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      The purpose and function of humour in health, health care and nursing: a narrative review

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      Journal of Advanced Nursing
      Wiley

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          Abstract

          This paper is a report of a review conducted to identify, critically analyse and synthesize the humour literature across a number of fields related to health, health care and nursing. The humour-health hypothesis suggests that there is a positive link between humour and health. Humour has been a focus of much contention and deliberation for centuries, with three theories dominating the field: the superiority or tendentious theory, the incongruity theory and the relief theory. A comprehensive literature search was carried out in January 2007 using a number of databases, keywords, manual recursive searching and journal alerts (January 1980-2007) cross-referenced with the bibliographic databases of the International Society of Humor Studies. An inclusion and exclusion criterion was identified. A narrative review of evidence- and non-evidence-based papers was conducted, using a relevant methodological framework with additional scrutiny of secondary data sources in the latter. Humour theories, incorporating definition, process and impact constituted a significant part of the appraisal process. A total of 1630 papers were identified, with 220 fully sourced and 88 included in the final review. There is a dearth of humour research within nursing yet, ironically, an abundance of non-evidence-based opinion citing prerequisites and exclusion zones. Examination of physician-patient interaction and the humour-health hypothesis demonstrates that use of humour by patients is both challenging and revealing, particularly with regard to self-deprecating humour. Nurses and nursing should adopt a circumspect and evidenced-based approach to humour use in their work.

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          Most cited references14

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          The Managed Heart : Commercialization of Human Feeling

          In private life, we try to induce or suppress love, envy, and anger through deep acting or "emotion work," just as we manage our outer expressions of feeling through surface acting. In trying to bridge a gap between what we feel and what we "ought" to feel, we take guidance from "feeling rules" about what is owing to others in a given situation. Based on our private mutual understandings of feeling rules, we make a "gift exchange" of acts of emotion management. We bow to each other not simply from the waist, but from the heart.<br> <br> But what occurs when emotion work, feeling rules, and the gift of exchange are introduced into the public world of work? In search of the answer, Arlie Hochschild closely examines two groups of public-contact workers: flight attendants and bill collectors. The flight attendant’s job is to deliver a service and create further demand for it, to enhance the status of the customer and be "nicer than natural." The bill collector’s job is to collect on the service, and if necessary, to deflate the status of the customer by being "nastier than natural." Between these extremes, roughly one-third of American men and one-half of American women hold jobs that call for substantial emotional labor. In many of these jobs, they are trained to accept feeling rules and techniques of emotion management that serve the company’s commercial purpose.<br> <br> Just as we have seldom recognized or understood emotional labor, we have not appreciated it cost to those who do it for a living. Like a physical laborer who becomes estranged from what he or she makes, an emotional laborer, such as a flight attendant, can become estranged not only from her own expressions of feeling (her smile is not "her" smile), but also from what she actually feels (her managed friendliness). This estrangement, though a valuable defense against stress, is also an important occupational hazard, because it is through our feelings that we are connected with those around us.<br> <br> On the basis of this book, Hochschild was featured in Key Sociological Thinkers, edited by Rob Stones. This book was also the winner of the Charles Cooley Award in 1983, awarded by the American Sociological Association and received an honorable mention for the C. Wright Mills Award.
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            Humor and Life Stress

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              Laughter and ridicule: Towards a social critique of humor

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Journal of Advanced Nursing
                J Adv Nurs
                Wiley
                0309-2402
                1365-2648
                March 2008
                March 2008
                : 61
                : 6
                : 584-595
                Article
                10.1111/j.1365-2648.2007.04548.x
                18302600
                6806d277-a250-4b19-b646-9629d798a26a
                © 2008

                http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/tdm_license_1.1

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