Humor as a Coping Device

2/23/2016

by Danielle Long

In chapter 8 Kathryn Bouskill approaches how using humor is a way of coping with something (and in the case the painful and emotional disease of breast cancer). On page 213-214 Bouskill argues that humor is a cognitive, that it is internal reworking of a greater sociocultural reality, with neuroanthropology being the center element. The reason scientifically humor is a meaningful coping device because of it functioning in two directions of sociocultural and the interaction of cognition.

The humor element usually takes place with the survivors because it helps them be more open with others who are facing the same things they did and it also helps them start accepting the disease. The survivors of breast cancer in our country are labeled as both socially and medically for the rest of the lives- meaning that the disease affects the key signifiers of the female identity.

On page 215 Bouskill defines coping as “the behavioral and cognitive means of managing a stressor that is perceived as exceeding one’s resources or blocking one’s path toward a desired goal.” Coping can be a great resource in dealing with something like breast cancer but the ability and effectiveness of coping with a disease are never unbounded from the sociocultural contexts. This means that personal relationships (having conservations with familiar and unfamiliar people), spiritual ideas (like religion), where do you fit in the social ethnicity, having access to institutional support, and when the illness/disease or condition is denounced- making all of these reasons difficult. The coping process is cognitive and it belongs to sociocultural environment. And with the brain in the perception of humor, then sociocultural contexts are the necessary spark.

Abel describes humor on page 216 “as a coping strategy within which there is a cognitive-affective shift and a restructuring of a stressful situation to make it less threatening.” With his description makes sense why we turn towards humor while dealing with stressful events in our lives and his statement is very interesting as well. While we respond to humor it is complexed and we have to rely on focus, attention, memory, emotional evolution, and understanding abstract communication.

Goldstein shows how powerful humor is as a cohesive force with defining relationships. Humor also demonstrates a consciousness of solidarity and a shared social identity. The boundaries that humor produces from the people who understand humor and the ones who do not can be from linguistic differences, social, classes, and different social identities.

Bouskill tells us about “cancer world” and how drastic the physical transformations incurred by the loss of signifiers of femininity. They also worry about relationship changes with a partner, the future of one’s family, the frustration of memory loss due to chemotherapy and the fatigue-ness by chemotherapy.

There are quotes from survivors that show the positive effects of humor, for example: “laughter lets me get out of this fear. It brings me peace, it’s a stress-reliever, and I just go off to another place.” Because of laughter this cognitive element of humor activates reward centers in the brain. Another positive effect of humor is the women who use it to cope with stressful events have lower blood pressure than women who don’t. Humor among women have more personal social connections and sensitivity- meaning this leads to women having more to empathy.

Humor can relieve any tension caused by stressful situations. Bouskill’s information that she provides in this chapter on how affected humor actually is by an neuroanthropology outlook is very interesting. Humor can produce laughter which activates rewards in the brain and it can also reduced blood pressure. Humor is a way of coping with something like breast cancer and can help you in accepting the disease. And humor as a coping device relies on sociocultural and the interaction of cognition.

Bouskill, L. (2012). Holistic Humor: Coping with Breast Cancer. In Lende, D. H & Downey, G. Eds. The Encultured Brain: An Introduction to Neuroanthropology. (pp. 213-235). Cambridge, Massachusets: MIT Press.

13 Comments

Jessica Muzzo

2/23/2016 05:40:32 pm

I found this piece by Kathryn Kouskill to be quite interesting, as it hits home for myself and for most of the people I know.

I think coping mechanisms such as humor demonstrate an amazing quality of our mind: we can adapt and operate under almost any condition. What is even more amazing is how our sociocultural environment aids so much in such adaptation.

