Up: Survival Skills for People Under Pressure

C. W. Metcalf, Roma Felible

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Advocates Appropriate Use of Humor 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 19 people found this review helpful.

Humor is an instrument of healing if used properly, not a destructive weapon to be used to put down other people. Such is the philosophy of Metcalf, who along with his wife Roma Felible offer a set of skills built around that claim. The book has strengths and weaknesses. On the positive side, the argument that humor is a healing tonic has validity. They offer evidence of recent scientific studies that support this principle which goes back at least as far as the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. Some of the skills they offer are doable and can be applied by virtually anyone. The disappointment comes at the end of the book. The chapter about death is NOT from a Christian perspective, but from that of a Buddhdist Since Buddha's still in his grave no hope is offered, just a shallow "be positive" which is an awful substitue for the promise offered by Jesus who is NOT in His grave.

Editorial Review:

Humor can help you thrive in change, remain creative under pressure, work more effectively, play more enthusiastically, and stay healthier in the process. But humor is also a set of specific, learned skills, and like any other discipline, these skills need to be developed. Lighten Up shows you how to build these skills so that you can see the absurdity in difficult situations and take yourself lightly while you take your job, problem, or challenge seriously.

The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious (Penguin Classics)

Sigmund Freud

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Jokes are not a joke 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

For Freud jokes were not just fooling around, not primarily a means of play, not in short something of trivial importance. Rather they were expressions of our deepest instinctual drives and needs. Like errors in everyday life they are governed by an inner intentionality, and purposiveness.
Here it might be said that Freud exaggerates or is too extreme in his point- of- view and does not explain all humor by it.

Editorial Review:

Why do we laugh? The answer, argued Freud in this groundbreaking study of humor, is that jokes, like dreams, satisfy our unconscious desires. The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious explains how jokes provide immense pleasure by releasing us from our inhibitions and allowing us to express sexual, aggressive, playful, or cynical instincts that would otherwise remain hidden. In elaborating this theory, Freud brings together a rich collection of puns, witticisms, one-liners, and anecdotes, which, as Freud shows, are a method of giving ourselves away.

Translated by Joyce Crick.
Introduction by John Carey.

Your Seventh Sense: How to Think Like a Comedian

Karyn Ruth White, Jay Arthur

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Lame 1 out of 5 stars.
34 of 35 people found this review helpful.

I love comedy and I try to read anything I can about it. This book is extremely lame. It offers on real insight into generating humor, and finally tells you that there are other books that can help you do that better than this one. I have the books that the author recommends and they aren't that great.
Half of this book consists of full pages with one lame joke per page, some just a whole page with a one liner. Most are repeated jokes from earlier pages. It's sad when an author cannot come up with enough material that they have to resort to wasting an entire page with a quote or joke.
I really enjoy humor, and I am a fan of stand up comedy. Judging by the jokes that Karyn Ruth White fills almost half of the book with, she needs to study some of the methods of some good comedians. Yes humor is relative, but I don't know of anyone or their relatives that would find her jokes funny(The preceding joke is funnier than hers, and it's pretty bad).
She tries to give you an example of a joke as she constructs it, then tells you "This is what makes it funny". The trouble is there was nothing funny about it.
If you are interested in comedy in any form, I recommend The Comic Toolbox by John Vorhaus, and Comedy Writting by Mel Helitzer is pretty good, a little outdated, but good. I do not recommend Judy Carter's books, as Mrs. White does. If you are just wanting to become a little funnier with friends, How To Be Funny by Jon Macks is a pretty good book. Any of these are better than Karyn Ruth's book. Please don't waste your money on this lame piece of garbage.
I think I'm the only one who has bought this books so far, because the only other two reviewers to date have to be the authors. Anyone can write a book, and here's the proof. As I was reading this I was thinking about people I know who try to be funny, but fail miserably, thinking they could have very well written this book.
If you can't tell, I didn't like this book.

Editorial Review:

Want to be the last comic standing? You can! For years Jay Arthur, has been studying and reverse engineering how comedians think. With his co-author Karyn Ruth White, a standup comedian and professional speaker, they have refined the process and come up with the essential skills of how to think like a comedian and find the funny in everyday life.

Taking Laughter Seriously

John Morreall

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Jokes And Their Relations

Elliot Oring

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Good Book 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book to help me with a presentation for a class I took in college. It has good information about a topic that is not widely discussed. I considered buying Freud's book, but this one seemed much more readable. I am happy with my purchase.

Editorial Review:

Elliott Oring offers a fresh perspective on jokes and related forms of humor. Criticizing and modifying traditional concepts and methods of analysis, he delineates an approach that can explain the peculiarities of a wide variety of humorous expression. Written in an accessible and engaging style, this book will appeal to scholar and layman alike--to anyone who has ever wondered how jokes work and what they mean.