Effects of Problem Relevant Humor on Anxiety, Symptom Acceptance, and Behavioral Engagement in Socially Anxious Young Adults

The effects of problem relevant humor (e.g., humor about social concern in a person with social anxiety disorder) have not been systematically addressed in psychotherapy research. Exposure to humorous material has been shown to have a positive influence on cognitive appraisal and emotion regulation. Further, humorous material that is personally or contextually relevant has been found to increase enjoyment of that humor. Currently, most of the clinical literature on humor is theoretical, or has focused on the use of humor as an individual coping style. However, the effects of utilizing problem tailored comedic material as a therapeutic technique would benefit from further attention, to determine whether it has the potential to "normalize" specific problem related experiences. Therefore, the present study was an investigation of the effects of applied relevant humor on socially anxious individuals.;Sixty-five undergraduate students who met criteria for self-reported social anxiety were randomly assigned to one of two groups: psychoeducation with no humor, or psychoeducation with social anxiety relevant humor. The procedure was intended to simulate a psychoeducational session, which is a standard component of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for social anxiety. Whereas in the nonhumor condition participants read and completed psychoeducational materials and watched nonhumorous relevant video clips, in the relevant humor condition, participants read identical psychoeducational materials, but watched social anxiety relevant humorous video clips.;Although participants in the humor condition demonstrated a stronger trend in reduction of state anxiety at post-intervention, there was no significant difference in state anxiety scores between groups. Further, there were no significant differences in social anxiety symptom acceptance between groups. Post-intervention self-report ratings of overall self-esteem, social self-esteem, coping humor, fear of negative evaluation, and social perfectionism were not significantly different between groups. Although no significant differences between groups were detected in selection of behavioral tasks, participants in the humor condition completed significantly more behavioral tasks related to self-disclosure of social anxiety than participants in the nonhumorous group. Further, overall task compliance, reflected in the proportion of completed tasks to selected tasks, was significant for the humor group, but nonsignificant for the nonhumor group. Implications for the use of problem relevant humor in clinical practice are addressed.