I believe that this same use of humor exists outside of the cancer ward, in many sectors of every day life. Abel (2002) mentions that humor as a coping strategy effectively restructures a stressful situation into a less threatening one, and Palmer (1994) has shown that humor allows for discussion about taboo subjects. I feel this every day, when I struggle with social anxiety. I typically use humor as a means of decimating the discomfort I feel in social situations, a method I'm sure many people tend to revert to. It usually works, too, and I end up making friends. This is because (as Kershaw and colleagues have demonstrated) humor is linked to social support, as it encourages social bonds to form and grow.

I would be interested to see how the results of an ethnographic study of this nature differ in other cultures. Laughter is a universal language, but I imagine humor is not, and health care is a very personal thing in many places.

issac

2/29/2016 05:27:33 pm

I think your last statement is entirely factious, humor is not necessarily universal in the sense that it does not always takes the same form. I have noticed that what different cultures see as funny can vary greatly. Even countries that share the same language like the United States and England seem to have different ideas of humor and kinds of comedy. That being said, I agree with you that an ethnographic study of this topic would be interesting to see. ( one may already exist out there somewhere)

Jessica Muzzo

3/1/2016 04:32:02 pm

I was able to bring this article up in conversation the other day. A friend of mine told me he has always been extremely insecure, so he jokes about how great he is. He noticed within his own behavior a cycle emerge: he has low self-esteem; he acts in a way that seems cocky, but in a way that elicits laughter; making people laugh boosts his self esteem.

I also recalled a story my father told me. Before he retired, he was an aerospace engineer for the U.S. Army. He and his colleagues were required to attend a "Play Well With Others" class (that's what he called it--I have no idea what it actually was). The camp-counselor type woman teaching the class was appalled: all the G.I.s back from war would not stop teasing and taunting one another. They made jokes about death and violence, and one man even pointed at his rare steak in reference to a body they had all seen. This group of rambunctious boys (engineers) were so horrible, in fact, it made the woman cry. But as my dad said, that is the only way they could deal with what they had seen. They cannot afford to sympathize with death because they were surrounded by it in a most gruesome fashion. Joking around and being lewd and vulgar, he said, is how they kept their sanity.

I think these stories really illustrate the same kind of mental processes. Humor is a coping mechanism designed to keep us from being driven insane by the sufferings of life, to allow us to pick up and "move on," as the breast cancer survivors say.

Larry Monocello

4/26/2016 04:59:04 pm

This conversation is interesting with regard to the later discussion we had on trauma, considering Finley (2012) and Lester (2013). The woman's experience with the GIs reflects Finley's observation of veterans' difficulty in re-conforming to the culture of civilian life due to the social stress caused by the cultural unacceptability of their behaviors, and their lack of a sympathetic ear. It also reflects part of Lester (2013) in that they were able to redefine their own experience with trauma in a way that made it less scary, knowing that their trauma would never cease to haunt them.

Myra Barrett

2/23/2016 06:07:05 pm

I never would have thought to look at humor as an evolutionary advantage. This chapter was really insightful into what makes humor a coping strategy. It makes sense though. This idea makes me think of the role of comic relief in a movie or book. Even Shakespeare incorporated humor into his tragedies to relieve some of the drama.
It makes a lot of sense that cancer patients would choose to approach their diagnosis in a humorous way, rather than feeling sad about it. It seems that being able to laugh about a bad experience makes it easier to deal with. One would think that living in "cancer world" would become easier if humor were incorporated into it. It would also provide a kind of bonding within a support group, since people laughing together about a shared experience would probably make one feel more at ease.

Myra

3/1/2016 04:39:49 pm

I think this theory would apply to social learning in that it could be another facet in the social brain. It would make sense as a way to relate to the members in a group and increase bonded-ness. Laughing/joking with people is certainly a way to break the ice and get to know them better. Perhaps this is why many people say they look for and appreciate humor in a partner?

Nick Roy

2/24/2016 06:39:02 am

I would have to agree with Myra above that I never thought of humor as having an evolutionary benefit until reading this article. After reading the article, it makes sense.

I see parallels between this article and my own experience having grown up gay in the South. Humor with people who shared my experiences has been a valuable coping device with the stresses of growing up in a society that routinely demonizes people like me.

