---

---

---

---

Science Current Events and Science News RSS Feeds

---

---

Email a Friend Printer Friendly

Laughing matters: humour and health

August 23, 2004

Older men who have a sense of humour and low hostility will experience fewer flu-like symptoms. But the same is not true for older women.

This is the finding presented today, Thursday 9 September 2004, by Yori Gidron and colleagues at the University of Southampton at the British Psychological Society's Division of Health Psychology Annual Conference hosted by Queen Margaret University College and taking place at Pollock Halls in Edinburgh.

Sixty three older residents in a sheltered home in Israel took part in a study to find out if sense of humour and a hostile attitude had an effect on the amount of flu-like symptoms experienced two months later.

Hostility did not seem to affect the number of symptoms reported in older men who had a sense of humour. However, older men with little sense of humour and a hostile attitude had significantly more flu-like symptoms than other men.

Neither humour nor hostility made a difference to the amount of flu-like symptoms older women experienced during the two months period.

The authors suggest that "humour appreciation may reduce the risk of flu-like symptoms and may moderate the effects of hostility on flu-like symptoms in elderly men only."

Future studies, which examine the cause-and-effect relation between humour and flu-like symptoms by teaching men to appreciate humour, need to be done before clinical implications can be recommended.



British Psychological Society (BPS)