Nick Roy

5/4/2016 11:26:26 am

Looking back on this chapter, I question whether this study can be called neuroanthropological. Humor has long been known to be a coping strategy in both psychology and anthropology. While this study may bring psychological theories into a sociocultural context, I question whether we can call it neuroanthroplogy as opposed to something like psychological anthropology. I think it would be more neuroanthropological if it included an analysis of the brains of breast cancer survivors. Maybe something that used the hormone oxytocin to measure social bondedness.

Amanda Oldani

2/24/2016 09:13:11 am

I really enjoyed reading this chapter, as the people above me have noted how interesting this topic is. I think this cognitive shift towards humor is incredibly important to this situation, but it is also applicable to daily life as well, where things may not be as emotionally tolling as cancer.

I thought it was interesting that the author notes the shift in how we perceive breast cancer. The section on metaphors and valorizing and feminizing cancer was something that I have noticed, but never was able to put into words. Bouskill says, “Cognitively, these metaphors reflect an unconscious conceptual framework, indicating that they may be so commonplace that they are used unintentionally rather than deliberately. […] This shows the power of cultural influences on how people describe and embody the experience of breast cancer” (218). This idea shows that even if we want to partake in a cultural practice or not, it can still seep into our mindset. I think this is important to consider, as the author notes, that these valorizing and feminizing metaphors often gloss over the realities of cancer. This discrepancy between reality and the cultural framework is where humor can come into help.

Amanda Oldani

4/27/2016 07:05:39 am

After having discussed this chapter in class, I feel like my understanding has deepened. Humor can shape the formation of memories, and it can also be seen as a form of pretend play. It puts a positive spin on a situation, similar to the chapter on cigarette smoking. I think there are many ways to conceptualize this, but one of the most important ways I saw it was how a patient can use humor as a break from her identity. To other people, she plays the sick role, but in a group setting with other patients, she can use humor to change her role and take on a more personal identity. I think it also provides some agency because she can be in charge of how her thoughts affect how she and others feel.

Paige Ridley

2/24/2016 10:35:54 am

This article really hit for me. Not only have I had people pass away in my life from cancer but both of my grandmothers have had breast Cancer. This article allowed light to shine on a situation that can be very dark and gloomy, such as cancer. I really like how Culver et al defined coping as the behavioral and cognitive means of managing a stressor that is perceived as exceeding one’s resources or blocking one’s path towards a desired goal (Pg. 215). This chapter brought a whole new dimension to humor and revealed it in a way that I had never thought of it before. Humor allows individuals to create bonds with others who are in fact going through the same kinds of circumstances.

The sentence “Humor is a hallmark of the power of communication to transform and transcend meaning” is very powerful in its own right because without communication humor would cease to exist (Pg. 224). Humor is so much more than laughing its about expressing one’s feelings in light of the moment. Looking back I too use humor to cope with situations.

Paige Ridley

4/26/2016 09:35:58 pm

Talking about this particular chapter in class really helped me wrap my mind around the concept. Yes, I understand that humor is a one way to make light of a situation. However, I made perfect sense when the author mentions that the women who were going through chemo would all joke about the same topics while visitors would not. They were all battling against breast cancer but they were all battling different mind battles. Allowing them to communicate through humor brought these individuals together allowing them to form a kind of bond no one else would understand,

Issac

2/29/2016 05:40:53 pm

I have always heard that , " laughter is the best medicine " so the idea that humor can be used as a coping mechanism does not seem like a new one. Furthermore, I have also heard that humor is evolutionary advantageous for finding mates so applying that same idea to the process of rehabilitation was not that difficult to imagine. What is so interesting and new about this idea regarding using humor to cope is the way the chapter places these things in the field of neuroanthropology. Instead of just saying, " oh that seems to make sense" we can actually study these phenomena in a cultural context as well as study them directly as cognitive shifts.

Humor as a Coping Device

by Danielle Long

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